Upon this the captain, who had won much upon the rest of his men by what
he had said to them, and was very easy as to the general peace (for it
was very true that the most mutinous of the men were gone), came out
to the quarter-deck, and, calling the men together, let them know the
substance of the letter, and told the men that, however they had not
deserved such civility from him, yet he was not willing to expose them
more than they were willing to expose themselves; he was inclined to
send them some ammunition, and as they had desired but one barrel of
powder, he would send them two barrels, and shot, or lead and moulds to
make shot, in proportion; and, to let them see that he was civiller to
them than they deserved, he ordered a cask of arrack and a great bag
of bread to be sent them for subsistence till they should be able to
furnish themselves.
The rest of the men applauded the captain's generosity, and every one
of them sent us something or other, and about three in the afternoon the
pinnace came on shore, and brought us all these things, which we were
very glad of, and returned the long-boat accordingly; and as to the men
that came with the pinnace, as the captain had singled out such men as
he knew would not come over to us, so they had positive orders not to
bring any one of us on board again, upon pain of death; and indeed both
were so true to our points, that we neither asked them to stay, nor they
us to go.
We were now a good troop, being in all twenty-seven men, very well
armed, and provided with everything but victuals; we had two carpenters
among us, a gunner, and, which was worth all the rest, a surgeon or
doctor; that is to say, he was an assistant to a surgeon at Goa, and was
entertained as a supernumerary with us. The carpenters had brought all
their tools, the doctor all his instruments and medicines, and indeed we
had a great deal of baggage, that is to say, on the whole, for some of
us had little more than the clothes on our backs, of whom I was one;
but I had one thing which none of them had, viz., I had the twenty-two
moidores of gold which I had stole at the Brazils, and two pieces of
eight. The two pieces of eight I showed, and one moidore, and none of
them ever suspected that I had any more money in the world, having been
known to be only a poor boy taken up in charity, as you have heard,
and used like a slave, and in the worst manner of a slave, by my cruel
master the pilot.
It will be easy to imagine we four that were left at first were joyful,
nay, even surprised with joy at the coming of the rest, though at first
we were frighted, and thought they came to fetch us back to hang us;
but they took ways quickly to satisfy us that they were in the same
condition with us, only with this additional circumstance, theirs was
voluntary, and ours by force.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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