I had no more business to go to the East Indies than a man at full
liberty has to go to the turnkey at Newgate, and desire him to lock him
up among the prisoners there, and starve him. Had I taken a small vessel
from England and gone directly to the island; had I loaded her, as I did
the other vessel, with all the necessaries for the plantation and for my
people; taken a patent from the government here to have secured my
property, in subjection only to that of England; had I carried over
cannon and ammunition, servants and people to plant, and taken possession
of the place, fortified and strengthened it in the name of England, and
increased it with people, as I might easily have done; had I then settled
myself there, and sent the ship back laden with good rice, as I might
also have done in six months' time, and ordered my friends to have fitted
her out again for our supply--had I done this, and stayed there myself, I
had at least acted like a man of common sense. But I was possessed of a
wandering spirit, and scorned all advantages: I pleased myself with being
the patron of the people I placed there, and doing for them in a kind of
haughty, majestic way, like an old patriarchal monarch, providing for
them as if I had been father of the whole family, as well as of the
plantation. But I never so much as pretended to plant in the name of any
government or nation, or to acknowledge any prince, or to call my people
subjects to any one nation more than another; nay, I never so much as
gave the place a name, but left it as I found it, belonging to nobody,
and the people under no discipline or government but my own, who, though
I had influence over them as a father and benefactor, had no authority or
power to act or command one way or other, further than voluntary consent
moved them to comply. Yet even this, had I stayed there, would have done
well enough; but as I rambled from them, and came there no more, the last
letters I had from any of them were by my partner's means, who afterwards
sent another sloop to the place, and who sent me word, though I had not
the letter till I got to London, several years after it was written, that
they went on but poorly; were discontented with their long stay there;
that Will Atkins was dead; that five of the Spaniards were come away; and
though they had not been much molested by the savages, yet they had had
some skirmishes with them; and that they begged of him to write to me to
think of the promise I had made to fetch them away, that they might see
their country again before they died.
But I was gone a wildgoose chase indeed, and they that will have any more
of me must be content to follow me into a new variety of follies,
hardships, and wild adventures, wherein the justice of Providence may be
duly observed; and we may see how easily Heaven can gorge us with our own
desires, make the strongest of our wishes be our affliction, and punish
us most severely with those very things which we think it would be our
utmost happiness to be allowed to possess. Whether I had business or no
business, away I went: it is no time now to enlarge upon the reason or
absurdity of my own conduct, but to come to the history--I was embarked
for the voyage, and the voyage I went.
I shall only add a word or two concerning my honest Popish clergyman, for
let their opinion of us, and all other heretics in general, as they call
us, be as uncharitable as it may, I verily believe this man was very
sincere, and wished the good of all men: yet I believe he used reserve in
many of his expressions, to prevent giving me offence; for I scarce heard
him once call on the Blessed Virgin, or mention St. Jago, or his guardian
angel, though so common with the rest of them. However, I say I had not
the least doubt of his sincerity and pious intentions; and I am firmly of
opinion, if the rest of the Popish missionaries were like him, they would
strive to visit even the poor Tartars and Laplanders, where they have
nothing to give them, as well as covet to flock to India, Persia, China,
&c., the most wealthy of the heathen countries; for if they expected to
bring no gains to their Church by it, it may well be admired how they
came to admit the Chinese Confucius into the calendar of the Christian
saints.
A ship being ready to sail for Lisbon, my pious priest asked me leave to
go thither; being still, as he observed, bound never to finish any voyage
he began. How happy it had been for me if I had gone with him. But it
was too late now; all things Heaven appoints for the best: had I gone
with him I had never had so many things to be thankful for, and the
reader had never heard of the second part of the travels and adventures
of Robinson Crusoe: so I must here leave exclaiming at myself, and go on
with my voyage. From the Brazils we made directly over the Atlantic Sea
to the Cape of Good Hope, and had a tolerably good voyage, our course
generally south-east, now and then a storm, and some contrary winds; but
my disasters at sea were at an end--my future rubs and cross events were
to befall me on shore, that it might appear the land was as well prepared
to be our scourge as the sea.
Our ship was on a trading voyage, and had a supercargo on board, who was
to direct all her motions after she arrived at the Cape, only being
limited to a certain number of days for stay, by charter-party, at the
several ports she was to go to. This was none of my business, neither
did I meddle with it; my nephew, the captain, and the supercargo
adjusting all those things between them as they thought fit. We stayed
at the Cape no longer than was needful to take in fresh water, but made
the best of our way for the coast of Coromandel. We were, indeed,
informed that a French man-of-war, of fifty guns, and two large merchant
ships, were gone for the Indies; and as I knew we were at war with
France, I had some apprehensions of them; but they went their own way,
and we heard no more of them.
I shall not pester the reader with a tedious description of places,
journals of our voyage, variations of the compass, latitudes,
trade-winds, &c.; it is enough to name the ports and places which we
touched at, and what occurred to us upon our passages from one to
another. We touched first at the island of Madagascar, where, though the
people are fierce and treacherous, and very well armed with lances and
bows, which they use with inconceivable dexterity, yet we fared very well
with them a while. They treated us very civilly; and for some trifles
which we gave them, such as knives, scissors, &c., they brought us eleven
good fat bullocks, of a middling size, which we took in, partly for fresh
provisions for our present spending, and the rest to salt for the ship's
use.
We were obliged to stay here some time after we had furnished ourselves
with provisions; and I, who was always too curious to look into every
nook of the world wherever I came, went on shore as often as I could. It
was on the east side of the island that we went on shore one evening: and
the people, who, by the way, are very numerous, came thronging about us,
and stood gazing at us at a distance. As we had traded freely with them,
and had been kindly used, we thought ourselves in no danger; but when we
saw the people, we cut three boughs out of a tree, and stuck them up at a
distance from us; which, it seems, is a mark in that country not only of
a truce and friendship, but when it is accepted the other side set up
three poles or boughs, which is a signal that they accept the truce too;
but then this is a known condition of the truce, that you are not to pass
beyond their three poles towards them, nor they to come past your three
poles or boughs towards you; so that you are perfectly secure within the
three poles, and all the space between your poles and theirs is allowed
like a market for free converse, traffic, and commerce. When you go
there you must not carry your weapons with you; and if they come into
that space they stick up their javelins and lances all at the first
poles, and come on unarmed; but if any violence is offered them, and the
truce thereby broken, away they run to the poles, and lay hold of their
weapons, and the truce is at an end.
It happened one evening, when we went on shore, that a greater number of
their people came down than usual, but all very friendly and civil; and
they brought several kinds of provisions, for which we satisfied them
with such toys as we had; the women also brought us milk and roots, and
several things very acceptable to us, and all was quiet; and we made us a
little tent or hut of some boughs or trees, and lay on shore all night. I
know not what was the occasion, but I was not so well satisfied to lie on
shore as the rest; and the boat riding at an anchor at about a stone's
cast from the land, with two men in her to take care of her, I made one
of them come on shore; and getting some boughs of trees to cover us also
in the boat, I spread the sail on the bottom of the boat, and lay under
the cover of the branches of the trees all night in the boat.
About two o'clock in the morning we heard one of our men making a
terrible noise on the shore, calling out, for God's sake, to bring the
boat in and come and help them, for they were all like to be murdered;
and at the same time I heard the fire of five muskets, which was the
number of guns they had, and that three times over; for it seems the
natives here were not so easily frightened with guns as the savages were
in America, where I had to do with them. All this while, I knew not what
was the matter, but rousing immediately from sleep with the noise, I
caused the boat to be thrust in, and resolved with three fusees we had on
board to land and assist our men. We got the boat soon to the shore, but
our men were in too much haste; for being come to the shore, they plunged
into the water, to get to the boat with all the expedition they could,
being pursued by between three and four hundred men. Our men were but
nine in all, and only five of them had fusees with them; the rest had
pistols and swords, indeed, but they were of small use to them.
We took up seven of our men, and with difficulty enough too, three of
them being very ill wounded; and that which was still worse was, that
while we stood in the boat to take our men in, we were in as much danger
as they were in on shore; for they poured their arrows in upon us so
thick that we were glad to barricade the side of the boat up with the
benches, and two or three loose boards which, to our great satisfaction,
we had by mere accident in the boat. And yet, had it been daylight, they
are, it seems, such exact marksmen, that if they could have seen but the
least part of any of us, they would have been sure of us. We had, by the
light of the moon, a little sight of them, as they stood pelting us from
the shore with darts and arrows; and having got ready our firearms, we
gave them a volley that we could hear, by the cries of some of them, had
wounded several; however, they stood thus in battle array on the shore
till break of day, which we supposed was that they might see the better
to take their aim at us.
In this condition we lay, and could not tell how to weigh our anchor, or
set up our sail, because we must needs stand up in the boat, and they
were as sure to hit us as we were to hit a bird in a tree with small
shot. We made signals of distress to the ship, and though she rode a
league off, yet my nephew, the captain, hearing our firing, and by
glasses perceiving the posture we lay in, and that we fired towards the
shore, pretty well understood us; and weighing anchor with all speed, he
stood as near the shore as he durst with the ship, and then sent another
boat with ten hands in her, to assist us. We called to them not to come
too near, telling them what condition we were in; however, they stood in
near to us, and one of the men taking the end of a tow-line in his hand,
and keeping our boat between him and the enemy, so that they could not
perfectly see him, swam on board us, and made fast the line to the boat:
upon which we slipped out a little cable, and leaving our anchor behind,
they towed us out of reach of the arrows; we all the while lying close
behind the barricade we had made. As soon as we were got from between
the ship and the shore, that we could lay her side to the shore, she ran
along just by them, and poured in a broadside among them, loaded with
pieces of iron and lead, small bullets, and such stuff, besides the great
shot, which made a terrible havoc among them.
When we were got on board and out of danger, we had time to examine into
the occasion of this fray; and indeed our supercargo, who had been often
in those parts, put me upon it; for he said he was sure the inhabitants
would not have touched us after we had made a truce, if we had not done
something to provoke them to it. At length it came out that an old
woman, who had come to sell us some milk, had brought it within our
poles, and a young woman with her, who also brought us some roots or
herbs; and while the old woman (whether she was mother to the young woman
or no they could not tell) was selling us the milk, one of our men
offered some rudeness to the girl that was with her, at which the old
woman made a great noise: however, the seaman would not quit his prize,
but carried her out of the old woman's sight among the trees, it being
almost dark; the old woman went away without her, and, as we may suppose,
made an outcry among the people she came from; who, upon notice, raised
that great army upon us in three or four hours, and it was great odds but
we had all been destroyed.
One of our men was killed with a lance thrown at him just at the
beginning of the attack, as he sallied out of the tent they had made; the
rest came off free, all but the fellow who was the occasion of all the
mischief, who paid dear enough for his brutality, for we could not hear
what became of him for a great while. We lay upon the shore two days
after, though the wind presented, and made signals for him, and made our
boat sail up shore and down shore several leagues, but in vain; so we
were obliged to give him over; and if he alone had suffered for it, the
loss had been less. I could not satisfy myself, however, without
venturing on shore once more, to try if I could learn anything of him or
them; it was the third night after the action that I had a great mind to
learn, if I could by any means, what mischief we had done, and how the
game stood on the Indians' side. I was careful to do it in the dark,
lest we should be attacked again: but I ought indeed to have been sure
that the men I went with had been under my command, before I engaged in a
thing so hazardous and mischievous as I was brought into by it, without
design.
We took twenty as stout fellows with us as any in the ship, besides the
supercargo and myself, and we landed two hours before midnight, at the
same place where the Indians stood drawn up in the evening before. I
landed here, because my design, as I have said, was chiefly to see if
they had quitted the field, and if they had left any marks behind them of
the mischief we had done them, and I thought if we could surprise one or
two of them, perhaps we might get our man again, by way of exchange.
We landed without any noise, and divided our men into two bodies, whereof
the boatswain commanded one and I the other. We neither saw nor heard
anybody stir when we landed: and we marched up, one body at a distance
from another, to the place. At first we could see nothing, it being very
dark; till by-and-by our boatswain, who led the first party, stumbled and
fell over a dead body. This made them halt a while; for knowing by the
circumstances that they were at the place where the Indians had stood,
they waited for my coming up there. We concluded to halt till the moon
began to rise, which we knew would be in less than an hour, when we could
easily discern the havoc we had made among them. We told thirty-two
bodies upon the ground, whereof two were not quite dead; some had an arm
and some a leg shot off, and one his head; those that were wounded, we
supposed, they had carried away. When we had made, as I thought, a full
discovery of all we could come to the knowledge of, I resolved on going
on board; but the boatswain and his party sent me word that they were
resolved to make a visit to the Indian town, where these dogs, as they
called them, dwelt, and asked me to go along with them; and if they could
find them, as they still fancied they should, they did not doubt of
getting a good booty; and it might be they might find Tom Jeffry there:
that was the man's name we had lost.
Had they sent to ask my leave to go, I knew well enough what answer to
have given them; for I should have commanded them instantly on board,
knowing it was not a hazard fit for us to run, who had a ship and ship-
loading in our charge, and a voyage to make which depended very much upon
the lives of the men; but as they sent me word they were resolved to go,
and only asked me and my company to go along with them, I positively
refused it, and rose up, for I was sitting on the ground, in order to go
to the boat. One or two of the men began to importune me to go; and when
I refused, began to grumble, and say they were not under my command, and
they would go. "Come, Jack," says one of the men, "will you go with me?
I'll go for one." Jack said he would--and then another--and, in a word,
they all left me but one, whom I persuaded to stay, and a boy left in the
boat. So the supercargo and I, with the third man, went back to the
boat, where we told them we would stay for them, and take care to take in
as many of them as should be left; for I told them it was a mad thing
they were going about, and supposed most of them would have the fate of
Tom Jeffry.
They told me, like seamen, they would warrant it they would come off
again, and they would take care, &c.; so away they went. I entreated
them to consider the ship and the voyage, that their lives were not their
own, and that they were entrusted with the voyage, in some measure; that
if they miscarried, the ship might be lost for want of their help, and
that they could not answer for it to God or man. But I might as well
have talked to the mainmast of the ship: they were mad upon their
journey; only they gave me good words, and begged I would not be angry;
that they did not doubt but they would be back again in about an hour at
furthest; for the Indian town, they said, was not above half-a mile off,
though they found it above two miles before they got to it.
Well, they all went away, and though the attempt was desperate, and such
as none but madmen would have gone about, yet, to give them their due,
they went about it as warily as boldly; they were gallantly armed, for
they had every man a fusee or musket, a bayonet, and a pistol; some of
them had broad cutlasses, some of them had hangers, and the boatswain and
two more had poleaxes; besides all which they had among them thirteen
hand grenadoes. Bolder fellows, and better provided, never went about
any wicked work in the world. When they went out their chief design was
plunder, and they were in mighty hopes of finding gold there; but a
circumstance which none of them were aware of set them on fire with
revenge, and made devils of them all.
When they came to the few Indian houses which they thought had been the
town, which was not above half a mile off, they were under great
disappointment, for there were not above twelve or thirteen houses, and
where the town was, or how big, they knew not. They consulted,
therefore, what to do, and were some time before they could resolve; for
if they fell upon these, they must cut all their throats; and it was ten
to one but some of them might escape, it being in the night, though the
moon was up; and if one escaped, he would run and raise all the town, so
they should have a whole army upon them; on the other hand, if they went
away and left those untouched, for the people were all asleep, they could
not tell which way to look for the town; however, the last was the best
advice, so they resolved to leave them, and look for the town as well as
they could. They went on a little way, and found a cow tied to a tree;
this, they presently concluded, would be a good guide to them; for, they
said, the cow certainly belonged to the town before them, or the town
behind them, and if they untied her, they should see which way she went:
if she went back, they had nothing to say to her; but if she went
forward, they would follow her. So they cut the cord, which was made of
twisted flags, and the cow went on before them, directly to the town;
which, as they reported, consisted of above two hundred houses or huts,
and in some of these they found several families living together.
Here they found all in silence, as profoundly secure as sleep could make
them: and first, they called another council, to consider what they had
to do; and presently resolved to divide themselves into three bodies, and
so set three houses on fire in three parts of the town; and as the men
came out, to seize them and bind them (if any resisted, they need not be
asked what to do then), and so to search the rest of the houses for
plunder: but they resolved to march silently first through the town, and
see what dimensions it was of, and if they might venture upon it or no.
They did so, and desperately resolved that they would venture upon them:
but while they were animating one another to the work, three of them, who
were a little before the rest, called out aloud to them, and told them
that they had found--Tom Jeffry: they all ran up to the place, where they
found the poor fellow hanging up naked by one arm, and his throat cut.
There was an Indian house just by the tree, where they found sixteen or
seventeen of the principal Indians, who had been concerned in the fray
with us before, and two or three of them wounded with our shot; and our
men found they were awake, and talking one to another in that house, but
knew not their number.
The sight of their poor mangled comrade so enraged them, as before, that
they swore to one another that they would be revenged, and that not an
Indian that came into their hands should have any quarter; and to work
they went immediately, and yet not so madly as might be expected from the
rage and fury they were in. Their first care was to get something that
would soon take fire, but, after a little search, they found that would
be to no purpose; for most of the houses were low, and thatched with
flags and rushes, of which the country is full; so they presently made
some wildfire, as we call it, by wetting a little powder in the palm of
their hands, and in a quarter of an hour they set the town on fire in
four or five places, and particularly that house where the Indians were
not gone to bed.
As soon as the fire begun to blaze, the poor frightened creatures began
to rush out to save their lives, but met with their fate in the attempt;
and especially at the door, where they drove them back, the boatswain
himself killing one or two with his poleaxe. The house being large, and
many in it, he did not care to go in, but called for a hand grenado, and
threw it among them, which at first frightened them, but, when it burst,
made such havoc among them that they cried out in a hideous manner. In
short, most of the Indians who were in the open part of the house were
killed or hurt with the grenado, except two or three more who pressed to
the door, which the boatswain and two more kept, with their bayonets on
the muzzles of their pieces, and despatched all that came in their way;
but there was another apartment in the house, where the prince or king,
or whatever he was, and several others were; and these were kept in till
the house, which was by this time all in a light flame, fell in upon
them, and they were smothered together.
All this while they fired not a gun, because they would not waken the
people faster than they could master them; but the fire began to waken
them fast enough, and our fellows were glad to keep a little together in
bodies; for the fire grew so raging, all the houses being made of light
combustible stuff, that they could hardly bear the street between them.
Their business was to follow the fire, for the surer execution: as fast
as the fire either forced the people out of those houses which were
burning, or frightened them out of others, our people were ready at their
doors to knock them on the head, still calling and hallooing one to
another to remember Tom Jeffry.
While this was doing, I must confess I was very uneasy, and especially
when I saw the flames of the town, which, it being night, seemed to be
close by me. My nephew, the captain, who was roused by his men seeing
such a fire, was very uneasy, not knowing what the matter was, or what
danger I was in, especially hearing the guns too, for by this time they
began to use their firearms; a thousand thoughts oppressed his mind
concerning me and the supercargo, what would become of us; and at last,
though he could ill spare any more men, yet not knowing what exigence we
might be in, he took another boat, and with thirteen men and himself came
ashore to me.
He was surprised to see me and the supercargo in the boat with no more
than two men; and though he was glad that we were well, yet he was in the
same impatience with us to know what was doing; for the noise continued,
and the flame increased; in short, it was next to an impossibility for
any men in the world to restrain their curiosity to know what had
happened, or their concern for the safety of the men: in a word, the
captain told me he would go and help his men, let what would come. I
argued with him, as I did before with the men, the safety of the ship,
the danger of the voyage, the interests of the owners and merchants, &c.,
and told him I and the two men would go, and only see if we could at a
distance learn what was likely to be the event, and come back and tell
him. It was in vain to talk to my nephew, as it was to talk to the rest
before; he would go, he said; and he only wished he had left but ten men
in the ship, for he could not think of having his men lost for want of
help: he had rather lose the ship, the voyage, and his life, and all; and
away he went.
I was no more able to stay behind now than I was to persuade them not to
go; so the captain ordered two men to row back the pinnace, and fetch
twelve men more, leaving the long-boat at an anchor; and that, when they
came back, six men should keep the two boats, and six more come after us;
so that he left only sixteen men in the ship: for the whole ship's
company consisted of sixty-five men, whereof two were lost in the late
quarrel which brought this mischief on.
Being now on the march, we felt little of the ground we trod on; and
being guided by the fire, we kept no path, but went directly to the place
of the flame. If the noise of the guns was surprising to us before, the
cries of the poor people were now quite of another nature, and filled us
with horror. I must confess I was never at the sacking a city, or at the
taking a town by storm. I had heard of Oliver Cromwell taking Drogheda,
in Ireland, and killing man, woman, and child; and I had read of Count
Tilly sacking the city of Magdeburg and cutting the throats of twenty-two
thousand of all sexes; but I never had an idea of the thing itself
before, nor is it possible to describe it, or the horror that was upon
our minds at hearing it. However, we went on, and at length came to the
town, though there was no entering the streets of it for the fire. The
first object we met with was the ruins of a hut or house, or rather the
ashes of it, for the house was consumed; and just before it, plainly now
to be seen by the light of the fire, lay four men and three women,
killed, and, as we thought, one or two more lay in the heap among the
fire; in short, there were such instances of rage, altogether barbarous,
and of a fury something beyond what was human, that we thought it
impossible our men could be guilty of it; or, if they were the authors of
it, we thought they ought to be every one of them put to the worst of
deaths. But this was not all: we saw the fire increase forward, and the
cry went on just as the fire went on; so that we were in the utmost
confusion. We advanced a little way farther, and behold, to our
astonishment, three naked women, and crying in a most dreadful manner,
came flying as if they had wings, and after them sixteen or seventeen
men, natives, in the same terror and consternation, with three of our
English butchers in the rear, who, when they could not overtake them,
fired in among them, and one that was killed by their shot fell down in
our sight. When the rest saw us, believing us to be their enemies, and
that we would murder them as well as those that pursued them, they set up
a most dreadful shriek, especially the women; and two of them fell down,
as if already dead, with the fright.
My very soul shrunk within me, and my blood ran chill in my veins, when I
saw this; and, I believe, had the three English sailors that pursued them
come on, I had made our men kill them all; however, we took some means to
let the poor flying creatures know that we would not hurt them; and
immediately they came up to us, and kneeling down, with their hands
lifted up, made piteous lamentation to us to save them, which we let them
know we would: whereupon they crept all together in a huddle close behind
us, as for protection. I left my men drawn up together, and, charging
them to hurt nobody, but, if possible, to get at some of our people, and
see what devil it was possessed them, and what they intended to do, and
to command them off; assuring them that if they stayed till daylight they
would have a hundred thousand men about their ears: I say I left them,
and went among those flying people, taking only two of our men with me;
and there was, indeed, a piteous spectacle among them. Some of them had
their feet terribly burned with trampling and running through the fire;
others their hands burned; one of the women had fallen down in the fire,
and was very much burned before she could get out again; and two or three
of the men had cuts in their backs and thighs, from our men pursuing; and
another was shot through the body and died while I was there.
I would fain have learned what the occasion of all this was; but I could
not understand one word they said; though, by signs, I perceived some of
them knew not what was the occasion themselves. I was so terrified in my
thoughts at this outrageous attempt that I could not stay there, but went
back to my own men, and resolved to go into the middle of the town,
through the fire, or whatever might be in the way, and put an end to it,
cost what it would; accordingly, as I came back to my men, I told them my
resolution, and commanded them to follow me, when, at the very moment,
came four of our men, with the boatswain at their head, roving over heaps
of bodies they had killed, all covered with blood and dust, as if they
wanted more people to massacre, when our men hallooed to them as loud as
they could halloo; and with much ado one of them made them hear, so that
they knew who we were, and came up to us.
As soon as the boatswain saw us, he set up a halloo like a shout of
triumph, for having, as he thought, more help come; and without waiting
to hear me, "Captain," says he, "noble captain! I am glad you are come;
we have not half done yet. Villainous hell-hound dogs! I'll kill as
many of them as poor Tom has hairs upon his head: we have sworn to spare
none of them; we'll root out the very nation of them from the earth;" and
thus he ran on, out of breath, too, with action, and would not give us
leave to speak a word. At last, raising my voice that I might silence
him a little, "Barbarous dog!" said I, "what are you doing! I won't have
one creature touched more, upon pain of death; I charge you, upon your
life, to stop your hands, and stand still here, or you are a dead man
this minute."--"Why, sir," says he, "do you know what you do, or what
they have done? If you want a reason for what we have done, come
hither;" and with that he showed me the poor fellow hanging, with his
throat cut.
I confess I was urged then myself, and at another time would have been
forward enough; but I thought they had carried their rage too far, and
remembered Jacob's words to his sons Simeon and Levi: "Cursed be their
anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel." But I had
now a new task upon my hands; for when the men I had carried with me saw
the sight, as I had done, I had as much to do to restrain them as I
should have had with the others; nay, my nephew himself fell in with
them, and told me, in their hearing, that he was only concerned for fear
of the men being overpowered; and as to the people, he thought not one of
them ought to live; for they had all glutted themselves with the murder
of the poor man, and that they ought to be used like murderers. Upon
these words, away ran eight of my men, with the boatswain and his crew,
to complete their bloody work; and I, seeing it quite out of my power to
restrain them, came away pensive and sad; for I could not bear the sight,
much less the horrible noise and cries of the poor wretches that fell
into their hands.
I got nobody to come back with me but the supercargo and two men, and
with these walked back to the boat. It was a very great piece of folly
in me, I confess, to venture back, as it were, alone; for as it began now
to be almost day, and the alarm had run over the country, there stood
about forty men armed with lances and boughs at the little place where
the twelve or thirteen houses stood, mentioned before: but by accident I
missed the place, and came directly to the seaside, and by the time I got
to the seaside it was broad day: immediately I took the pinnace and went
on board, and sent her back to assist the men in what might happen. I
observed, about the time that I came to the boat-side, that the fire was
pretty well out, and the noise abated; but in about half-an-hour after I
got on board, I heard a volley of our men's firearms, and saw a great
smoke. This, as I understood afterwards, was our men falling upon the
men, who, as I said, stood at the few houses on the way, of whom they
killed sixteen or seventeen, and set all the houses on fire, but did not
meddle with the women or children.
By the time the men got to the shore again with the pinnace our men began
to appear; they came dropping in, not in two bodies as they went, but
straggling here and there in such a manner, that a small force of
resolute men might have cut them all off. But the dread of them was upon
the whole country; and the men were surprised, and so frightened, that I
believe a hundred of them would have fled at the sight of but five of our
men. Nor in all this terrible action was there a man that made any
considerable defence: they were so surprised between the terror of the
fire and the sudden attack of our men in the dark, that they knew not
which way to turn themselves; for if they fled one way they were met by
one party, if back again by another, so that they were everywhere knocked
down; nor did any of our men receive the least hurt, except one that
sprained his foot, and another that had one of his hands burned.