MISERY OF THE CREW.

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placed in his mind could be supposed to be. Education, as you have heard, I had none; and all the little scenes of life I had passed through had been full of dangers and desperate circumstances; but I was either so young or so stupid, that I escaped the grief and anxiety of them, for want of having a sense of their tendency and consequences.

This thoughtless, unconcerned temper had one felicity indeed in it-that it made me daring and ready for doing any mischief, and kept off the sorrow which otherwise ought to have attended me when I fell into any mischief; that this stupidity was instead of a happiness to me, for it left my thoughts free to act upon means of escape and deliverance in my distress, however great it might be; whereas my companions in the distress were so sunk by their fear and grief that they abandoned themselves to the misery of their condition, and gave over all thought but of their perishing and starving, being devoured by wild beasts, murdered, and perhaps eaten by cannibals, and the like.

I was but a young fellow about seventeen or eighteen; but hearing what was to be my fate, I received it with no appearance of discouragement; but I asked what my master said to it, and being told that he had used his utmost interest to save me, but the captain had answered I should either go on shore or be hanged on board, which he pleased. I then gave over all hope of being received again. I was not very thankful in my thoughts to my master for his soliciting the captain for me, because I knew that what he did was not in kindness to me so much as in kindness to himself; I mean to preserve the wages which he got for me, which amounted to about six dollars a month, including what the captain allowed him for my particular service to him.

When I understood that my master was so apparently kind, I asked if I might not be admitted to speak with him, and they told me I might, if my master would come down to me, but I could not be allowed to come up to him; so then I desired my master might be told to come to me, and he accordingly came to me; I fell on my knees to him, and begged he would forgive me what I had done to displease him; and indeed the resolution I had taken to murder him' lay with some horror upon my mind just at that time, so that I was once just a-going to confess it, and beg him to forgive me, but I kept it in: he said he had done all he could to

obtain my pardon of the captain, but could not: and he knew no way for me but to have patience, and submit to my fate; and if they came to speak with any ship of their nation at the Cape, he would endeavour to have them stand in, and fetch us off again if we might be found.

Then I begged I might have my clothes on shore with me. He told me he was afraid I should have little need of clothes, for he did not see how we could long subsist on the island, and that he had been informed that the inhabitants were cannibals or men-eaters (though he had no reason for that suggestion), and we should not be able to live among them; I told him I was not so afraid of that, as I was of starving for want of victuals; and as for the inhabitants being cannibals, I believed we should be more likely to eat them, than they us, if we could but get at them: but I was mightily concerned, I said, we should have no weapons with us to defend ourselves, and I begged nothing now, but that he would give me a gun and a sword, with a little powder and shot.

He smiled; and said, they would signify nothing to us, for it was impossible for us to pretend to preserve our lives among such a populous and desperate nation as the people of the island were. I told him that, however, it would do us this good, for we should be devoured or destroyed immediately; so I begged hard for the gun. At last he told me, he did not know whether the captain would give him leave to give me a gun, and if not, he durst not do it; but he promised to use his interest to obtain it for me, which he did, and the next day he sent me a gun, with some ammunition, but told me, the captain would not suffer the ammunition to be given us, till we were set all on shore, and till he was just going to set sail. He also sent me the few clothes I had in the ship, which indeed were not many.

Two days after this we were all carried on shore together; the rest of my fellow-criminals hearing I had a gun and some powder and shot, solicited for liberty to carry the like with them, which was also granted them; and thus we were set on shore to shift for ourselves.

At our first coming into the island, we were terrified exceedingly with the sight of the barbarous people; whose figure was made more terrible to us than really it was, by the report we had of them from the seamen; but when we came to converse with them awhile, we found they were not

CIVILITY OF THE NATIVES.

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cannibals, as was reported, or such as would fall immediately upon us and eat us up: but they came and sat down by us, and wondered much at our clothes and arms, and made signs to give us some victuals, such as they had, which was only roots and plants dug out of the ground, for the present, but they brought us fowls and flesh afterwards, in good plenty.

This encouraged the other four men that were with me very much, for they were quite dejected before; but now they began to be very familiar with them, and made signs, that if they would use us kindly, we would stay and live with them; which they seemed glad of, though they knew little of the necessity we were under to do so, or how much we were afraid of them.

However, upon other thoughts, we resolved that we would only stay in that part so long as the ship rid in the bay, and then, making them believe we were gone with the ship, we would go and place ourselves, if possible, where there were no inhabitants to be seen, and so live as we could, or perhaps watch for a ship that might be driven upon the coast, as

we were.

The ship continued a fortnight in the roads repairing some damage which had been done her in the late storm, and taking in wood and water; and during this time the boat coming often on shore, the men brought us several refreshments, and the natives believing we only belonged to the ship, were civil enough. We lived in a kind of a tent on the shore, or rather a hut, which we made with the boughs of trees, and sometimes in the night retired to a wood a little out of their way, to let them think we were gone on board the ship. However, we found them barbarous, treacherous, and villanous enough in their nature, only civil for fear, and therefore concluded we should soon fall into their hands when the ship was gone.

The sense of this wrought upon my fellow-sufferers even to distraction; and one of them, being a carpenter, in his mad fit, swam off to the ship in the night, though she lay then a league to sea, and made such pitiful moan to be taken in, that the captain was prevailed with at last to take him in, though they let him lie swimming three hours in the water before he consented to it.

Upon this, and his humble submission, the captain received him, and, in a word, the importunity of this man

(who for some time petitioned to be taken in, though they hanged him as soon as they had him), was such as could not be resisted; for, after he had swam so long about the ship, he was not able to have reached the shore again; and the captain saw evidently, that the man must be taken on board, or suffered to drown, and the whole ship's company offering to be bound for him for his good behaviour, the captain at last yielded, and he was taken up, but almost dead with his being so long in the water.

When this man was got in, he never left off importuning the captain, and all the rest of the officers, in behalf of us that were behind; but to the very last day the captain was inexorable; when, at the time their preparations were making to sail, and orders given to hoist the boats into the ship, all the seamen in a body came up to the rail of the quarter-deck, where the captain was walking with some of his officers, and appointing the boatswain to speak for them, he went up, and falling on his knees to the captain, begged of him, in the humblest manner possible, to receive the four men on board again, offering to answer for their fidelity, or to have them kept in chains till they came to Lisbon, and there to be delivered up to justice, rather than, as they said, to have them left to be murdered by savages, or devoured by wild beasts. It was a great while ere the captain took any notice of them, but when he did, he ordered the boatswain to be seized, and threatened to bring him to the capstan for speaking for them.

CHAPTER II.

THE SEAMEN INTERCEDE TO HAVE US TAKEN ON BOARD ON THE CAPTAIN'S REFUSAL, TWENTY-THREE OF THE MEN, WELL ARMED, LEAVE THE SHIP, AND JOIN US ASHORETRANSACTIONS WITH THE NATIVES-WE MAKE A CANOE TO ESCAPE IN-AFTER VARIOUS ADVENTURES WE PUT TO SEA.

UPON this severity, one of the seamen, bolder than the rest, but still with all possible respect to the captain, besought his honour, as he called him, that he would give leave to some more of them to go on shore, and die with their companions,

or, if possible, to assist them to resist the barbarians. The captain, rather provoked than cowed with this, came to the barricado of the quarter-deck, and speaking very prudently to the men (for, had he spoken roughly, two-thirds of them would have left the ship, if not all of them), he told them, it was for their safety as well as his own, that he had been obliged to that severity; that mutiny on board a ship was the same thing as treason in the king's palace, and he could not answer it to his owners and employers to trust the ship and goods committed to his charge with men who had entertained thoughts of the worst and blackest nature; that he wished heartily that it had been anywhere else that they had been set on shore, where they might have been in less hazard from the savages; that, if he had designed they should be destroyed, he could as well have executed them on board as the other two; that he wished it had been in some other part of the world, where he might have delivered them up to the civil justice, or might have left them among Christians; but that it was better their lives were put in hazard, than his life, and the safety of the ship; and that, though he did not know that he had deserved so ill of any of them, as that they should leave the ship rather than do their duty, yet if any of them were resolved to do so, unless he would consent to take a gang of traitors on board, who, as he had proved before them all, had conspired to murder him, he would not hinder them, nor, for the present, would he resent their importunity; but, if there was nobody left in the ship but myself, he would never consent to take them on board.

This discourse was delivered so well, was in itself so reasonable, was managed with so much temper, yet so boldly concluded with a negative, that the greatest part of the men were satisfied for the present: however, as it put the men into juntos and cabals, they were not composed for some hours; the wind also slackening towards night, the captain ordered not to weigh till next morning.

The same night twenty-three of the men, among whom was the gunner's mate, the surgeon's assistant, and two carpenters applying to the chief mate, told him, that, as the captain had given them leave to go on shore to their comrades, they begged that he would speak to the captain not to take it ill that they were desirous to go and die with their companions; and that they thought they could do no less