swam so long about the ship,he was not able to reach the shore again; and the captain saw evidentlythat the man must be taken on board or suffered to drown, and the wholeship's company offering to be bound for him for his good behaviour, thecaptain at last yielded, and he was taken up, but almost dead with hisbeing so long in the water.
When this man was got in, he never left importuning the captain, and allthe rest of the officers, in behalf of us that were behind, but tothe very last day the captain was inexorable; when, at the time theirpreparations were making to sail, and orders given to hoist the boatsinto the ship, all the seamen in a body came up to the rail of thequarter-deck, where the captain was walking with some of his officers,and appointing the boatswain to speak for them, he went up, and fallingon his knees to the captain, begged of him, in the humblest mannerpossible, to receive the four men on board again, offering to answer fortheir 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, tohave them left to be murdered by savages, or devoured by wild beasts. Itwas a great while ere the captain took any notice of them, but when hedid, he ordered the boatswain to be seized, and threatened to bring himto the capstan for speaking for them.
Upon this severity, one of the seamen, bolder than the rest, but stillwith all possible respect to the captain, besought his honour, as hecalled him, that he would give leave to some more of them to go onshore, and die with their companions, or, if possible, to assist themto resist the barbarians. The captain, rather provoked than cowed withthis, came to the barricade of the quarter-deck, and speaking veryprudently to the men (for had he spoken roughly, two-thirds of themwould have left the ship, if not all of them), he told them, it wasfor their safety as well as his own that he had been obliged to thatseverity; that mutiny on board a ship was the same thing as treason in aking's palace, and he could not answer it to his owners and employersto trust the ship and goods committed to his charge with men who hadentertained thoughts of the worst and blackest nature; that he wishedheartily 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 hehad designed they should be destroyed, he could as well have executedthem on board as the other two; that he wished it had been in some otherpart of the world, where he might have delivered them up to the civiljustice, or might have left them among Christians; but it was bettertheir lives were put in hazard than his life, and the safety of theship; and that though he did not know that he had deserved so ill of anyof 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 totake a gang of traitors on board, who, as he had proved before themall, had conspired to murder him, he would not hinder them, nor for thepresent would he resent their importunity; but, if there was nobody leftin the ship but himself, he would never consent to take them on board.
This discourse was delivered so well, was in itself so reasonable, wasmanaged 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 notcomposed for some hours; the wind also slackening towards night, thecaptain ordered not to weigh till next morning.
The same night twenty-three of the men, among whom was the gunner'smate, the surgeon's assistant, and two carpenters, applying to the chiefmate told him, that as the captain had given them leave to go on shoreto their comrades, they begged that he would speak to the captain not totake it ill that they were desirous to go and die with their companions;and that they thought they could do no less in such an extremity thango to them; because, if there was any way to save their lives, it wasby adding to their numbers, and making them strong enough to assist oneanother in defending themselves against the savages, till perhaps theymight one time or other find means to make their escape, and get totheir own country again.
The mate told them, in so many words, that he durst not speak to thecaptain upon any such design, and was very sorry they had no morerespect for him than to desire him to go upon such an errand; but, ifthey were resolved upon such an enterprise, he would advise them to takethe long-boat in the morning betimes, and go off, seeing the captain hadgiven them leave, and leave a civil letter behind them to the captain,and to desire him to send his men on shore for the boat, which should bedelivered very honestly, and he promised to keep their counsel so long.
Accordingly, an hour before day, those twenty-three men, with everyman a firelock and a cutlass, with some pistols, three halberds orhalf-pikes, and good store of powder and ball, without any provision butabout half a hundred of bread, but with all their chests and clothes,tools, instruments, books, &c., embarked themselves so silently, thatthe captain got no notice of it till they were gotten half the way onshore.
As soon as the captain heard of it he called for the gunner's mate, thechief gunner being at the time sick in his cabin, and ordered to fire atthem; but, to his great mortification, the gunner's mate was one of thenumber, and was gone with them; and indeed it was by this means they gotso many arms and so much ammunition. When the captain found how it was,and that there was no help for it, he began to be a little appeased, andmade light of it, and called up the men, and spoke kindly to them, andtold them he was very well satisfied in the fidelity and ability ofthose that were now left, and that he would give to them, for theirencouragement, to be divided among them, the wages which were due to themen that were gone, and that it was a great satisfaction to him that theship was free from such a mutinous rabble, who had not the least reasonfor their discontent.
The men seemed very well satisfied, and particularly the promise of thewages of those who were gone went a great way with them. After this, theletter which was left by the men was given to the captain by his boy,with whom, it seems, the men had left it. The letter was much to thesame purpose of what they had said to the mate, and which he declined tosay for them, only that at the end of their letter they told the captainthat, as they had no dishonest design, so they had taken nothing awaywith them which was not their own, except some arms and ammunition, suchas were absolutely necessary to them, as well for their defence againstthe savages as to kill fowls or beasts for their food, that they mightnot perish; and as there were considerable sums due to them for wages,they hoped he would allow the arms and ammunition upon their accounts.They told him that, as to the ship's longboat, which they had taken tobring them on shore, they knew it was necessary to him, and they werevery willing to restore it to him, and if he pleased to send for it, itshould be very honestly delivered to his men, and not the least injuryoffered to any of those who came for it, nor the least persuasion orinvitation made use of to any of them to stay with them; and, at thebottom of the letter, they very humbly besought him that, for theirdefence, and for the safety of their lives, he would be pleased to sendthem a barrel of powder and some ammunition, and give them leave to keepthe mast and sail of the boat, that if it was possible for them to makethemselves a boat of any kind, they might shift off to sea, to savethemselves in such part of the world as their fate should direct themto.
Upon this the captain, who had won much upon the rest of his men by whathe had said to them, and was very easy as to the general peace (for itwas very true that the most mutinous of the men were gone), came outto the quarter-deck, and, calling the men together, let them know thesubstance of the letter, and told the men that, however they had notdeserved such civility from him, yet he was not willing to expose themmore than they were willing to expose themselves; he was inclined tosend them some ammunition, and as they had desired but one barrel ofpowder, he would send them two barrels, and shot, or lead and moulds tomake shot, in proportion; and, to let them see that he was civiller tothem than they deserved, he ordered a cask of arrack and a great bagof bread to be sent them for subsistence till they should be able tofurnish themselves.
The rest of the men applauded the captain's generosity, and every oneof them sent us something or ot
her, and about three in the afternoon thepinnace came on shore, and brought us all these things, which we werevery glad of, and returned the long-boat accordingly; and as to the menthat came with the pinnace, as the captain had singled out such men ashe knew would not come over to us, so they had positive orders not tobring any one of us on board again, upon pain of death; and indeed bothwere so true to our points, that we neither asked them to stay, nor theyus to go.
We were now a good troop, being in all twenty-seven men, very wellarmed, and provided with everything but victuals; we had two carpentersamong us, a gunner, and, which was worth all the rest, a surgeon ordoctor; that is to say, he was an assistant to a surgeon at Goa, and wasentertained as a supernumerary with us. The carpenters had brought alltheir tools, the doctor all his instruments and medicines, and indeed wehad a great deal of baggage, that is to say, on the whole, for some ofus had little more than the clothes on our