It happened, being in company with some merchants and planters of my acquaintance, and talking of those things very earnestly, three of them came to me next morning, and told me they had been musing very much upon what I had discoursed with them of the last night, and they came to make a secret proposal to me; and, after enjoining me to secrecy, they told me that they had a mind to fit out a ship to go to Guinea; that they had all plantations as well as I, and were straitened for nothing so much as servants; that as it was a trade that could not be carried on, because they could not publicly sell the negroes when they came home, so they desired to make but one voyage, to bring the negroes on shore privately, and divide them among their own plantations; and, in a word, the question was whether I would go their supercargo in the ship, to manage the trading part upon the coast of Guinea; and they offered me that I should have my equal share of the negroes, without providing any part of the stock.
Egy napon nagyon élénk beszélgetést folytattunk ismerős ültetvényesek és kereskedők társaságában. Másnap reggel három közülük a szobámba lépett, és elmondták, hogy sokat töprengtek az előző este hallottakon, aminek eredményeként egy tervet terjesztenek elém, titoktarásomat kérve: Felszerelnek egy hajót, mely Guineába vitorlázik.