A New Voyage Round the World by a Course Never Sailed Before

by Daniel Defoe

him my word that I would not put them todeath on any account whatsoever, merely for his sake.

  He bowed, and thanked me very heartily for that grant, which, he said,obliged him to be the plainer with me on that head; and as, he said, hewould not deceive me in anything whatever, so he would not in this,especially; and therefore told me it was his opinion, they would notserve me faithfully; and he referred me to the experience I should findof it; and added, that he would be so just to me in the beginning, asthat, while he begged to be merciful to them, yet for my own sake hewould also beg me not to trust them.

  I took the hint, and said no more at that time, but ordered his irons tobe taken off, with direction for him to have leave to go to his formercabin, and to have his chests and things restored to him; so that he wasat full liberty in the ship, though not in any office, or appointed toany particular business.

  A day or two after this we made land, which appeared to be thenorth-west part of the island, in the latitude of 13 deg. 30'; and now Ithought it was time to put our design into execution; for I knew verywell that it could not be a great way from this part of the island wherethe pirates were to be heard of: so I ordered the boat on shore, withabout sixteen men, to make discoveries, and with them my new-restoredman.

  I gave him no instruction for anything extraordinary at this time, ourwork now being only to find out where they were. The boat came on boardagain at night, (for we had now stood in within two leagues of theshore) and brought us an account, that there were no English orEuropeans on that part of the island, but that they were to be heard ofa great way farther; so we stood away to the north all the night, andthe next day, the wind being fair and the sea smooth, and by ourreckoning we went in that time about forty leagues.

  The next evening, the same company went on shore again, and were shownby some of the natives where the pirates inhabited; which, in short, wasabout five or six and twenty miles farther north still, in a river verycommodious for shipping, where they had five or six European-builtships, and two or three sloops, but they were all laid up, except twosloops, with which they cruised sometimes a great distance off to thenorth, as far as the Arabian Gulf. The mate returned with thisintelligence the same night; and by his direction we stood in as closeunder the shore as we could conveniently, about six leagues farthernorth; here we found a very good road under a little cape, which kept usperfectly undiscovered; and in the morning, before day, my man went onshore again with the boat, and keeping only four men with him, sent theboat on board again, agreeing on a signal for us to send the boat forhim again when he should return.

  There was a pretty high ledge of hills to the north of the place wherehe landed, and which, running west, made the little cape, under the leeof which our ship rode at anchor.

  As soon as he came to the top of those hills, he plainly discovered thecreek or harbour where the pirates' ships lay, and where they had formedtheir encampment on the shore. Our men took proper observations of thesituation of the place they were in, upon the hill, that they might notfail to find their way back again, though it were in the night; andthat, by agreeing in the account they should give of themselves, theymight be all found in the same tale. They boldly went down the hill, andcame to the edge of the creek, the pirates' camp being on the othershore.

  Here they fired a gun, to raise a kind of alarm among them, and then,hanging out a white cloth on the top of a pole, a signal of peace, theyhailed them in English, and asked them if they would send a boat andfetch them over.

  The pirates were surprised at the noise of the piece, and came runningto the shore with all speed; but they were much more surprised when theyheard themselves hailed in English. Upon the whole, they immediatelysent a boat to fetch them over, and received them with a great deal ofkindness.

  Our men pretended to be overjoyed at finding them there, told them along story, that they came on shore on the west side of the island,where, not far off, there were two English ships; but that the nativesquarrelling with their men, upon some rudeness offered to their women,and they being separated from their fellows, were obliged to fly; thatthe natives had surrounded the rest, and, they believed, had killed themall; that they wandered up to the top of the hill, intending to makesignals to their ship, to send them some help, when, seeing some ships,and believing some Europeans were there, they came down to take someshelter, and begged of them a boat to carry them round the cape to theircomrades, unless they would give them leave to stay with them, and do asthey did, which they were very willing to do.

  This was all a made story; but, however, the tale told so well, thatthey believed it thoroughly, and received our men very kindly, led themup to their camp, and gave them some victuals.

  Our men observed they had provisions enough, and very good, as well beefas mutton, that is to say, of goats' flesh, which was excellent; alsopork and veal; and they were tolerable good cooks too; for they foundthey had built several furnaces and boilers, which they had taken out oftheir ships, and dressed a great quantity of meat at a time: but,observing they had no liquor, the mate pulled a large bottle of goodcordial water out of his pocket, and gave it about as far as it wouldgo, and so did two others of the men, which their new landlords tookvery kindly.

  They spent good part of the first day in looking about them, seeing themanner of the pirates' living there, and their strength, and soonperceived that they were indeed in but a sorry condition every way,except that they had live cattle and flesh meat sufficient. They had agood platform of guns indeed, and a covered pallisadoe round where theylodged their ammunition: but as for fortifications to the landward, theyhad none, except a double pallisadoe round their camp, and a sort of abank thrown up within to fire from, and stand covered from the enemies'lances, which was all they had to fear from the natives. They had nobread but what they made of rice, and the store they had of that wasvery small: they told our men, indeed, that they had two ships abroad,which they expected back every day, with a quantity of rice, and whatelse they could get, especially some arrack, which they were to tradefor with the Arabian merchants, or take it by force, which should firstoffer.

  Our men pretended to like their way of living mighty well and talked ofstaying with them, if they would let them; and thus they passed theirfirst day of meeting.

  Our men had two tents or huts given them to lodge in, and hammocks hungin the huts very agreeably, being such, I suppose, as belonged to someof their company who were dead, or were out upon adventure; here theyslept very securely, and in the morning walked about, as strangers mightbe suffered to do, to look about them. But my new manager's eye waschiefly here upon two things: first, to see if they had any shipping forour purpose; and, secondly, to see if he could pitch upon one man, morelikely than the rest, to enter into some confidence with; and it was notlong before he found an opportunity for both. The manner was thus:

  He was walking by himself, having ordered his other men to straggleaway, two and two, this way and that, as if they had not minded him,though always to keep him in sight; I say, he walked by himself towardsthat part of the creek where, as was said, three of their largest shipslay by the walls, and when he came to the shore right against them, hestood still, looking at them very earnestly.

  While he was here, he observed a boat put off from one of them, withfour oars and one sitter only, whom they set on shore just by him, andthen put off again; the person whom they set on shore, was, it seems,one who had been with our men the evening before, but, having someparticular office on board one of those ships, lay on board every nightwith about ten or twelve men, just to watch and guard the ship, and socame on shore in the morning, as is usual in men-of-war laid up.

  As soon as he saw our man he knew him, and spoke very familiarly to him;and seeing he was looking so earnestly at the ship, he asked him if hewould go on board; our man faintly declined it, as on purpose to beasked again, and upon just as much farther pressing as was sufficient tosatisfy him that the gunner (for that was his office) was in earnest,he yielded; so the gunner called back the boa
t, and they went on board.

  Our man viewed the ship very particularly, and pretended to likeeverything he saw; but, after some conversation, asked him this homequestion, namely, Why they did not go to sea, and seek purchase, havingso many good ships at their command?

  He shook his head, and told him very frankly, that they were in nocondition to undertake anything, for that they were a crew ofunresolved, divided rogues; that they were never two days of a mind;that they had nobody to command, and therefore nobody to obey; thatseveral things had been offered, but nothing concluded; that, in short,they thought of nothing but of shifting every one for himself as well ashe could.

  My mate replied, he thought it had been quite otherwise, and that madehim tell them the night before that he had an inclination to stay withthem.

  I heard you say so, said the gunner, and it made me smile; I thought inmyself that you would be of another mind when ye knew us a littlebetter; for, in a word, said he, if our people should