A New Voyage Round the World by a Course Never Sailed Before. Daniel Defoe
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with my mate, so I heard most of what they had to say, and heard the answer my mate gave them, as above, which was extremely to my satisfaction; nor did I interrupt him, or take upon me any authority, though he would very submissively have had me shown myself as captain, but I bade him go on, and sat down, as not concerned in the affair at all.
After the ambassadors were gone, the first thing I did, was, in the presence of all the company, and, having before had the opinion of those I brought with me, to tell my second mate how well we were all satisfied with 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, as admiral, and to carry on no separate interests from us; which he thankfully 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's crew, who brought the ambassadors, to remain in our service, and set their statesmen on shore; and in the end, I told him that as far as about one hundred and fifty, or two hundred men, he should entertain whom he thought fit. Thus having settled all things in the ship to our satisfaction, we went back to our great ship the next day.
I had not been many hours on board, till I was surprised with the firing of three muskets from the shore; we wondered what could be the meaning of it, knowing that it was an unusual thing in that place, where we knew the natives of the country had no fire-arms; so we could not tell what to make of it, and therefore took no notice, other than, as I say, to wonder at it. About half-an-hour after, we heard three muskets more, and still, not knowing anything of the matter, we made them no return to the signal. Some time after three muskets were fired again, but still we took 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 rockets were fired, such as they were, for they were badly constructed; I suppose their gunner was ill provided for such things: but all signified nothing; we would have made any return to them that had been to be understood, but we knew nothing of any agreed signal; however, I resolved that I would send a boat on shore, well manned, to learn, if possible, what the meaning of all this was; and, accordingly, in the morning, I sent our long-boat and shallop on shore, with two-and-thirty men in them both, to get intelligence; ordering them, if possible, to speak with somebody, before they went on shore, and know how things stood; that then, if it was a party of the pirates, they should by no means come near them, but parley at a distance, till they knew the meaning of their behaviour.
As soon as my men came near the shore, they saw plainly that it was a body of above a hundred of the pirates; but seeing them so strong, they stood off, and would not come nearer, nor near enough to parley with them; upon this, the men on shore got one of the islanders' canvass boats, 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 two paddles for oars and away they came towards us, carrying a flag of truce, that is to say, an old white rag; how they came to save so much linen among them all, was very hard to guess.
Our men could do no less than receive their ambassador, and a flag of truce gave no shadow of apprehension, especially considering the figure they made, and that the men on shore had no other boats to surprise or attack us with; so they lay by upon their oars till they came up, when they soon understood who they were, viz.—that they were the gunner's selected men; that they came too late to have their signal perceived from the other ship, which was gone out of sight of the place they were directed to; that they had with great difficulty, and five days and nights' marching, got through a woody and almost impassable country to come at us; that they had fetched a circuit of near a hundred miles to avoid being attacked by their comrades, and that they were pursued by them with their whole body, and therefore they begged to be taken on board; they added, if they should be overtaken by their comrades, they should be all cut in pieces, for that they had broke away from them by force, and moreover had been obliged, at the first of their pursuit, to face about and fire among them, by which they had killed six or seven of them, and wounded others, and that they had sworn they would give them no quarter, if they could come fairly up with them.
Our men told them they must be contented to remain on shore, where they were, for some time, for that they could do nothing till they had been on board, and acquainted their captain with all the particulars; so they came 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 I knew not, but I sent them this message, that though all their tale might be very good for aught I knew, yet that I must take so much time as to send an express to the captain of the other ship, to be informed of the truth of it; and that if he brought a satisfactory answer, I would send for them all on board.
This was very uncomfortable news to them, for they expected to be surrounded every hour by their comrades, from whom they were to look for no mercy; however, seeing no remedy, they resolved to march about twenty miles farther south, and lie by in a place near the sea, where we agreed to send to them; concluding that their comrades not finding them near the place where we lay, would not imagine they could be gone farther that way. As they guessed, so it proved, for the pirates came to the shore, where they saw tokens enough of their having been there, but seeing they could not be found, concluded they were all gone on board our ship.
The wind proving contrary, it was no less than four days before our boat came back, so that the poor men were held in great suspense: but when they returned, they brought the gunner with them who had selected those men from all the rest for our new ship; and who, when he came, gave me a long account of them, and what care he had taken to pick them out for our service, delivering me also a letter from my new captain to the same purpose: upon all which concurring circumstances, we concluded to take them on board; so we sent our boats for them, which, at twice, brought them all on board, and very stout young fellows they were.
When they had been on board some days and refreshed themselves, I concluded to send all on board the new ship; but, upon advice, I resolved to send sixty of my own men joined to forty of these, and keep thirty-four of them on board my ship; for their number was just seventy-four, which with the gunner and his twenty-one men, and the sixteen men who came with the worthy ambassadors, and would not go on shore again, made one hundred and twelve men; and, as we all thought, were enough for us, though we took in between forty and fifty more afterwards.
We were now ready to go to sea, and I caused the new ship and the brigantine to come away from the place where they lay, and join us; which they did, and then we unloaded part of our provisions and ammunition; of which, as I observed at first, we had taken in double quantity; and, having furnished the new ship with a proportion of all things necessary, we prepared for our voyage.
I should here give a long account of a second infernal conspiracy, which my two remaining prisoners had formed among the men, which was to betray the 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 to put it in practice, I thought it was better to make as little noise about it as I could. So I ordered my new captain, for it was he who discovered it to me, to punish them in their own way, and, without taking notice of their new villanies, to set them on shore, and leave them to take their fate with a set of rogues whom they had intended to join with, and whose profession was likely, some time or other, to bring them to the gallows. And thus I was rid of two incorrigible mutineers; what became of them afterwards I never heard.
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