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A LARGE SHIP SPIED TO THE NORTHWARD.

197

CHAPTER XVI.

A LARGE SHIP SPIED TO THE NORTHWARD-WE LAY HER UNDER CONTRIBUTION FOR PROVISIONS-WE PUT IN UPON THE SOUTH COAST OF CEYLON-BAD BEHAVIOUR OF OUR MEN THERE-VIOLENT STORM, DURING WHICH OUR SHIP GETS AGROUND-TRANSACTIONS WITH THE NATIVES AND THEIR AMBASSADOR, AN OLD DUTCHMAN.

We did all this in about five days, and filled our casks with water; and the last boat was coming off with herbs and roots, we being unmoored, and our fore-top-sail loose for sailing, when we spied a large ship to the northward, bearing down directly upon us. We knew not what she might be, but concluded the worst, and made all possible haste to get our anchor up, and get under sail, that we might be in readiness to see what she had to say to us, for we were under no great concern for one ship; but our notion was, that we should be attacked by three or four together.

By the time we had got up our anchor, and the boat was stowed, the ship was within a league of us, and, as we thought, bore down to engage us; so we spread our black flag, or ancient, on the poop, and the bloody flag at the top-mast head, and having made a clear ship, we stretched away to the westward, and got the wind of him.

They had, it seems, quite mistaken us before, expecting nothing of an enemy or a pirate in those seas; and, not doubting but we had been one of their own ships, they seemed to be in some confusion when they found their mistake; so they immediately hauled upon a wind on the other tack, and stood edging in for the shore, toward the easternmost part of the island. Upon this we tacked, and stood after him with all the sail we could, and in two hours came almost within gunshot. Though they crowded all the sail they could lay on, there was no remedy but to engage us, and they soon saw their inequality of force. We fired a gun for them to bring to: so they manned out their boat, and sent to us with a flag of truce. We sent back the boat, but with this answer to the captain, that he had nothing to do, but to strike his colours, and bring his ship under our stern, and

come on board us himself, when he should know our demands; but that, however, since he had not yet put us to the trouble of forcing him, which we saw we were able to do, we assured them that the captain should return again in safety, and all his men, and that, supplying us with such things as we should demand, his ship should not be plundered. They went back with this message, and it was some time after they were on board, that they struck, which made us begin to think they refused it: so we fired a shot, and in a few minutes more we perceived their boat put off; and as soon as the boat put off, the ship struck, and came to, as was directed.

When the captain came on board, we demanded an account of their cargo, which was chiefly bales of goods from Bengal for Bantam. We told them our present want was provisions, which they had no need of, being just at the end of their voyage; and that, if they would send their boat on shore with ours, and procure us six-and-twenty head of black cattle, threescore hogs, a quantity of brandy and arrack, and three hundred bushels of rice, we would let them go free.

As to the rice, they gave us six hundred bushels, which they had actually on board, together with a parcel shipped upon freight. Also, they gave us thirty middling casks of very good arrack, but beef and pork they had none.

How

ever, they went on shore with our men, and bought eleven bullocks and fifty hogs, which were pickled up for our occasion; and upon the supplies of provision being delivered, we dismissed them and their ship.

We lay here seven days before we could furnish ourselves with the provisions agreed for, and some of the men fancied the Dutchmen were contriving our destruction; but they were very honest, and did what they could to furnish the black cattle, but found it impossible to supply so many. So they came and told us ingenuously, that unless we could stay a while longer, they could get no more oxen or cows than those eleven, with which we were obliged to be satisfied, taking the value of them in other things, rather than stay longer there. On our side, we were punctual with them in observing the conditions we had agreed on; nor would we let any of our men so much as go on board them, or suffer any of their men to come on board us; for, had any of our men gone on board, nobody could have answered for their

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behaviour, any more than if they had been on shore in an enemy's country.

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We were now victualled for our voyage; and, as we cared not for purchase, we went merrily on for the coast of Ceylon, where we intended to touch, to get fresh water again, and more provisions; and we had nothing material offered in this part of the voyage, only that we met with contrary winds, and were above a month in the passage.

We put in upon the south coast of the island, desiring to have as little to do with the Dutch as we could; and as the Dutch were lords of the country as to commerce, so they are more so of the sea-coast, where they have several forts, and, in particular, have all the cinnamon, which is the trade of that island.

We took in fresh water here, and some provisions, but did not much trouble ourselves about laying in any stores, our beef and hogs, which we got at Java, being not yet all gone by a good deal. We had a small skirmish on shore here with some of the people of the island, some of our men having been a little too familiar with the homely ladies of the country; for homely indeed they were, to such a degree, that, if our men had not had good stomachs that way, they would scarce have touched any of them.

I could never fully get it out of our men what they did, they were so true to one another in their wickedness; but I understood in the main, that it was some barbarous thing they had done, and that they had like to have paid dear for it; for the men resented it to the last degree, and gathered in such numbers about them, that, had not sixteen more of our men, in another boat, gone all in the nick of time, just to rescue our first men, who were but eleven, and so fetch them off by main force, they had been all cut off, the inhabitants being no less than two or three hundred, armed with darts and lances, the usual weapons of the country, and which they are very dexterous at throwing, even so dexterous, that it was scarce credible; and had our men stood to fight them, as some of them were bold enough to talk of, they had all been overwhelmed and killed. As it was, seventeen of our men were wounded, and some of them very dangerously. But they were more frightened than hurt too; for every one of them gave themselves over for dead men, believing the lances were poisoned. But William was

our comfort here too; for, when two of our surgeons were of the same opinion, and told the men foolishly enough, that they would die, William cheerfully went to work with them, and cured them all but one, who rather died by drinking some arrack punch, than of his wouud, the excess of drinking throwing him into a fever.

We had enough of Ceylon, though some of our people were for going ashore again, sixty or seventy men together, to be revenged; but William persuaded them against it; and his reputation was so great among the men, as well as with us that were commanders, that he could influence them more than any of us.

They were mighty warm upon the revenge, and would go on shore, and destroy five hundred of them. Well, says William, and suppose you do, what are you the better? Why then, says one of them, speaking for the rest, we shall have our satisfaction. Well, and what will you be the better for that? says William. They could then say nothing to that. Then, says William, if I mistake not, your business is money: now, I desire to know, if you conquer and kill two or three thousand of these poor creatures, they have no money, pray what will you get? They are poor naked wretches, what shall you gain by them? But then, said William, perhaps in doing this, you may chance to lose half a score of your own company, as it is very probable you may. Pray, what gain is in it? and what account can you give the company for the lost men? In short, William argued so effectually, that he convinced them that it was mere murder to do so; and that the men had a right to their own, and that they had no right to take them away; that it was destroying innocent men, who had acted no otherwise than as the laws of nature dictated; and that it would be as much murder to do so, as to meet a man on the highway, and kill him, for the mere sake of it, in cool blood, not regarding whether he had done any, wrong to us or no.

These reasons prevailed with them at last, and they were content to go away, and leave them as they found them. In the first skirmish they killed between sixty and seventy men, and wounded a great many more: but they had nothing, and our people got nothing by it but the loss of one man's life, and the wounding sixteen more, as above.

But another accident brought us to a necessity of farther

A VIOLENT STORM OF WIND BRINGS THEM AGROUND. 201

business with these people, and indeed we had like to have put an end to our lives and adventures all at once among them; for, about three days after our putting out to sea, from the place where we had that skirmish, we were attacked by a violent storm of wind from the south, or rather a hurricane of wind from all the points southward, for it blew in a most desperate and furious manner, from the S.E. to the S.W., one minute at one point, and then instantly turning about again to another point, but with the same violence; nor were we able to work the ship in that condition; so that the ship I was in split three topsails, and at last brought the main topmast by the board; and, in a word, we were once or twice driven right ashore; and one time, had not the wind shifted the very moment it did, we had been dashed in a thousand pieces upon a great ledge of rocks, which lay off about half a league from the shore: but, as I have said, the wind shifting very often, and at that time coming to the E.S.E., we stretched off, and got above a league more sea-room in half-an-hour. After that, it blew with some fury S.W. by S., then S.W. by W., and put us back again a great way to the eastward of the ledge of rocks, where we found a great opening between the rocks and the land, and endeavoured to come to an anchor there; but we found there was no ground fit to anchor in, there being nothing but rocks. We stood through the opening, which held about four leagues. The storm continued, and now we found a dreadful foul shore, and knew not what course to take. We looked out very narrowly for some river or creek, or bay, where we might run in, and come to an anchor, but found none a great while. At length we saw a great headland lie out far south into the sea, and that to such a length, that, in short, we saw plainly, that, if the wind held where it was, we could not weather it; so we run in as much under the lee of the point as we could, and came to an anchor in about twelve fathom water.

But the wind veering again in the night, and blowing exceedingly hard, our anchors came home, and the ship drove till the rudder struck against the ground; and, had the ship gone half her length farther, she had been lost, and every one of us with her. But our sheet anchor held its own, and we heaved in some of the cable, to get clear of the ground we had struck upon. It was by this only cable

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