About two o'clock in the morning we heard one of our men making a
terrible noise on the shore, calling out, for God's sake, to bring the
boat in and come and help them, for they were all like to be murdered;
and at the same time I heard the fire of five muskets, which was the
number of guns they had, and that three times over; for it seems the
natives here were not so easily frightened with guns as the savages were
in America, where I had to do with them. All this while, I knew not what
was the matter, but rousing immediately from sleep with the noise, I
caused the boat to be thrust in, and resolved with three fusees we had on
board to land and assist our men. We got the boat soon to the shore, but
our men were in too much haste; for being come to the shore, they plunged
into the water, to get to the boat with all the expedition they could,
being pursued by between three and four hundred men. Our men were but
nine in all, and only five of them had fusees with them; the rest had
pistols and swords, indeed, but they were of small use to them.
We took up seven of our men, and with difficulty enough too, three of
them being very ill wounded; and that which was still worse was, that
while we stood in the boat to take our men in, we were in as much danger
as they were in on shore; for they poured their arrows in upon us so
thick that we were glad to barricade the side of the boat up with the
benches, and two or three loose boards which, to our great satisfaction,
we had by mere accident in the boat. And yet, had it been daylight, they
are, it seems, such exact marksmen, that if they could have seen but the
least part of any of us, they would have been sure of us. We had, by the
light of the moon, a little sight of them, as they stood pelting us from
the shore with darts and arrows; and having got ready our firearms, we
gave them a volley that we could hear, by the cries of some of them, had
wounded several; however, they stood thus in battle array on the shore
till break of day, which we supposed was that they might see the better
to take their aim at us.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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