we having the wind of him

[pars]

Hi!
The following sentence is from a book written 400 years ago in Spanish, and treanslated 155 years ago into English. It is about encounter of some ships at sea while they were
Suspicious to one another. The problematic sentence is bold.
The 24 of May in the morning we discovered a Portuguese ship, that stayed for us, and put out a flag of truce, and because our flag of truce was not so ready as theirs, and we having the wind of him, therefore he shot two shoots at us.


Thanks very much

 

[Tarheel]

Say:

It is about an encounter between two ships at sea while the crews were suspicious of each other.

 

[Tarheel]

Say:

The problematic phrase is in bold print.

 

[GoesStation]

My guess is that "we having the wind of him" means the narrator's ship was upwind of the Portuguese ship. If it doesn't mean "upwind", it's at least something to do with the two ships' positions relative to each other and the wind direction.

 

[Tarheel]

I think we can be fairly sure that "having the wind of" somebody means having the advantage of the wind relative to the other ship.