Sure this man has the greatest share of hypocrisy that I ever met with. This story is a mere vile fiction made here at home, to excuse himself to the Owners, who have all been inraged at his conduct. _Shelvocke_ was still fearful of meeting his consort; and goes to _Narbrough_’s island, for nothing but to loiter time away, and avoid any probable chance of seeing _Clipperton_: besides no private ships have any business to touch to the southward, there being nothing at all to be got; and by his own account you see it was a foolish attempt, for he came back as he went, and narrowly escaped losing his ship. While he is going round _Cape Horne_, he gravely tells us, p. 73. how melancholy it was to be without his consort. “I must own (says he) that this navigation is truly melancholy, and was the more so to us, who were by our selves, without a companion, which would have somewhat diverted our thoughts from the reflexion of being in such a remote part of the world, and as it were, separated from the rest of mankind, to struggle with the dangers of a stormy climate.”----poor _Shelvocke!_ Now this is all such a jest, that it makes the reader laugh: for after all your whining, ’tis plain it better suted your scheme to be without captain _Clipperton_, who having no store of wine or brandy, must needs be very melancholy in this wretched climate; and therefore these reflections of yours would seem much more natural from _Clipperton_, who wanted your company more than you did his. Still to confirm this, as we came into the parallel of the island of _Chiloe_, on the continent, latitude 40 South, _Shelvocke_ would go in there, and all the arguments we could use to the contrary, signified nothing: for late as it was, if we had gone to _Fernandes_, there were some hopes of meeting captain _Clipperton_, that being the last place of rendezvous, and where only all private ships do first touch for wood and water, without going to any part of the continent for fear of alarming the coast: besides, he well knew that no _British_, _French_, or any other ship ever touch’d there; nor hath any chart ever described it: yet he would venture in, where we almost miraculously escaped with our lives; and all this, like the rest of his schemes, to avoid joining captain _Clipperton_. We were no sooner enter’d, but we found our selves surrounded with terrible breakers; for such is the uncertainty and rapidity of the several tides or currents meeting there, that ’twould at once astonish and baffle the most judicious mariner to describe it.