A New Voyage Round the World by a Course Never Sailed Before

This was all a made story; but, however, the tale told so well, that they believed it thoroughly, and received our men very kindly, led them up to their camp, and gave them some victuals.

Our men observed they had provisions enough, and very good, as well beef as mutton, that is to say, of goats' flesh, which was excellent; also pork and veal; and they were tolerable good cooks too; for they found they had built several furnaces and boilers, which they had taken out of their ships, and dressed a great quantity of meat at a time: but, observing they had no liquor, the mate pulled a large bottle of good cordial water out of his pocket, and gave it about as far as it would go, and so did two others of the men, which their new landlords took very kindly.

They spent good part of the first day in looking about them, seeing the manner of the pirates' living there, and their strength, and soon perceived that they were indeed in but a sorry condition every way, except that they had live cattle and flesh meat sufficient. They had a good platform of guns indeed, and a covered pallisadoe round where they lodged their ammunition: but as for fortifications to the landward, they had none, except a double pallisadoe round their camp, and a sort of a bank thrown up within to fire from, and stand covered from the enemies' lances, which was all they had to fear from the natives. They had no bread but what they made of rice, and the store they had of that was very small: they told our men, indeed, that they had two ships abroad, which they expected back every day, with a quantity of rice, and what else they could get, especially some arrack, which they were to trade for with the Arabian merchants, or take it by force, which should first offer.

Our men pretended to like their way of living mighty well and talked of staying with them, if they would let them; and thus they passed their first day of meeting.

Our men had two tents or huts given them to lodge in, and hammocks hung in the huts very agreeably, being such, I suppose, as belonged to some of their company who were dead, or were out upon adventure; here they slept very securely, and in the morning walked about, as strangers might be suffered to do, to look about them. But my new manager's eye was chiefly here upon two things: first, to see if they had any shipping for our purpose; and, secondly, to see if he could pitch upon one man, more likely than the rest, to enter into some confidence with; and it was not long before he found an opportunity for both. The manner was thus:

He was walking by himself, having ordered his other men to straggle away, two and two, this way and that, as if they had not minded him, though always to keep him in sight; I say, he walked by himself towards that part of the creek where, as was said, three of their largest ships lay by the walls, and when he came to the shore right against them, he stood still, looking at them very earnestly.

While he was here, he observed a boat put off from one of them, with four oars and one sitter only, whom they set on shore just by him, and then put off again; the person whom they set on shore, was, it seems, one who had been with our men the evening before, but, having some particular office on board one of those ships, lay on board every night with about ten or twelve men, just to watch and guard the ship, and so came on shore in the morning, as is usual in men-of-war laid up.

As soon as he saw our man he knew him, and spoke very familiarly to him; and seeing he was looking so earnestly at the ship, he asked him if he would go on board; our man faintly declined it, as on purpose to be asked again, and upon just as much farther pressing as was sufficient to satisfy him that the gunner (for that was his office) was in earnest, he yielded; so the gunner called back the boat, and they went on board.

Our man viewed the ship very particularly, and pretended to like everything he saw; but, after some conversation, asked him this home question, namely, Why they did not go to sea, and seek purchase, having so many good ships at their command?

He shook his head, and told him very frankly, that they were in no condition to undertake anything, for that they were a crew of unresolved, divided rogues; that they were never two days of a mind; that they had nobody to command, and therefore nobody to obey; that several things had been offered, but nothing concluded; that, in short, they thought of nothing but of shifting every one for himself as well as he could.

My mate replied, he thought it had been quite otherwise, and that made him tell them the night before that he had an inclination to stay with them.

I heard you say so, said the gunner, and it made me smile; I thought in myself that you would be of another mind when ye knew us a little better; for, in a word, said he, if our people should agree to lend you a boat to go back to your ship, they would fall together by the ears about who should go with you, for not a man of them that went with you would ever come back again hither, if your captain would take them on board, though the terms were, to be hanged when they came to England.

My mate knew that this was my opinion before; but he was really of another mind himself, till he saw things and till he talked with the gunner, and this put new thoughts in his head; so he entertained the gunner with a scheme of his own, and told him, if it was so as he related it, and that he had really a mind to come off from the gang, he believed that he could put him in a way how to do it to his advantage, and to take a set of his people with him, if he could pick out some of them that might be depended upon.

The gunner replied, I can pick out a set of very brave fellows, good seamen, and most of them such as, having been forced into the pirates' ships, were dragged into that wicked life they had lived, not only against their consciences, but by a mere necessity to save their lives, and that they would be glad at any price to go off.

The mate then asked him, Pray, gunner, how many such men can you answer for?

Why, says he, after a short pause, I am sure I can answer for above a hundred.

Upon this my mate told him the circumstances we were in, the voyage we were upon; that we were a letter of mart ship of such a force, but that we were over-manned and double-stored, in hopes of getting a good ship upon our cruise to man out of the other; that we had been disappointed, and had only got the sloop or brigantine which we bought at the Cape; that, if he could persuade the men to sell us one of their ships, we would pay them for it in ready money, and perhaps entertain a hundred of their men into the bargain.

The gunner told him he would propose it to them; and added, in positive terms, that he knew it would be readily accepted, and that he should take which of the three ships I pleased.

The mate then desired that he would lend him his shallop to go on board our ship, to acquaint me with it, and bring back sufficient orders to treat.

He told him, he would not only do that, but, before I could be ready to go, he would propose it to the chief men that he had his eye upon, and would have their consent, and that then he would go along with him on board to make a bargain.

This was as well as our mate could expect; and the gunner had either so much authority among them, or the men were so forward to shift their station in the world, that the gunner came again to our mate in less than two hours, with an order, signed by about sixteen of their officers, empowering him to sell us the ship which the gunner was on board of, and to allot so many guns, and such a proportion of ammunition to her, as was sufficient, and to give the work of all their carpenters for so many days as were necessary to repair her, calk, and grave her, and put her in condition to go to sea.

She was a Spanish-built ship; where they had her the gunner said he did not know; but she was a very strong, tight ship, and a pretty good sailer.

We made her carry two-and-thirty guns, though she had not been used to carry above twenty-four.

The gunner being thus empowered to treat with my mate, came away in their shallop, and brought the said gunner and two more of their officers with him, and eight seamen. The gunner and I soon made a bargain for the ship, which I bought for five thousand pieces of eight, most of it in English goods such as they wanted; for they were many of them almost naked of clothes, and, as for other things, they had scarce a pair of stockings or shoes among them.

When our bargain was made, and the mate had related all the particulars of the conference he had had with the gunner, we came to talk of the people who were to go with us: the gunner told us that we might indeed have good reason to suspect a gang of men who had made themselves infamous all over the world by so many piracies and wicked actions; but, if I would put so much confidence in him, he would assure me, that, as he should have the power in his hands to pick and choose his men, so he would answer body for body for the fidelity of all the men he should choose; and that most, if not all of them, would be such as had been taken by force out of other ships, or wheedled away when they were drunk: and he added, there never was a ship load of such penitents went to sea together as he would bring us.

When he said this, he began to entreat me that I would please to give him the same post which he held in the ship, viz., of gunner, which I promised him; and then he desired I would permit him to speak with me in private; I was not at first very free to it, but he having consented to let the mate and Captain Merlotte be present, I yielded.

When all the rest were withdrawn, he told me, that having been five years in the pirates' service, as he might call it, and being obliged to do as they did, I might be sure he had some small share in the purchase; and however he had come into it against his will, yet, as he had been obliged to go with them, he had made some advantage; and that, being resolved to leave them, he had a good while ago packed up some of the best of what he had got, to make his escape, and begged I would let him deposit it with me as a security for his fidelity.

Upon this he ordered a chest to be taken out of the shallop, and brought into my great cabin; and, besides this, gave me out of his pocket, a bag, sealed up, the contents of which I shall speak of hereafter.

The shallop returned the next day, and I sent back the mate with my long-boat and twenty-four men, to go and take possession of the ship; and appointed my carpenter to go and see to the repairs that were necessary to be done to her: and some days after, I sent Captain Merlotte with the supercargo, in our sloop, to go and secure the possession, and to cover the retreat of any of the men who might have a mind to come away, and might be opposed by the rest; and this was done at the request of the gunner who foresaw there might be some debate about it.

They spent six weeks and some odd days in fitting out this ship, occasioned by the want of a convenient place to lay her on shore in, which they were obliged to make with a great deal of labour; however, she was at last completely fitted up.

When she was equipped, they laid in a good store of provisions, though not so well cured as to last a great while. One of the best things we got a recruit of here was casks, which, as said before, we greatly wanted, and which their coopers assisted us to trim, season, and fit up.

As to bread, we had no help from them; for they had none but what they made of rice, and they had not sufficient store of that.

But we had more to do yet: for, when the ship was fitted up, and our men had the possession of her, they were surprised one morning, on a sudden, with a most horrible tumult among the pirates: and had not our brigantine been at hand to secure the possession, I believe they had taken the ship from our men again, and perhaps have come down with her and their two sloops, and have attacked us. The case was this:

The gunner, who was a punctual fellow to his word, resolved that none of the men should go in the ship but such as he had singled out; and they were such as were generally taken out of merchant ships by force: but when he came to talk to the men of who should go, and who should stay, truly they would all go, to a man, there was not a man of them would stay behind; and, in a word, they fell out about it to that degree that they came to blows, and the gunner was forced to fly for it, with about twenty-two men that stood to him, and six or seven were wounded in the fray, whereof two died.

The gunner being thus driven to his shifts, made down to the shore to his boat, but the rogues were too nimble for him, and had got to his boat before him, and prepared to man her and two more, to go on board and secure the ship.

In this distress, the gunner, who had taken sanctuary in the woods at about a mile distance, but unhappily above the camp, so that the platform of guns was between him and the ship, had no remedy but to send one of his men, who swam very well, to take a compass round behind the pirates' camp and come to the water-side below the camp and platform, so to take the water and swim on board the ship, which lay near a league below their said camp, and give our men notice of what had happened; to warn them to suffer none of their men to come on board, unless the gunner was with them; and if possible, to send a boat on shore to fetch off the gunner and his men, who were following by the same way, and would be at the same place, and make a signal to them to come for him.

Our men had scarce received this notice, when they saw a boat full of men put off from the platform, and row down under shore towards them: but as they resolved not to suffer them to come on board, they called to them by a speaking-trumpet, and told them they might go back again, for they should not come on board, nor any other boat, unless the gunner was on board.

They rowed on for all that, when our men called to them again, and told them, if they offered to put off, in order to come on board, or, in short, to row down shore any farther than a little point which our men named, and which was just ahead of them, they would fire at them. They rowed on for all this, and even till they were past the point; which, our men seeing, they immediately let fly a shot, but fired a little ahead of them, so as not to hit the boat, and this brought them to a stop; so they lay upon their oars awhile, as if they were considering what to do, when our men perceived two boats more come off from the platform, likewise full of men, and rowing after the first.

Upon this, they called again to the first boat with their speaking-trumpet, and told them, if they did not all go immediately on shore, they would sink the boat. They had no remedy, seeing our men resolved, and that they lay open to the shot of the ship; so they went on shore accordingly, and then our men fired at the empty boat, till they split her in pieces, and made her useless to them.

Upon this firing, our brigantine, which lay about two leagues off in the mouth of a little creek, on the south of that river, weighed immediately, and stood away to the opening of the road where the ship lay; and the tide of flood being still running in, they drove up towards the ship, for her assistance, and came to an anchor about a cable's length ahead of her, but within pistol-shot of the shore; at the same time sending two-and-thirty of her men on board the great ship, to reinforce the men on board, who were but sixteen in number.

Just at this time, the gunner and his twenty-one men, who heard the firing, and had quickened their pace, though they had a great compass to fetch through woods and untrod paths, and some luggage to carry too, were come to the shore, and made the signal, which our men in the ship observing, gave notice to the officer of the brigantine to fetch them on board, which he did very safely. By the way, as the officer afterwards told us, most of their luggage consisted in money, with which, it seems, every man of them was very well furnished, having shared their wealth at their first coming on shore: as for clothes, they had very few, and those all in rags; and as for linen, they had scarce a shirt among them all, or linen enough to have made a white flag for a truce, if they had occasion for it: in short, a crew so rich and so ragged, were hardly ever seen before.

The ship was now pretty well manned: for the brigantine carried the gunner and his twenty-one men on board her; and the tide by this time being spent, she immediately unmoored, and loosed her topsails, which, as it happened, had been bent to the yards two days before; so with the first of the ebb she weighed, and fell down about a league farther, by which she was quite out of reach of the platform, and rid in the open sea; and the brigantine did the same.

But by this means, they missed the occasion of the rest of the gunner's men, who, having got together to the number of between seventy and eighty, had followed him, and come down to the shore, and made the signals, but were not understood by our ship, which put the poor men to great difficulties; for they had broken away from the rest by force, and had been pursued half a mile by the whole body, particularly at the entrance into a very thick woody place, and were so hard put to it, that they were obliged to make a desperate stand, and fire at their old friends, which had exasperated them to the last degree. But, as the case of these men was desperate, they took an effectual method for their own security, of which I shall give a farther account presently.

The general body of the pirates were now up in arms, and the new ship was, as it were, in open war with them, or at least they had declared war against her: but as they had been disappointed in their attempt to force her, and found they were not strong enough at sea to attack her, they sent a flag of truce on board. Our men admitted them to come to the ship's side; but as my mate, who now had the command, knew them to be a gang of desperate rogues, that would attempt anything, though ever so rash, he ordered that none of them should come on board the ship, except the officer and two more, who gave an account that they were sent to treat with us; so we called them the ambassadors.

When they came on board, they expostulated very warmly with my new agent, the second mate, that our men came in the posture of friends, and of friends too in distress, and had received favours from them, but had abused the kindness which had been shown them; that they had bought a ship of them, and had had leave and assistance to fit her up and furnish her; but had not paid for her, or paid for what assistance and what provisions had been given to them: and that now, to complete all, their men had been partially and unfairly treated; and when a certain number of men had been granted us, an inferior fellow, a gunner, was set to call such and such men out, just whom he pleased, to go with us; whereas the whole body ought to have had the appointing whom they would or would not give leave to, to go in the ship: that, when they came in a peaceable manner to have demanded justice, and to have treated amicably of these things, our men had denied them admittance, had committed hostilities against them, had fired at their men, and staved their boat, and had afterward received their deserters on board, all contrary to the rules of friendship. And in all these cases they demanded satisfaction.

Our new commander was a ready man enough, and he answered all their complaints with a great deal of gravity and calmness. He told them, that it was true we came to them as friends, and had received friendly usage from them, which we had not in the least dishonoured; but that as friends in distress, we had never pretended to be, and really were not; for that we were neither in danger of anything, or in want of anything; that as to provisions, we were strong enough if need were, to procure ourselves provisions in any part of the island, and had been several times supplied from the shore by the natives, for which we had always fully satisfied the people who furnished us; and that we scorned to be ungrateful for any favour we should have received, much less to abuse it, or them for it.

That we had paid the full price of all the provisions we had received, and for the work that had been done to the ship; that what we had bargained for, as the price of the ship, had been paid, as far as the agreement made it due, and that what remained, was ready to be paid as soon as the ship was finished, which was our contract.

That as to the people who were willing to take service with us, and enter themselves on board, it is true that the gunner and some other men offered themselves to us, and we had accepted of them, and we thought it was our part to accept or not to accept of such men as we thought fit. As for what was among themselves, that we had nothing to do with: that, if we had been publicly warned by them not to have entertained any of their men, but with consent of the whole body, then indeed we should have had reason to be cautious; otherwise, we were not in the least concerned about it. That it is true, we refused to let their boats come on board us, being assured that they came in a hostile manner, either to take away the men by force, which had been entered in our service, or perhaps even to seize the ship itself; and why else was the first boat followed by two more, full of men, armed and prepared to attack us? That we not only came in a friendly manner to them, but resolved to continue in friendship with them, if they thought fit to use us as friends; but that, considering what part of the world we were in, and what their circumstances were, they must allow us to be upon our guard, and not put ourselves in a condition to be used ill.

While he was talking thus with them in the cabin, he had ordered a can of flip to be made, and given their men in the boat, and every one a dram, but would not suffer them to come on board; however, one or two of them got leave to get in at one of the ports, and got between decks among our men; here they made terrible complaints of their condition, and begged hard to be entertained in our service; they were full of money, and gave twenty or thirty pieces of eight among our men, and by this present prevailed on two men to speak to my mate, who appeared as captain, to take the boat's crew on board.

The mate very gravely told the two ambassadors of it, and added, that, seeing they were come with a flag of truce, he would not stop their men without their consent, but the men being so earnest, he thought they would do better not to oppose them. The ambassadors, as I call them, opposed it, however, vehemently, and at last desired to go and talk with the men, which was granted them readily.