A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 08Kerr, Robert
History
A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 08
Kerr, Robert
Voyages and travels
hand, some of them declared they would not put their hands to any thing,
unless the ship's course was directed for England; so that he was
obliged to follow their humour, henceforwards directing our course
towards our own country, which we continued to do till we came to lat.
8° N. between the equator and which latitude we spent about six weeks,
with perpetual calms or contrary winds from the north, sometimes
north-east and north-west; owing to which loss of time, and our small
store of provisions, we were very doubtful of being able to keep our
course. At this time some of our men became very mutinous, threatening
to break up other people's chests, to the entire consumption of our
provisions and ourselves; for every man had now his share of provisions
in his own custody, that they might know what they had to trust to, and
husband that the more thriftily.
Anxious to prevent the occurrence of absolute famine, and being informed
by one of the ship's company who had been at the island of Trinidada, in
a voyage with Mr Chudlei, and that we might be sure of having provisions
there, our captain directed the course for that island; but not knowing
the currents, we overshot it in the night, getting into the gulf of
Paria, in which we were for eight days, unable to get out again, as the
current constantly set in, and our ship was often in three fathoms
water. At length the current put us over to the western side of the
gully under the main-land, so that by keeping close in shore, and having
the wind off the land in the night, we got out to the northward. Being
now clear, we came in four or five days to the isle of _Mona_, where we
anchored and remained about eighteen days, during which time the Indians
of Mona gave us some victuals. In the mean time there arrived a French
ship of Caen, in Normandy, of which one Monsieur de Barbaterre was
captain, from whom we bought two butts of wine, with some bread, and
other provisions. We then watered and repaired our ship, stopping a
great leak that sprung upon us while beating out of the gulf of Paria;
and being thus in readiness for sea, we determined upon going to the
island of Newfoundland: but, before we could put this in execution,
there arose a great storm from the north, which drove us from our
anchor, and forced us to the southwards of San Domingo. We were that
night in great danger of shipwreck upon an island called _Savona_, which
is environed with flats for four or five miles all round; yet it pleased
God to enable us to clear them, when we directed our course westwards,
along the southern shore of St Domingo, and having doubled Cape
Tiberoon, we passed through the old channel between St Domingo and Cuba,
shaping our course for Cape Florida.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account