Shortly after New Year's Day 1681, "our unhappy Divisions, which had been long on Foot, began now to come to an Head to some Purpose." The men had been working at the caulking of their ship, with design to take her through the Straits of Magellan, and so home to the Indies. Many of the men wished to cruise the South Seas a little longer, while nearly all were averse to plying caulking irons, under a burning sun, for several hours a day. There was also a good deal of bitterness against Captain Sharp, who had made but a poor successor to brave Richard Sawkins. He had brought them none of the gold and silver he had promised them, and few of the men were "satisfied, either with his Courage or Behaviour." On the 6th January a gang of pirates "got privately ashoar together," and held a fo'c's'le council under the greenwood. They "held a Consult," says Sharp, "about turning me presently out, and put another in my Room." John Cox, the "true-hearted dissembling New-England Man," whom Sharp "meerly for old Acquaintance-sake" had promoted to be captain, was "the Main Promoter of their Design." When the consult was over, the pirates came on board, clapped Mr Sharp in irons, put him down on the ballast, and voted an old pirate named John Watling, "a stout seaman," to be captain in his stead. One buccaneer says that "the true occasion of the grudge against Sharp was, that he had got by these adventures almost a thousand pounds, whereas many of our men were not worth a groat," having "lost all their money to their fellow Buccaneers at dice." Captain Edmund Cook, who had been turned out of his ship by his men, was this day put in irons on the confession of a shameless servant. The curious will find the details of the case on page 121, of the 1684 edition of Ringrose's journal. John Watling began his captaincy in very godly sort, by ordering his disciples to keep holy the Sabbath day. Sunday, "January the ninth, was the first Sunday that ever we kept by command and common consent, since the loss and death of our valiant Commander Captain Sawkins." Sawkins had been strict in religious matters, and had once thrown the ship's dice overboard "finding them in use on the said day." Since Sawkins' death the company had grown notoriously lax, but it is pleasant to notice how soon they returned to their natural piety, under a godly leader. With Edmund Cook down on the ballast in irons, and William Cook talking of salvation in the galley, and old John Watling expounding the Gospel in the cabin, the galleon, "the Most Holy _Trinity_" must have seemed a foretaste of the New Jerusalem. The fiddler ceased such "prophane strophes" as "Abel Brown," "The Red-haired Man's Wife," and "Valentinian." He tuned his devout strings to songs of Zion. Nay the very boatswain could not pipe the cutter up but to a phrase of the Psalms.