"Why, truly," said I, "my friend, I think it is, and I begin to be
a convert to the principles of merchandising; but I must tell you,
by the way, you do not know what I am doing; for if I once conquer
my backwardness, and embark heartily, old as I am, I shall harass
you up and down the world till I tire you; for I shall pursue it so
eagerly, I shall never let you lie still."
CHAPTER XI--WARNED OF DANGER BY A COUNTRYMAN
A little while after this there came in a Dutch ship from Batavia;
she was a coaster, not an European trader, of about two hundred
tons burden; the men, as they pretended, having been so sickly that
the captain had not hands enough to go to sea with, so he lay by at
Bengal; and having, it seems, got money enough, or being willing,
for other reasons, to go for Europe, he gave public notice he would
sell his ship. This came to my ears before my new partner heard of
it, and I had a great mind to buy it; so I went to him and told him
of it. He considered a while, for he was no rash man neither; and
at last replied, "She is a little too big--however, we will have
her." Accordingly, we bought the ship, and agreeing with the
master, we paid for her, and took possession. When we had done so
we resolved to engage the men, if we could, to join with those we
had, for the pursuing our business; but, on a sudden, they having
received not their wages, but their share of the money, as we
afterwards learned, not one of them was to be found; we inquired
much about them, and at length were told that they were all gone
together by land to Agra, the great city of the Mogul's residence,
to proceed from thence to Surat, and then go by sea to the Gulf of
Persia.
Nothing had so much troubled me a good while as that I should miss
the opportunity of going with them; for such a ramble, I thought,
and in such company as would both have guarded and diverted me,
would have suited mightily with my great design; and I should have
both seen the world and gone homeward too. But I was much better
satisfied a few days after, when I came to know what sort of
fellows they were; for, in short, their history was, that this man
they called captain was the gunner only, not the commander; that
they had been a trading voyage, in which they had been attacked on
shore by some of the Malays, who had killed the captain and three
of his men; and that after the captain was killed, these men,
eleven in number, having resolved to run away with the ship,
brought her to Bengal, leaving the mate and five men more on shore.
Well, let them get the ship how they would, we came honestly by
her, as we thought, though we did not, I confess, examine into
things so exactly as we ought; for we never inquired anything of
the seamen, who would certainly have faltered in their account, and
contradicted one another. Somehow or other we should have had
reason to have suspected, them; but the man showed us a bill of
sale for the ship, to one Emanuel Clostershoven, or some such name,
for I suppose it was all a forgery, and called himself by that
name, and we could not contradict him: and withal, having no
suspicion of the thing, we went through with our bargain. We
picked up some more English sailors here after this, and some
Dutch, and now we resolved on a second voyage to the south-east for
cloves, &c.--that is to say, among the Philippine and Malacca
isles. In short, not to fill up this part of my story with trifles
when what is to come is so remarkable, I spent, from first to last,
six years in this country, trading from port to port, backward and
forward, and with very good success, and was now the last year with
my new partner, going in the ship above mentioned, on a voyage to
China, but designing first to go to Siam to buy rice.
In this voyage, being by contrary winds obliged to beat up and down
a great while in the Straits of Malacca and among the islands, we
were no sooner got clear of those difficult seas than we found our
ship had sprung a leak, but could not discover where it was. This
forced us to make some port; and my partner, who knew the country
better than I did, directed the captain to put into the river of
Cambodia; for I had made the English mate, one Mr. Thompson,
captain, not being willing to take the charge of the ship upon
myself. This river lies on the north side of the great bay or gulf
which goes up to Siam. While we were here, and going often on
shore for refreshment, there comes to me one day an Englishman, a
gunner's mate on board an English East India ship, then riding in
the same river. "Sir," says he, addressing me, "you are a stranger
to me, and I to you; but I have something to tell you that very
nearly concerns you. I am moved by the imminent danger you are in,
and, for aught I see, you have no knowledge of it."--"I know no
danger I am in," said I, "but that my ship is leaky, and I cannot
find it out; but I intend to lay her aground to-morrow, to see if I
can find it."--"But, sir," says he, "leaky or not leaky, you will
be wiser than to lay your ship on shore to-morrow when you hear
what I have to say to you. Do you know, sir," said he, "the town
of Cambodia lies about fifteen leagues up the river; and there are
two large English ships about five leagues on this side, and three
Dutch?"--"Well," said I, "and what is that to me?"--"Why, sir,"
said be, "is it for a man that is upon such adventures as you are
to come into a port, and not examine first what ships there are
there, and whether he is able to deal with them? I suppose you do
not think you are a match for them?" I could not conceive what he
meant; and I turned short upon him, and said: "I wish you would
explain yourself; I cannot imagine what reason I have to be afraid
of any of the company's ships, or Dutch ships. I am no interloper.
What can they have to say to me?"--"Well, sir," says he, with a
smile, "if you think yourself secure you must take your chance; but
take my advice, if you do not put to sea immediately, you will the
very next tide be attacked by five longboats full of men, and
perhaps if you are taken you will be hanged for a pirate, and the
particulars be examined afterwards. I thought, sir," added he, "I
should have met with a better reception than this for doing you a
piece of service of such importance."--"I can never be ungrateful,"
said I, "for any service, or to any man that offers me any
kindness; but it is past my comprehension what they should have
such a design upon me for: however, since you say there is no time
to be lost, and that there is some villainous design on hand
against me, I will go on board this minute, and put to sea
immediately, if my men can stop the leak; but, sir," said I, "shall
I go away ignorant of the cause of all this? Can you give me no
further light into it?"
"I can tell you but part of the story, sir," says he; "but I have a
Dutch seaman here with me, and I believe I could persuade him to
tell you the rest;
but there is scarce time for it. But the short
of the story is this--the first part of which I suppose you know
well enough--that you were with this ship at Sumatra; that there
your captain was murdered by the Malays, with three of his men; and
that you, or some of those that were on board with you, ran away
with the ship, and are since turned pirates. This is the sum of
the story, and you will all be seized as pirates, I can assure you,
and executed with very little ceremony; for you know merchant ships
show but little law to pirates if they get them into their power."-
-"Now you speak plain English," said I, "and I thank you; and
though I know nothing that we have done like what you talk of, for
I am sure we came honestly and fairly by the ship; yet seeing such
a work is doing, as you say, and that you seem to mean honestly, I
will be upon my guard."--"Nay, sir," says he, "do not talk of being
upon your guard; the best defence is to be out of danger. If you
have any regard for your life and the lives of all your men, put to
sea without fail at high-water; and as you have a whole tide before
you, you will be gone too far out before they can come down; for
they will come away at high-water, and as they have twenty miles to
come, you will get near two hours of them by the difference of the
tide, not reckoning the length of the way: besides, as they are
only boats, and not ships, they will not venture to follow you far
out to sea, especially if it blows."--"Well," said I, "you have
been very kind in this: what shall I do to make you amends?"--
"Sir," says he, "you may not be willing to make me any amends,
because you may not be convinced of the truth of it. I will make
an offer to you: I have nineteen months' pay due to me on board
the ship -, which I came out of England in; and the Dutchman that
is with me has seven months' pay due to him. If you will make good
our pay to us we will go along with you; if you find nothing more
in it we will desire no more; but if we do convince you that we
have saved your lives, and the ship, and the lives of all the men
in her, we will leave the rest to you."
I consented to this readily, and went immediately on board, and the
two men with me. As soon as I came to the ship's side, my partner,
who was on board, came out on the quarter-deck, and called to me,
with a great deal of joy, "We have stopped the leak--we have
stopped the leak!"--"Say you so?" said I; "thank God; but weigh
anchor, then, immediately."--"Weigh!" says he; "what do you mean by
that? What is the matter?"--"Ask no questions," said I; "but set
all hands to work, and weigh without losing a minute." He was
surprised; however, he called the captain, and he immediately
ordered the anchor to be got up; and though the tide was not quite
down, yet a little land-breeze blowing, we stood out to sea. Then
I called him into the cabin, and told him the story; and we called
in the men, and they told us the rest of it; but as it took up a
great deal of time, before we had done a seaman comes to the cabin
door, and called out to us that the captain bade him tell us we
were chased by five sloops, or boats, full of men. "Very well,"
said I, "then it is apparent there is something in it." I then
ordered all our men to be called up, and told them there was a
design to seize the ship, and take us for pirates, and asked them
if they would stand by us, and by one another; the men answered
cheerfully, one and all, that they would live and die with us.
Then I asked the captain what way he thought best for us to manage
a fight with them; for resist them I was resolved we would, and
that to the last drop. He said readily, that the way was to keep
them off with our great shot as long as we could, and then to use
our small arms, to keep them from boarding us; but when neither of
these would do any longer, we would retire to our close quarters,
for perhaps they had not materials to break open our bulkheads, or
get in upon us.
The gunner had in the meantime orders to bring two guns, to bear
fore and aft, out of the steerage, to clear the deck, and load them
with musket-bullets, and small pieces of old iron, and what came
next to hand. Thus we made ready for fight; but all this while we
kept out to sea, with wind enough, and could see the boats at a
distance, being five large longboats, following us with all the
sail they could make.
Two of those boats (which by our glasses we could see were English)
outsailed the rest, were near two leagues ahead of them, and gained
upon us considerably, so that we found they would come up with us;
upon which we fired a gun without ball, to intimate that they
should bring to: and we put out a flag of truce, as a signal for
parley: but they came crowding after us till within shot, when we
took in our white flag, they having made no answer to it, and hung
out a red flag, and fired at them with a shot. Notwithstanding
this, they came on till they were near enough to call to them with
a speaking-trumpet, bidding them keep off at their peril.
It was all one; they crowded after us, and endeavoured to come
under our stern, so as to board us on our quarter; upon which,
seeing they were resolute for mischief, and depended upon the
strength that followed them, I ordered to bring the ship to, so
that they lay upon our broadside; when immediately we fired five
guns at them, one of which had been levelled so true as to carry
away the stern of the hindermost boat, and we then forced them to
take down their sail, and to run all to the head of the boat, to
keep her from sinking; so she lay by, and had enough of it; but
seeing the foremost boat crowd on after us, we made ready to fire
at her in particular. While this was doing one of the three boats
that followed made up to the boat which we had disabled, to relieve
her, and we could see her take out the men. We then called again
to the foremost boat, and offered a truce, to parley again, and to
know what her business was with us; but had no answer, only she
crowded close under our stern. Upon this, our gunner who was a
very dexterous fellow ran out his two case-guns, and fired again at
her, but the shot missing, the men in the boat shouted, waved their
caps, and came on. The gunner, getting quickly ready again, fired
among them a second time, one shot of which, though it missed the
boat itself, yet fell in among the men, and we could easily see did
a great deal of mischief among them. We now wore the ship again,
and brought our quarter to bear upon them, and firing three guns
more, we found the boat was almost split to pieces; in particular,
her rudder and a piece of her stern were shot quite away; so they
handed her sail immediately, and were in great disorder. To
complete their misfortune, our gunner let fly two guns at them
again; where he hit them we could not tell, but we found the boat
was sinking, and some of the men already in the water: upon this,
&nbs
p; I immediately manned out our pinnace, with orders to pick up some
of the men if they could, and save them from drowning, and
immediately come on board ship with them, because we saw the rest
of the boats began to come up. Our men in the pinnace followed
their orders, and took up three men, one of whom was just drowning,
and it was a good while before we could recover him. As soon as
they were on board we crowded all the sail we could make, and stood
farther out to the sea; and we found that when the other boats came
up to the first, they gave over their chase.
Being thus delivered from a danger which, though I knew not the
reason of it, yet seemed to be much greater than I apprehended, I
resolved that we should change our course, and not let any one know
whither we were going; so we stood out to sea eastward, quite out
of the course of all European ships, whether they were bound to
China or anywhere else, within the commerce of the European
nations. When we were at sea we began to consult with the two
seamen, and inquire what the meaning of all this should be; and the
Dutchman confirmed the gunner's story about the false sale of the
ship and of the murder of the captain, and also how that he, this
Dutchman, and four more got into the woods, where they wandered
about a great while, till at length he made his escape, and swam
off to a Dutch ship, which was sailing near the shore in its way
from China.
He then told us that he went to Batavia, where two of the seamen
belonging to the ship arrived, having deserted the rest in their
travels, and gave an account that the fellow who had run away with
the ship, sold her at Bengal to a set of pirates, who were gone a-
cruising in her, and that they had already taken an English ship
and two Dutch ships very richly laden. This latter part we found
to concern us directly, though we knew it to be false; yet, as my
partner said, very justly, if we had fallen into their hands, and
they had had such a prepossession against us beforehand, it had
been in vain for us to have defended ourselves, or to hope for any
good quarter at their hands; especially considering that our
accusers had been our judges, and that we could have expected
nothing from them but what rage would have dictated, and an
ungoverned passion have executed. Therefore it was his opinion we
should go directly back to Bengal, from whence we came, without
putting in at any port whatever--because where we could give a good
account of ourselves, could prove where we were when the ship put
in, of whom we bought her, and the like; and what was more than all
the rest, if we were put upon the necessity of bringing it before
the proper judges, we should be sure to have some justice, and not
to be hanged first and judged afterwards.
I was some time of my partner's opinion; but after a little more
serious thinking, I told him I thought it was a very great hazard
for us to attempt returning to Bengal, for that we were on the
wrong side of the Straits of Malacca, and that if the alarm was
given, we should be sure to be waylaid on every side--that if we
should be taken, as it were, running away, we should even condemn
ourselves, and there would want no more evidence to destroy us. I
also asked the English sailor's opinion, who said he was of my
mind, and that we certainly should be taken. This danger a little
startled my partner and all the ship's company, and we immediately
resolved to go away to the coast of Tonquin, and so on to the coast
of China--and pursuing the first design as to trade, find some way
or other to dispose of the ship, and come back in some of the
vessels of the country such as we could get. This was approved of
as the best method for our security, and accordingly we steered
away NNE., keeping above fifty leagues off from the usual course to
the eastward. This, however, put us to some inconvenience: for,
first, the winds, when we came that distance from the shore, seemed
to be more steadily against us, blowing almost trade, as we call