by Daniel Defoe
perceived two boats more come off from theplatform, likewise full of men, and rowing after the first.
Upon this, they called again to the first boat with theirspeaking-trumpet, and told them, if they did not all go immediately onshore, they would sink the boat. They had no remedy, seeing our menresolved, and that they lay open to the shot of the ship; so they wenton shore accordingly, and then our men fired at the empty boat, tillthey split her in pieces, and made her useless to them.
Upon this firing, our brigantine, which lay about two leagues off in themouth of a little creek, on the south of that river, weighedimmediately, and stood away to the opening of the road where the shiplay; and the tide of flood being still running in, they drove up towardsthe ship, for her assistance, and came to an anchor about a cable'slength ahead of her, but within pistol-shot of the shore; at the sametime sending two-and-thirty of her men on board the great ship, toreinforce the men on board, who were but sixteen in number.
Just at this time, the gunner and his twenty-one men, who heard thefiring, and had quickened their pace, though they had a great compass tofetch through woods and untrod paths, and some luggage to carry too,were come to the shore, and made the signal, which our men in the shipobserving, gave notice to the officer of the brigantine to fetch them onboard, which he did very safely. By the way, as the officer afterwardstold us, most of their luggage consisted in money, with which, it seems,every man of them was very well furnished, having shared their wealth attheir first coming on shore: as for clothes, they had very few, andthose all in rags; and as for linen, they had scarce a shirt among themall, or linen enough to have made a white flag for a truce, if they hadoccasion for it: in short, a crew so rich and so ragged, were hardlyever seen before.
The ship was now pretty well manned: for the brigantine carried thegunner and his twenty-one men on board her; and the tide by this timebeing spent, she immediately unmoored, and loosed her topsails, which,as it happened, had been bent to the yards two days before; so with thefirst of the ebb she weighed, and fell down about a league farther, bywhich she was quite out of reach of the platform, and rid in the opensea; and the brigantine did the same.
But by this means, they missed the occasion of the rest of the gunner'smen, who, having got together to the number of between seventy andeighty, had followed him, and come down to the shore, and made thesignals, but were not understood by our ship, which put the poor men togreat difficulties; for they had broken away from the rest by force,and had been pursued half a mile by the whole body, particularly at theentrance into a very thick woody place, and were so hard put to it, thatthey were obliged to make a desperate stand, and fire at their oldfriends, which had exasperated them to the last degree. But, as the caseof these men was desperate, they took an effectual method for their ownsecurity, of which I shall give a farther account presently.
The general body of the pirates were now up in arms, and the new shipwas, as it were, in open war with them, or at least they had declaredwar against her: but as they had been disappointed in their attempt toforce her, and found they were not strong enough at sea to attack her,they sent a flag of truce on board. Our men admitted them to come to theship's side; but as my mate, who now had the command, knew them to be agang of desperate rogues, that would attempt anything, though ever sorash, he ordered that none of them should come on board the ship, exceptthe officer and two more, who gave an account that they were sent totreat with us; so we called them the ambassadors.
When they came on board, they expostulated very warmly with my newagent, the second mate, that our men came in the posture of friends, andof friends too in distress, and had received favours from them, but hadabused the kindness which had been shown them; that they had bought aship of them, and had had leave and assistance to fit her up and furnishher; but had not paid for her, or paid for what assistance and whatprovisions had been given to them: and that now, to complete all, theirmen had been partially and unfairly treated; and when a certain numberof men had been granted us, an inferior fellow, a gunner, was set tocall such and such men out, just whom he pleased, to go with us; whereasthe whole body ought to have had the appointing whom they would or wouldnot give leave to, to go in the ship: that, when they came in apeaceable manner to have demanded justice, and to have treated amicablyof these things, our men had denied them admittance, had committedhostilities against them, had fired at their men, and staved their boat,and had afterward received their deserters on board, all contrary to therules of friendship. And in all these cases they demanded satisfaction.
Our new commander was a ready man enough, and he answered all theircomplaints with a great deal of gravity and calmness. He told them, thatit was true we came to them as friends, and had received friendly usagefrom them, which we had not in the least dishonoured; but that asfriends in distress, we had never pretended to be, and really were not;for that we were neither in danger of anything, or in want of anything;that as to provisions, we were strong enough if need were, to procureourselves provisions in any part of the island, and had been severaltimes supplied from the shore by the natives, for which we had alwaysfully satisfied the people who furnished us; and that we scorned to beungrateful for any favour we should have received, much less to abuseit, or them for it.
That we had paid the full price of all the provisions we had received,and for the work that had been done to the ship; that what we hadbargained for, as the price of the ship, had been paid, as far as theagreement made it due, and that what remained, was ready to be paid assoon as the ship was finished, which was our contract.
That as to the people who were willing to take service with us, andenter themselves on board, it is true that the gunner and some other menoffered themselves to us, and we had accepted of them, and we thought itwas our part to accept or not to accept of such men as we thought fit.As for what was among themselves, that we had nothing to do with: that,if we had been publicly warned by them not to have entertained any oftheir men, but with consent of the whole body, then indeed we shouldhave had reason to be cautious; otherwise, we were not in the leastconcerned about it. That it is true, we refused to let their boats comeon board us, being assured that they came in a hostile manner, either totake away the men by force, which had been entered in our service, orperhaps even to seize the ship itself; and why else was the first boatfollowed by two more, full of men, armed and prepared to attack us? Thatwe not only came in a friendly manner to them, but resolved to continuein friendship with them, if they thought fit to use us as friends; butthat, considering what part of the world we were in, and what theircircumstances were, they must allow us to be upon our guard, and not putourselves in a condition to be used ill.
While he was talking thus with them in the cabin, he had ordered a canof flip to be made, and given their men in the boat, and every one adram, but would not suffer them to come on board; however, one or two ofthem got leave to get in at one of the ports, and got between decksamong our men; here they made terrible complaints of their condition,and begged hard to be entertained in our service; they were full ofmoney, and gave twenty or thirty pieces of eight among our men, and bythis present prevailed on two men to speak to my mate, who appeared ascaptain, to take the boat's crew on board.
The mate very gravely told the two ambassadors of it, and added, that,seeing they were come with a flag of truce, he would not stop their menwithout their consent, but the men being so earnest, he thought theywould do better not to oppose them. The ambassadors, as I call them,opposed it, however, vehemently, and at last desired to go and talk withthe men, which was granted them readily.
When they came into their boat, their men told them plainly, that, oneand all, they would enter themselves with their countrymen; that theyhad been forced already to turn pirates, and they thought they mightvery justly turn honest men again by force, if they could not get leaveto do it peaceably; and that, in short, they would go on shore no more;that, if the ambassadors desired it, they would set them on shore withthe boat, but as for themselves, they would go a
long with the newcaptain.
When the ambassadors saw this, they had no more to do but to besatisfied, and so were set on shore where they desired, and their menstayed on board.
During this transaction, my mate had sent a full account to me of allthat had passed, and had desired me to come on board and give fartherdirections in all that was to follow; so I took our supercargo andCaptain Merlotte along with me, and some more of our officers, and wentto them. It was my lot to come on board just when the aforesaidambassadors were talking with my mate, so I heard most of what they hadto say, and heard the answer my mate gave them, as above, which wasextremely to my satisfaction; nor did I interrupt him, or take upon meany authority, though he would very submissively have had me shownmyself as captain, but I bade him go on, and sat down, as not concernedin the affair at all.
After the ambassadors were gone, the first thing I did, was, in thepresence of all the company, and, having before had the opinion of
