On the 13th, they saw the island of Timor, and the next morning landed
and got some water, and a few small fish from the natives; and on the
night of the 15th, anchored opposite the fort of Coupang. Nothing could
exceed the kindness and hospitality of the governor and other Dutch
officers of this settlement, in affording every possible assistance and
relief in their distressed condition. Having remained here three weeks,
they embarked on the 6th October, on board the _Rembang_ Dutch Indiaman,
and on the 30th, anchored at Samarang, where they were agreeably
surprised to find their little Tender, which they had so long given up
for lost. On the 7th November they arrived at Batavia, where Captain
Edwards agreed with the Dutch East India Company, to divide the whole
of the ship's company and prisoners among four of their ships proceeding
to Europe. The latter the captain took with him in the _Vreedenburgh_;
but finding his Majesty's ship _Gorgon_ at the Cape, he transhipped
himself and prisoners, and proceeded in her to Spithead, where he
arrived on the 19th June, 1792.
Captain Edwards, in his meagre narrative, takes no more notice of his
prisoners with regard to the mode in which they were disposed of at
Coupang and Batavia, than he does when the _Pandora_ went down. In fact,
he suppresses all information respecting them, from the day in which
they were consigned to '_Pandora's_ Box.' From this total indifference
towards these unfortunate men, and their almost unparalleled sufferings,
Captain Edwards must be set down as a man, whose only feeling was to
stick to the letter of his instructions, and rigidly to adhere to what
he considered the strict line of his duty; that he was a man of a cold
phlegmatic disposition, whom no distress could move, and whose feelings
were not easily disturbed by the sufferings of his fellow-creatures. He
appears to have been one of those mortals, who might say, with Manfred--
My spirit walk'd not with the souls of men;
* * * * *
My joys, my griefs, my passions, and my powers,
Made me a stranger; though I wore the form,
I had no sympathy with breathing flesh!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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