Then he asked if I gave him leave to speak freely, and would not take offence at what he might say? I replied, he should speak as freely as if he had never offended; and that, as I had given him his life, I now would give him my word, nothing he could say should revoke the grant; and that he should not only go freely on shore, (for I expected by his words that he had made that choice) but I would give him the lives of his two fellow-prisoners; and would give them arms and ammunition, and anything else that was reasonable for them to ask, or necessary to their subsisting on shore in such a country. He told me then, that had it been any other part of the world than at Madagascar, he would readily have chosen to have gone on shore; nay, though the place had been really desolate and uninhabited; that he did not object because my offer was not very generous and kind, and that it would be always with regret that he should look back upon the mercy he should have received, and how ill he had deserved it at my hands. But that as it was at this place that I mentioned setting him at liberty, he told me, that though he had been mutinous and disorderly, for which he had acknowledged he had deserved to die, yet he hoped I could not think so ill of him as to believe he could turn pirate; and begged that, rather than entertain such hard thoughts of him, I would execute the worst part of the sentence, and send him out of the world a penitent and an honest man, which he should esteem far better than to give him his life in a condition in which he could preserve it upon no other terms than those of being the worst of villains. He added, that if there was anything he could do to deserve so much mercy as I intended him, he begged me that I would give him room to behave himself as became him, and he would leave it wholly to me to use him as he should deserve, even to the recalling the pardon that I had granted him.