The first adventure we made here had like to have been fatal to us all, for the sloop, being ahead, made the signal to us for seeing a sail, and afterwards another, and a third, by which we understood she saw three sail; whereupon we made more sail to come up with her, but on a sudden were gotten among some rocks, falling foul upon them in such a manner as frighted us all very heartily; for having, it seems, but just water enough, as it were to an inch, our rudder struck upon the top of a rock, which gave us a terrible shock, and split a great piece off the rudder, and indeed disabled it so that our ship would not steer at all, at least not so as to be depended upon; and we were glad to hand all our sails, except our fore-sail and main-topsail, and with them we stood away to the east, to see if we could find any creek or harbour where we might lay the ship on shore, and repair our rudder; besides, we found the ship herself had received some damage, for she had some little leak near her stern-post, but a great way under water. By this mischance we lost the advantages, whatever they were, of the three sail of ships, which we afterwards came to hear were small Dutch ships from Batavia, going to Banda and Amboyna, to load spice, and, no doubt, had a good quantity of money on board. Upon the disaster I have been speaking of you may very well suppose that we came to an anchor as soon as we could, which was upon a small island not far from Banda, where, though the Dutch keep no factory, yet they come at the season to buy nutmegs and mace. We stayed there thirteen days; but there being no place where we could lay the ship on shore, we sent the sloop to cruise among the islands, to look out for a place fit for us. In the meantime we got very good water here, some provisions, roots, and fruits, and a good quantity of nutmegs and mace, which we found ways to trade with the natives for, without the knowledge of their masters, the Dutch. At length our sloop returned; having found another island where there was a very good harbour, we ran in, and came to an anchor. We immediately unbent all our sails, sent them ashore upon the island, and set up seven or eight tents with them; then we unrigged our top-masts, and cut them down, hoisted all our guns out, our provisions and loading, and put them ashore in the tents. With the guns we made two small batteries, for fear of a surprise, and kept a look-out upon the hill. When we were all ready, we laid the ship aground upon a hard sand, the upper end of the harbour, and shored her up on each side. At low water she lay almost dry, so we mended her bottom, and stopped the leak, which was occasioned by straining some of the rudder irons with the shock which the ship had against the rock.