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

When they came into their boat, their men told them plainly, that, one and all, they would enter themselves with their countrymen; that they had been forced already to turn pirates, and they thought they might very justly turn honest men again by force, if they could not get leave to do it peaceably; and that, in short, they would go on shore no more; that, if the ambassadors desired it, they would set them on shore with the boat, but as for themselves, they would go along with the new captain.

When the ambassadors saw this, they had no more to do but to be satisfied, and so were set on shore where they desired, and their men stayed on board.

During this transaction, my mate had sent a full account to me of all that had passed, and had desired me to come on board and give farther directions in all that was to follow; so I took our supercargo and Captain Merlotte along with me, and some more of our officers, and went to them. It was my lot to come on board just when the aforesaid ambassadors were talking with my mate, so I heard most of what they had to say, and heard the answer my mate gave them, as above, which was extremely to my satisfaction; nor did I interrupt him, or take upon me any authority, though he would very submissively have had me shown myself as captain, but I bade him go on, and sat down, as not concerned in the affair at all.

After the ambassadors were gone, the first thing I did, was, in the presence of all the company, and, having before had the opinion of those I brought with me, to tell my second mate how well we were all satisfied with his conduct, and to declare him captain of the ship that he was in; only demanding his solemn oath, to be under orders of the great ship, as admiral, and to carry on no separate interests from us; which he thankfully accepted, and, to give him his due, as faithfully performed, all the rest of our very long voyage, and through all our adventures.

It was upon my seeming intercession, that he gave consent to the boat's crew, who brought the ambassadors, to remain in our service, and set their statesmen on shore; and in the end, I told him that as far as about one hundred and fifty, or two hundred men, he should entertain whom he thought fit. Thus having settled all things in the ship to our satisfaction, we went back to our great ship the next day.

I had not been many hours on board, till I was surprised with the firing of three muskets from the shore; we wondered what could be the meaning of it, knowing that it was an unusual thing in that place, where we knew the natives of the country had no fire-arms; so we could not tell what to make of it, and therefore took no notice, other than, as I say, to wonder at it. About half-an-hour after, we heard three muskets more, and still, not knowing anything of the matter, we made them no return to the signal. Some time after three muskets were fired again, but still we took no notice, for we knew nothing of what return was to be made to it.

When night come on, we observed two great fires upon two several hills, on that part of the shore opposite to us, and after that, three rockets were fired, such as they were, for they were badly constructed; I suppose their gunner was ill provided for such things: but all signified nothing; we would have made any return to them that had been to be understood, but we knew nothing of any agreed signal; however, I resolved that I would send a boat on shore, well manned, to learn, if possible, what the meaning of all this was; and, accordingly, in the morning, I sent our long-boat and shallop on shore, with two-and-thirty men in them both, to get intelligence; ordering them, if possible, to speak with somebody, before they went on shore, and know how things stood; that then, if it was a party of the pirates, they should by no means come near them, but parley at a distance, till they knew the meaning of their behaviour.

As soon as my men came near the shore, they saw plainly that it was a body of above a hundred of the pirates; but seeing them so strong, they stood off, and would not come nearer, nor near enough to parley with them; upon this, the men on shore got one of the islanders' canvass boats, or rather boats made of skins, which are but sorry ones at best, and put off, with two men to manage the sail, and one sitter, and two paddles for oars and away they came towards us, carrying a flag of truce, that is to say, an old white rag; how they came to save so much linen among them all, was very hard to guess.

Our men could do no less than receive their ambassador, and a flag of truce gave no shadow of apprehension, especially considering the figure they made, and that the men on shore had no other boats to surprise or attack us with; so they lay by upon their oars till they came up, when they soon understood who they were, viz. – that they were the gunner's selected men; that they came too late to have their signal perceived from the other ship, which was gone out of sight of the place they were directed to; that they had with great difficulty, and five days and nights' marching, got through a woody and almost impassable country to come at us; that they had fetched a circuit of near a hundred miles to avoid being attacked by their comrades, and that they were pursued by them with their whole body, and therefore they begged to be taken on board; they added, if they should be overtaken by their comrades, they should be all cut in pieces, for that they had broke away from them by force, and moreover had been obliged, at the first of their pursuit, to face about and fire among them, by which they had killed six or seven of them, and wounded others, and that they had sworn they would give them no quarter, if they could come fairly up with them.

Our men told them they must be contented to remain on shore, where they were, for some time, for that they could do nothing till they had been on board, and acquainted their captain with all the particulars; so they came back immediately to me for orders.

As to me, I was a little uneasy at the thoughts of taking them on board; I knew they were a gang of pirates at best, and what they might do I knew not, but I sent them this message, that though all their tale might be very good for aught I knew, yet that I must take so much time as to send an express to the captain of the other ship, to be informed of the truth of it; and that if he brought a satisfactory answer, I would send for them all on board.

This was very uncomfortable news to them, for they expected to be surrounded every hour by their comrades, from whom they were to look for no mercy; however, seeing no remedy, they resolved to march about twenty miles farther south, and lie by in a place near the sea, where we agreed to send to them; concluding that their comrades not finding them near the place where we lay, would not imagine they could be gone farther that way. As they guessed, so it proved, for the pirates came to the shore, where they saw tokens enough of their having been there, but seeing they could not be found, concluded they were all gone on board our ship.

The wind proving contrary, it was no less than four days before our boat came back, so that the poor men were held in great suspense: but when they returned, they brought the gunner with them who had selected those men from all the rest for our new ship; and who, when he came, gave me a long account of them, and what care he had taken to pick them out for our service, delivering me also a letter from my new captain to the same purpose: upon all which concurring circumstances, we concluded to take them on board; so we sent our boats for them, which, at twice, brought them all on board, and very stout young fellows they were.

When they had been on board some days and refreshed themselves, I concluded to send all on board the new ship; but, upon advice, I resolved to send sixty of my own men joined to forty of these, and keep thirty-four of them on board my ship; for their number was just seventy-four, which with the gunner and his twenty-one men, and the sixteen men who came with the worthy ambassadors, and would not go on shore again, made one hundred and twelve men; and, as we all thought, were enough for us, though we took in between forty and fifty more afterwards.

We were now ready to go to sea, and I caused the new ship and the brigantine to come away from the place where they lay, and join us; which they did, and then we unloaded part of our provisions and ammunition; of which, as I observed at first, we had taken in double quantity; and, having furnished the new ship with a proportion of all things necessary, we prepared for our voyage.

I should here give a long account of a second infernal conspiracy, which my two remaining prisoners had formed among the men, which was to betray the new ship to the pirates; but it is too long a story to relate here; nor did I make it public among the ship's company: but as it was only, as it were, laid down in a scheme, and that they had no opportunity to put it in practice, I thought it was better to make as little noise about it as I could. So I ordered my new captain, for it was he who discovered it to me, to punish them in their own way, and, without taking notice of their new villanies, to set them on shore, and leave them to take their fate with a set of rogues whom they had intended to join with, and whose profession was likely, some time or other, to bring them to the gallows. And thus I was rid of two incorrigible mutineers; what became of them afterwards I never heard.

We were now a little fleet, viz., two large ships and a brigantine, well manned, and furnished with all sorts of necessaries for any voyage or any enterprise that was fit for men in our situation to undertake; and, particularly, here I made a full design of the whole voyage, to be again openly declared to the men, and had them asked, one by one, if they were willing and resolved to undertake it, which they all very cheerfully answered in the affirmative.

Here we had an opportunity to furnish ourselves with a plentiful stock of excellent beef, which, as I said before, we cured with little or no salt, by drying it in the sun; and, I believe, we laid in such a store, that, in all our three vessels, we had near a hundred and fifty tons of it; and it was of excellent use to us, and served us through the whole voyage. There was little else to be had in this place that was fit to be carried to sea; except that, as there was plenty of milk, some of our men, who were more dexterous than others, made several large cheeses; nor were they very far short of English cheese, only that we were but indifferent dairy folks. Our men made some butter also, and salted it to keep, but it grew rank and oily, and was of little use to us.

It was on the 15th of December that we left this place, a country fruitful, populous, full of cattle, large and excellent good beef, and very fat; and the land able to produce all manner of good things; but the people wild, naked, black, barbarous, perfectly untractable, and insensible of any state of life being better than their own.

We stood away towards the shore of Arabia, till we passed the line, and came into the latitude of 18° north, and then stood away east, and east-by-north, for the English factories of Surat, and the coast of Malabar; not that we had any business there, or designed any, only that we had a mind to take on board a quantity of rice, if we could come at it; which at last, we effected by a Portuguese vessel, which we met with at sea, bound to Goa, from the Gulf of Persia. We chased her, and brought her too, indeed, as if we resolved to attack and take the ship; but, finding a quantity of rice on board, which was what we wanted, with a parcel of coffee, we took all the rice, but paid the supercargo, who was a Persian or Armenian merchant, very honestly for the whole parcel, his full price, and to his satisfaction; as for the coffee, we had no occasion for it. We put in at several ports on the Indian coast for fresh water and fresh provisions, but came near none of the factories, because we had no mind to discover ourselves; for though we were to sail through the very centre of the India trade, yet it was perfectly without any business among them. We met indeed on this coast with some pearl fishers, who had been in the mouth of the Arabian Gulf, and had a large quantity of pearl on board. I would have traded with them for goods, but they understood nothing but money, and I refused to part with it; upon which the fellows gave our supercargo some scornful language, which though he did not well understand what they said, yet he pretended to take it as a great affront, and threatened to make prize of their barks, and slaves of the men; upon which they grew very humble; and one of them, a Malabar Indian, who spoke a little English, spoke for them, that they would willingly trade with us for such goods as we had; whereupon I produced three bales of English cloth, which I showed them, and said they would be of good merchandise at Gombaroon in the Gulf, for that the Persians made their long vests of such cloths.

In short, for this cloth, and some money, we bought a box of choice pearls, which the chief of them had picked out from the rest for the Portuguese merchants at Goa; and which, when I came to London, was valued at two thousand two hundred pounds sterling.

We were near two months on our voyage from Madagascar to the coast of India, and from thence to Ceylon, where we put in on the south-west part of the island, to see what provisions we could get, and to take in a large supply of water.

The people here we found willing to supply us with provisions; but withal so sharp, imposing upon us their own rates for everything, and withal, so false, that we were often provoked to treat them very rudely. However, I gave strict orders that they should not be hurt upon any occasion, at least till we had filled all our water-casks and taken in what fresh provisions we could get, and especially rice, which we valued very much. But they provoked us at last beyond all patience; for they were such thieves when they were on board, and such treacherous rogues when we were on shore, that there was no bearing with them; and two accidents fell out upon this occasion which fully broke the peace between us; one was on board, and the other on shore, and both happened the same day.

The case on board was this. There came on board us a small boat, in which were eleven men and three boys, to sell us roots, yams, mangoes, and such other articles as was frequent for them to do every day; but this boat having more goods of that kind than usual, they were longer than ordinary in making their market. While they were thus chaffering on board, one of them having wandered about the ship, and pretending to admire everything he saw, and being gotten between decks, was taken stealing a pair of shoes which belonged to one of the seamen. The fellow being stopped for his theft, appeared angry, raised a hideous screaming noise to alarm his fellows; and, at the same time, having stolen a long pair of scissors, pulled them out, and stabbed the man who had laid hold of him into the shoulder, and was going to repeat his blow, when the poor fellow who had been wounded, having struck up his heels and fallen upon him, had killed him if I had not called to take him off, and bring the thief up to me.

Upon this order, they laid hold of the barbarian, and brought him up with the shoes and the scissors that he had stolen, and as the fact was plain, and needed no witnesses, I caused all the rest of them to be brought up also; and, as well as we could, made them understand what he had done.

They made pitiful signs of fear, lest they should all be punished for his crime, and particularly when they saw the man whom he had wounded brought in; then they expected nothing but death, and they made a sad lamentation and howling, as if they were all to die immediately.

It was not without a great deal of difficulty that I found ways to satisfy them, that nobody was to be punished but the man that had committed the fact; and then I caused him to be brought to the gears, with a halter about his neck, and be soundly whipped; and indeed, our people did scourge him severely from head to foot; and, I believe, if I had not run myself to put an end to it, they would have whipped him to death.

When this punishment was over, they put him into their boat, and let them all go on shore. But no sooner were they on shore, but they raised a terrible outcry in all the villages and towns near them, and they were not a few, the country being very populous; and great numbers came down to the shore, staring at us, and making confused ugly noises, and abundance of arrows they shot at the ship, but we rode too far from the shore for them to do us any hurt.

While this was doing, another fray happened on shore, where two of our men, bargaining with an islander and his wife for some fowls, they took their money and gave them part of the fowls, and pretended the woman should go and fetch the rest. While the woman was gone, three or four fellows came to the man who was left; when talking a while together, and seeing our men were but two, they began to take hold of the fowls which had been sold, and would take them away again; when one of our men stepped up to the fellow who had taken them, and went to lay hold of him, but he was too nimble for him, and ran away, and carried off the fowls and the money too. The seamen were so enraged to be so served, that they took up their pieces, for they had both fire-arms with them, and fired immediately after him, and aimed their shot so well, that though the fellow flew like the wind, he shot him through the head, and he dropped down dead upon the spot.

The rest of them, though terribly frightened, yet, seeing our men were but two, and the noise bringing twenty or thirty more immediately to them, attacked our men with their lances, and bows and arrows; and in a moment there was a pitched battle of two men only against twenty or thirty, and their number increasing too.

In short, our men spent their shot freely among them as long as it lasted, and killed six or seven, besides wounding ten or eleven more, and this cooled their courage, and they seemed to give over the battle; and our men, whose ammunition was almost spent, began to think of retreating to their boat, which was near a mile off, for they were very unhappily gotten from their boat so far up the country.

They made their retreat pretty well for about half the way, when, on a sudden, they saw they were not pursued only, but surrounded, and that some of their enemies were before them. This made them double their pace, and, seeing no remedy, they resolved to break through those that were before them, who were about eleven or twelve. Accordingly, as soon as they came within pistol shot of them, one of our men having, for want of shot, put almost a handful of gravel and small stones into his piece, fired among them, and the gravel and stones scattering, wounded almost all of them; for they being naked from the waist upwards, the least grain of sand scratched and hurt them, and made them bleed if it only entered the skin.

Being thus completely scared, and indeed more afraid than hurt, they all ran away, except two, who were really wounded with the shot or stones, and lay upon the ground. Our men let them lie, and made the best of their way to their boat; where, at last, they got safe, but with a great number of the people at their heels. Our men did not stay to fire from the boat, but put off with all the speed they could, for fear of poisoned arrows, and the country people poured so many of their arrows into the boat after them, and aimed them also so truly, that two of our men were hurt with them; but, whether they were poisoned or not, our surgeons cured them both.

We had enough of Ceylon; and having no business to make such a kind of war as this must have been, in which we might have lost but could get nothing, we weighed, and stood away to the East. What became of the fellow that was lashed we knew not; but, as he had but little flesh left on his back, which was not mangled and torn with our whipping him, and we supposed they were but indifferent surgeons, our people said the fellow could not live; and the reason they gave for it was, because they did not pickle him after it. Truly, they said, that they would not be so kind to him as to pickle him: for though pickling, that is to say, throwing salt and vinegar on the back after the whipping, is cruel enough as to the pain it is to the patient, yet it is certainly the way to prevent mortification, and causes it to heal again with more ease.

We stood over from Ceylon east-south-east cross the great Bay of Bengal, leaving all the coast of Coromandel, and standing directly for Achen, on the north point of the great island of Sumatra, and in the latitude of 6° 81' north.

Here we spread our French colours, and, coming to an anchor, suffered none of our men to go on shore but Captain Merlotte and his Frenchmen; and, having nothing to do there, or anywhere else in the Indian seas, but to take in provisions and fresh water, we stayed but five days; in which time we supplied ourselves with what the place would afford; and, pretending to be bound for China, we went on to the south through the straits of Malacca, between the island of Sumatra and the main or isthmus of Malacca.

We had here a very difficult passage, though we took two pilots on board at Achen, who pretended to know the straits perfectly well; twice we were in very great danger of being lost, and once our Madagascar ship was so entangled among rocks and currents, that we gave her up for lost, and twice she struck upon the rocks, but she did but touch, and went clear.

We went several times on shore among the Malayans, as well on the shore of Malacca itself, as on the side of Sumatra. They are as fierce, cruel, treacherous, and merciless a crew of human devils as any I have met with on the face of the whole earth; and we had some skirmishes with them, but not of any consequence. We made no stay anywhere in this strait but just for fresh water, and what other fresh provisions we could get, such as roots, greens, hogs, and fowls, of which they have plenty and a great variety: but nothing to be had but for ready money; which our men took so unkindly, and especially their offering two or three times to cheat them, and once to murder them, that afterwards they made no scruple to go on shore a hundred or more at a time, and plunder and burn what they could not carry off; till at last we began to be such a terror to them, that they fled from us wherever we came.

On the 5th of March we made the southernmost part of the Isthmus of Malacca, and the island and straits of Sincapora, famous for its being the great outlet into the Chinese sea, and lying in the latitude of 1° 15' north latitude.

We had good weather through these straits, which was very much to our comfort; the different currents and number of little islands making it otherwise very dangerous, especially to strangers. We got, by very good luck, a Dutch pilot to carry us through this strait, who was a very useful, skilful fellow, but withal so impertinent and inquisitive, that we knew not what to say to him nor what to do with him; at last he grew saucy and insolent, and told our chief mate that he did not know but we might be pirates, or at least enemies to his countrymen the Dutch; and if we would not tell him who we were and whither we were bound, he would not pilot us any farther.

This I thought very insolent, to a degree beyond what was sufferable; and bade the boatswain put a halter about the fellow's neck, and tell him that, the moment he omitted to direct the steerage as a pilot, or the moment the ship come to any misfortune, or struck upon any rock, he should be hung up.

The boatswain, a rugged fellow, provided himself with a halter, and coming up to the pilot, asked him what it was he wanted to be satisfied in?

The pilot said he desired to have a true account whither we were going.

Why, says the boatswain, we are agoing to the devil, and I shall send you before to tell him we are coming; and with that he pulled the halter out of his pocket and put it over his head, and taking the other end in his hand, Come, says the boatswain, come along with me; do you think we can't go through the strait of Sincapora without your help? I warrant you, says he, we will do without you.

By this time it may be supposed the Dutchman was in a mortal fright, and half choked too with being dragged by the throat with the halter, and, full heartily he begged for his life: at length the boatswain, who had pulled him along a good way, stopped and the Dutchman fell down on his knees; but the boatswain said, he had the captain's orders to hang him, and hang him he would, unless the captain recalled his orders; but that he would stay so long, if anybody would go up to the captain and tell him what the Dutchman said, and bring back an answer.

I had no design to hang the poor fellow, it is true, and the boatswain knew that well enough. However, I was resolved to humble him effectually, so I sent back two men to the boatswain, the first was to tell the boatswain aloud that the captain was resolved to have the fellow hanged, for having been so impudent to threaten to run the ship aground; but then the second, who was to stay a little behind, was to call out, as if he came since the first from me, and that I had been prevailed with to pardon him, on his promises of better behaviour. This was all acted to admiration; for the first messenger called aloud to the boatswain, that the captain said he would have the Dutchman hanged for a warning to all pilots, and to teach them not to insult men when they are in difficulties, as the midwives do whores in labour, and will not deliver them till they confess who is the father.

The boatswain had the end of the halter in his hand all the while; I told you so, says he, before. Come, come along Mynheer, I shall quickly do your work, and put you out of your pain; and then he dragged the poor fellow along to the main-mast. By this time the second messenger came in, and delivered his part of the errand, and so the poor Dutchman was put out of his fright, and they gave him a dram to restore him a little, and he did his business very honestly afterwards.

And now we were at liberty again, being in the open sea, which was what we were very impatient for before. We made a long run over that part which we call the sea of Borneo, and the upper part of the Indian Arches, called so from its being full of islands, like the Archipelago of the Levant. It was a long run, but, as we were to the north of the islands, we had the more sea-room; so we steered east half a point, one way or other, for the Manillas, or Philippine Islands, which was the true design of our voyage; and, perhaps, we were the first ship that ever came to those islands, freighted from Europe, since the Portuguese lost their footing there.

We put in on the north coast of Borneo for fresh water, and were civilly used by the inhabitants of the place, who brought us roots and fruits of several kinds, and some goats, which we were glad of: we paid them in trifles, such as knives, scissors, toys, and several sorts of wrought iron, hatchets, hammers, glass-work, looking-glasses, and drinking-glasses; and from hence we went away, as I said, for the Philippine Islands.

We saw several islands in our way, but made no stop, except once for water, and arrived at Manilla the 22nd of May, all our vessels in very good condition, our men healthy, and our ships sound; having met with very few contrary winds, and not one storm in the whole voyage from Madagascar. We had now been seventeen months and two days on our voyage from England.