by Daniel Defoe
thoseI brought with me, to tell my second mate how well we were all satisfiedwith his conduct, and to declare him captain of the ship that he was in;only demanding his solemn oath, to be under orders of the great ship, asadmiral, and to carry on no separate interests from us; which hethankfully accepted, and, to give him his due, as faithfully performed,all the rest of our very long voyage, and through all our adventures.
It was upon my seeming intercession, that he gave consent to the boat'screw, who brought the ambassadors, to remain in our service, and settheir statesmen on shore; and in the end, I told him that as far asabout one hundred and fifty, or two hundred men, he should entertainwhom he thought fit. Thus having settled all things in the ship to oursatisfaction, we went back to our great ship the next day.
I had not been many hours on board, till I was surprised with the firingof three muskets from the shore; we wondered what could be the meaningof it, knowing that it was an unusual thing in that place, where we knewthe natives of the country had no fire-arms; so we could not tell whatto make of it, and therefore took no notice, other than, as I say, towonder at it. About half-an-hour after, we heard three muskets more, andstill, not knowing anything of the matter, we made them no return to thesignal. Some time after three muskets were fired again, but still wetook no notice, for we knew nothing of what return was to be made to it.
When night come on, we observed two great fires upon two several hills,on that part of the shore opposite to us, and after that, three rocketswere fired, such as they were, for they were badly constructed; Isuppose their gunner was ill provided for such things: but all signifiednothing; we would have made any return to them that had been to beunderstood, but we knew nothing of any agreed signal; however, Iresolved that I would send a boat on shore, well manned, to learn, ifpossible, what the meaning of all this was; and, accordingly, in themorning, I sent our long-boat and shallop on shore, with two-and-thirtymen in them both, to get intelligence; ordering them, if possible, tospeak with somebody, before they went on shore, and know how thingsstood; that then, if it was a party of the pirates, they should by nomeans come near them, but parley at a distance, till they knew themeaning of their behaviour.
As soon as my men came near the shore, they saw plainly that it was abody of above a hundred of the pirates; but seeing them so strong, theystood off, and would not come nearer, nor near enough to parley withthem; upon this, the men on shore got one of the islanders' canvassboats, or rather boats made of skins, which are but sorry ones at best,and put off, with two men to manage the sail, and one sitter, and twopaddles for oars and away they came towards us, carrying a flag oftruce, that is to say, an old white rag; how they came to save so muchlinen among them all, was very hard to guess.
Our men could do no less than receive their ambassador, and a flag oftruce gave no shadow of apprehension, especially considering the figurethey made, and that the men on shore had no other boats to surprise orattack us with; so they lay by upon their oars till they came up, whenthey soon understood who they were, viz.--that they were the gunner'sselected men; that they came too late to have their signal perceivedfrom the other ship, which was gone out of sight of the place they weredirected to; that they had with great difficulty, and five days andnights' marching, got through a woody and almost impassable country tocome at us; that they had fetched a circuit of near a hundred miles toavoid being attacked by their comrades, and that they were pursued bythem with their whole body, and therefore they begged to be taken onboard; they added, if they should be overtaken by their comrades, theyshould be all cut in pieces, for that they had broke away from them byforce, and moreover had been obliged, at the first of their pursuit, toface about and fire among them, by which they had killed six or seven ofthem, and wounded others, and that they had sworn they would give themno quarter, if they could come fairly up with them.
Our men told them they must be contented to remain on shore, where theywere, for some time, for that they could do nothing till they had beenon board, and acquainted their captain with all the particulars; so theycame back immediately to me for orders.
As to me, I was a little uneasy at the thoughts of taking them on board;I knew they were a gang of pirates at best, and what they might do Iknew not, but I sent them this message, that though all their tale mightbe very good for aught I knew, yet that I must take so much time as tosend an express to the captain of the other ship, to be informed of thetruth of it; and that if he brought a satisfactory answer, I would sendfor them all on board.
This was very uncomfortable news to them, for they expected to besurrounded every hour by their comrades, from whom they were to look forno mercy; however, seeing no remedy, they resolved to march about twentymiles farther south, and lie by in a place near the sea, where we agreedto send to them; concluding that their comrades not finding them nearthe place where we lay, would not imagine they could be gone fartherthat way. As they guessed, so it proved, for the pirates came to theshore, where they saw tokens enough of their having been there, butseeing they could not be found, concluded they were all gone on boardour ship.
The wind proving contrary, it was no less than four days before our boatcame back, so that the poor men were held in great suspense: but whenthey returned, they brought the gunner with them who had selected thosemen from all the rest for our new ship; and who, when he came, gave me along account of them, and what care he had taken to pick them out forour service, delivering me also a letter from my new captain to the samepurpose: upon all which concurring circumstances, we concluded to takethem on board; so we sent our boats for them, which, at twice, broughtthem all on board, and very stout young fellows they were.
When they had been on board some days and refreshed themselves, Iconcluded to send all on board the new ship; but, upon advice, Iresolved to send sixty of my own men joined to forty of these, and keepthirty-four of them on board my ship; for their number was justseventy-four, which with the gunner and his twenty-one men, and thesixteen men who came with the worthy ambassadors, and would not go onshore again, made one hundred and twelve men; and, as we all thought,were enough for us, though we took in between forty and fifty moreafterwards.
We were now ready to go to sea, and I caused the new ship and thebrigantine to come away from the place where they lay, and join us;which they did, and then we unloaded part of our provisions andammunition; of which, as I observed at first, we had taken in doublequantity; and, having furnished the new ship with a proportion of allthings necessary, we prepared for our voyage.
I should here give a long account of a second infernal conspiracy, whichmy two remaining prisoners had formed among the men, which was to betraythe new ship to the pirates; but it is too long a story to relate here;nor did I make it public among the ship's company: but as it was only,as it were, laid down in a scheme, and that they had no opportunity toput it in practice, I thought it was better to make as little noiseabout it as I could. So I ordered my new captain, for it was he whodiscovered it to me, to punish them in their own way, and, withouttaking notice of their new villanies, to set them on shore, and leavethem to take their fate with a set of rogues whom they had intended tojoin with, and whose profession was likely, some time or other, to bringthem to the gallows. And thus I was rid of two incorrigible mutineers;what became of them afterwards I never heard.
We were now a little fleet, viz., two large ships and a brigantine, wellmanned, and furnished with all sorts of necessaries for any voyage orany enterprise that was fit for men in our situation to undertake; and,particularly, here I made a full design of the whole voyage, to be againopenly declared to the men, and had them asked, one by one, if they werewilling and resolved to undertake it, which they all very cheerfullyanswered in the affirmative.
Here we had an opportunity to furnish ourselves with a plentiful stockof excellent beef, which, as I said before, we cured with little or nosalt, by drying it in the sun; and, I believe, we laid in such a store,that, in all our three vessels, we had near a hundred and fifty tons ofit; and it was of ex
cellent use to us, and served us through the wholevoyage. There was little else to be had in this place that was fit to becarried to sea; except that, as there was plenty of milk, some of ourmen, who were more dexterous than others, made several large cheeses;nor were they very far short of English cheese, only that we were butindifferent dairy folks. Our men made some butter also, and salted it tokeep, but it grew rank and oily, and was of little use to us.
It was on the 15th of December that we left this place, a countryfruitful, populous, full of cattle, large and excellent good beef, andvery fat; and the land able to produce all manner of good things; butthe people wild, naked, black, barbarous, perfectly untractable, andinsensible of any state of life being better than their own.
We stood away towards the shore of Arabia, till we passed the line, andcame into the latitude of 18 deg. north, and then stood away east, andeast-by-north, for the English factories of Surat, and the coast ofMalabar; not that we had any
