Page 200
An.1685
Ifle of Otoque.
not boil Victuals faft enough, though we kept them boiling all the day. About 2 or 3 days after they returned aboard with 3 Coppers.
While we lay here Captain Davis his Bark went to the Ifland Otoque. This is another inhabited Ifland in the Bay of Panama, not fo big as Tabago, yet there are good Plantain Walks on it, and fome Negroes to look after them. Thefe Negroes rear Fowls and Hogs for their Mafters, who live at Pa- nama ; as at the Kings Iflands. It was for fome Fowls or Hogs that our Men went thither; but by acci- dent they met alfo with an Exprefs, that was fent to Panama with an account, that the Lima Fleet was at Sea. Moft of the Letters were thrown over board and loft ; yet we found fome that faid pofi- tively, that the Fleet was coming with all the ftrength that they could make in the Kingdom of Peru; yet were ordered not to fight us, except they were forced to it: (though afterwards they chofe to fight us, having firft landed their Treafure at Lavelia) and that the Pilots of Lima had been in confultation what courfe to fteer to mifs us.
For the fatisfaction of thofe who may be curious to know, I have here inferted the Refolutions taken by the Commitee of Pilots, as one of our company tranflated them, out of the Spanifh of two of the Letters we took. The firft Letter as fol- lows.
S I R, Having been with his Excellency, and heard the Let- ter of Captain Michael Sanches de Tena read ; wherein he fays, there fhould be a meeting of the Pilots of Panama in the faid City, they fay 'tis not time, putting for objection the Gallapagoes; to which I answered, that it was fear of the Enemy, and that they might well go that way. I told this to his Excellency, who was pleafed to command me to write the Courfe, which is as follows.
The