So, retiring in spirit, the Lord showed me that His life and power
were placed between us and the ship that pursued us. I told this to
the master and the rest, and that the best way was to tack about
and steer our right course. I desired them also to put out all
their candles but the one they steered by, and to speak to all the
passengers to be still and quiet.
About eleven at night the watch called and said they were just upon
us. This disquieted some of the passengers. I sat up in my cabin,
and, looking through the port-hole, the moon being not quite down, I
saw them very near us. I was getting up to go out of the cabin; but
remembering the word of the Lord, that His life and power were placed
between us and them, I lay down again.
The master and some of the seamen came again, and asked me if they
might not steer such a point. I told them they might do as they would.
By this time the moon was quite down. A fresh gale arose, and the
Lord hid us from them; we sailed briskly on and saw them no more.
The next day, being the first day of the week, we had a public
meeting in the ship, as we usually had on that day throughout the
voyage, and the Lord's presence was greatly among us. I desired the
people to remember the mercies of the Lord, who had delivered them;
for they might have been all in the Turks' hands by that time, had
not the Lord's hand saved them.
About a week after, the master and some of the seamen endeavoured to
persuade the passengers that it was not a Turkish pirate that had
chased us, but a merchantman going to the Canaries. When I heard
of it I asked them, "Why then did you speak so to me? Why did you
trouble the passengers? and why did you tack about from him and
alter your course?" I told them they should take heed of slighting
the mercies of God.
Afterwards, while we were at Barbadoes, there came in a merchant
from Sallee, and told the people that one of the Sallee men-of-war
saw a monstrous yacht at sea, the greatest that ever he saw, and had
her in chase, and was just upon her, but that there was a spirit in
her that he could not take. This confirmed us in the belief that it
was a Sallee-man we saw make after us, and that it was the Lord that
delivered us out of his hands.
The third of the Eighth month, early in the morning, we discovered
the island of Barbadoes; but it was between nine and ten at night ere
we came to anchor in Carlisle bay.
We got on shore as soon as we could, and I with some others walked to
the house of a Friend, a merchant, whose name was Richard Forstall,
above a quarter of a mile from the bridge. But being very ill and
weak, I was so tired, that I was in a manner spent by the time I got
thither. There I abode very ill several days, and though they several
times gave me things to make me sweat, they could not effect it.
What they gave me did rather parch and dry up my body, and made me
probably worse than otherwise I might have been.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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