I argued the impossibility of it, and the hazard he would run, either
of falling into the hands of thieves and murderers in the Red Sea,
who would never let such a treasure as his pass their hands, or of
his falling into the hands of the English, Dutch, or French, who would
certainly hang him for a pirate. I gave him an account of the voyage
I had made from this very place to the continent of Africa, and what a
journey it was to travel on foot.
In short, nothing could persuade him, but he would go into the Red Sea
with the sloop, and where the children of Israel passed through the sea
dry-shod, and, landing there, would travel to Grand Cairo by land,
which is not above eighty miles, and from thence he said he could ship
himself, by the way of Alexandria, to any part of the world.
I represented the hazard, and indeed the impossibility, of his passing
by Mocha and Jiddah without being attacked, if he offered it by force,
or plundered, if he went to get leave; and explained the reasons of it
so much and so effectually, that, though at last he would not hearken to
it himself, none of his men would go with him. They told him they would
go anywhere with him to serve him, but that this was running himself and
them into certain destruction, without any possibility of avoiding it,
or probability of answering his end. The captain took what I said to
him quite wrong, and pretended to resent it, and gave me some buccaneer
words upon it; but I gave him no return to it but this: that I advised
him for his advantage; that if he did not understand it so, it was his
fault, not mine; that I did not forbid him to go, nor had I offered
to persuade any of the men not to go with him, though it was to their
apparent destruction.
However, warm heads are not easily cooled. The captain was so eager that
he quitted our company, and, with most part of his crew, went over to
Captain Avery, and sorted with his people, taking all the treasure with
him, which, by the way, was not very fair in him, we having agreed to
share all our gains, whether more or less, whether absent or present.
Our men muttered a little at it, but I pacified them as well as I could,
and told them it was easy for us to get as much, if we minded our hits;
and Captain Wilmot had set us a very good example; for, by the same
rule, the agreement of any further sharing of profits with them was at
an end. I took this occasion to put into their heads some part of my
further designs, which were, to range over the eastern sea, and see if
we could not make ourselves as rich as Mr Avery, who, it was true, had
gotten a prodigious deal of money, though not one-half of what was said
of it in Europe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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