When the boat came alongside and delivered the stores, Captain Gow complimented the Governor and his gentlemen, and discharged them to their great joy, and besides that gave them in return for their provisions two cerons of beeswax, and fired them three guns at their going away.  It is to be supposed they would have a care how they went on board any ship again, in compliment to their captain, unless they were very sure who they were.  Having had no better success in this out of the way run to the Madeiras, they resolved to make the best of their way back again to the coast of Spain and Portugal.  They accordingly left Porto Santo die next morning with a fair wind, standing directly for Cape St. Vincent or the Southward Cape.

They had not been upon the coast of Spain above two or three days, before they met with a New England ship, one Cross commander, laden with slaves, and bound for Lisbon, being to load there with wine for London.  This was also a prize of no value to them, and they began to be very much discouraged with their bad fortune.  However, they took out Captain Cross and his men, which were seven or eight in number, with most of the provisions and some of the sails, and gave the ship to Captain Wise, the poor man whom they took at first in a sloop from Newfoundland; and in order to pay Wise and his men for what they took from them, and make them satisfaction, as they called it, they gave to Captain Wise and his mate twenty-four cerons of wax, and to his men who were four in number, two cerons of wax each.  Thus they pretended honesty, and to make reparation of damages by giving them the goods which they had robbed the Dutch merchants of, whose super-cargo they had murdered.

The day before the division of the spoil they saw a large ship to windward, which at first put them into some surprise, for she came bearing down directly upon them, and they thought she had been a Portuguese man-of-war, but they found soon after that it was a merchant ship, had French colours and bound home, as they supposed from the West Indies; and so it was, for they afterwards learned that she was laden at Martinico and bound for Rochelle.

The Frenchmen not fearing them came on large to the wind, being a ship of much greater force than Gow’s ship, carrying thirty-two guns and eighty men, besides a great many passengers.  However, Gow at first made as if he would lie by for them, but seeing plainly what a ship it was, and that they should have their hands full of her, he began to consider; and calling his men together upon the deck, told them what was in his mind, viz., that the Frenchman was apparently superior in force in every way; that they were but ill-manned, and had a great many prisoners on board, and that some of their own people were not very well to be trusted; that six of their best hands were on board the prize; and that all they had left were not sufficient to ply their guns and stand by the sails, and that therefore as they were under no necessity to engage, so he thought it would be next to madness to think of it.