was, came on unconcerned, till they came to the place where their
companions lay in a condition miserable enough. Here the poor ignorant
creatures, not sensible that they were within reach of the same
mischief, stood all together over the wounded man, talking, and, as may
be supposed, inquiring of him how he came to be hurt; and who, it is
very rational to believe, told them that a flash of fire first, and
immediately after that thunder from their gods, had killed those two and
wounded him. This, I say, is rational; for nothing is more certain than
that, as they saw no man near them, so they had never heard a gun in all
their lives, nor so much as heard of a gun; neither knew they anything
of killing and wounding at a distance with fire and bullets: if they
had, one might reasonably believe they would not have stood so
unconcerned to view the fate of their fellows, without some
apprehensions of their own.
Our two men, as they confessed to me, were grieved to be obliged to kill
so many poor creatures, who had no notion of their danger; yet, having
them all thus in their power, and the first having loaded his piece
again, resolved to let fly both together among them; and singling out,
by agreement, which to aim at, they shot together, and killed, or very
much wounded, four of them; the fifth, frightened even to death, though
not hurt, fell with the rest; so that our men, seeing them all fall
together, thought they had killed them all.
The belief that the savages were all killed made our two men come boldly
out from the tree before they had charged their guns, which was a wrong
step; and they were under some surprise when they came to the place, and
found no less than four of them alive, and of them two very little hurt,
and one not at all. This obliged them to fall upon them with the stocks
of their muskets; and first they made sure of the runaway savage, that
had been the cause of all the mischief, and of another that was hurt in
the knee, and put them out of their pain; then the man that was not hurt
at all came and kneeled down to them, with his two hands held up, and
made piteous moans to them, by gestures and signs, for his life, but
could not say one word to them that they could understand. However, they
made signs to him to sit down at the foot of a tree hard by; and one of
the Englishmen, with a piece of rope-yarn, which he had by great chance
in his pocket, tied his two hands behind him, and there they left him;
and with what speed they could made after the other two, which were gone
before, fearing they, or any more of them, should find the way to their
covered place in the woods, where their wives, and the few goods they
had left, lay. They came once in sight of the two men, but it was at a
great distance; however, they had the satisfaction to see them cross
over a valley towards the sea, the quite contrary way from that which
led to their retreat, which they were afraid of; and being satisfied
with that, they went back to the tree where they left their prisoner,
who as they supposed was delivered by his comrades; for he was gone, and
the two pieces of rope-yarn with which they had bound him, lay just at
the foot of the tree.
They were now in as great a concern as before, not knowing what course
to take, or how near the enemy might be, or in what numbers; so they
resolved to go away to the place where their wives were, to see if all
was well there, and to make them easy, who were in fright enough to be
sure; for though the savages were their own country-folks, yet they were
most terribly afraid of them, and perhaps the more, for the knowledge
they had of them.
When they came thither, they found the savages had been in the wood, and
very near the place, but had not found it; for indeed it was
inaccessible, by the trees standing so thick, as before, unless the
persons seeking it had been directed by those that knew it, which these
were not; they found, therefore, every thing very safe, only the women
in a terrible fright. While they were here they had the comfort of seven
of the Spaniards coming to their assistance: the other ten with their
servants, and old Friday, I mean Friday’s father, were gone in a body to
defend their bower, and the corn and cattle that were kept there, in
case the savages should have roved over to that side of the country; but
they did not spread so far. With the seven Spaniards came one of the
savages, who, as I said, were their prisoners formerly, and with them
also came the savage whom the Englishmen had left bound hand and foot at
the tree; for it seems they came that way, saw the slaughter of the
seven men, and unbound the eighth, and brought him along with them,
where, however, they were obliged to bind him again, as they had done
the two others, who were left when the third run away.
The prisoners began now to be a burden to them; and they were so afraid
of their escaping, that they thought they were under an absolute
necessity to kill them for their own preservation: however, the Spaniard
governor would not consent to it; but ordered, that they should be sent
out of the way to my old cave in the valley, and be kept there, with two
Spaniards to guard them and give them food; which was done; and they
were bound there hand and foot for that night.
When the Spaniards came, the two Englishmen were so encouraged, that
they could not satisfy themselves to stay any longer there; but taking
five of the Spaniards, and themselves, with four muskets and a pistol
among them, and two stout quarter-staves, away they went in quest of the
savages. And first, they came to the tree where the men lay that had
been killed; but it was easy to see that some more of the savages had
been there; for they attempted to carry their dead men away, and had
dragged two of them a good way, but had given it over; from thence they
advanced to the first rising ground, where they had stood and seen their
camp destroyed, and where they had the mortification still to see some
of the smoke; but neither could they here see any of the savages: they
then resolved, though with all possible caution, to go forward towards
their ruined plantation; but a little before they came thither, coming
in sight of the sea-shore, they saw plainly the savages all embarking
again in their canoes, in order to be gone.
They seemed sorry at first that there was no way to come at them to give
them a parting blow; but upon the whole were very well satisfied to be
rid of them.
The poor Englishmen being now twice ruined, and all their improvements
destroyed, the rest all agreed to come and help them to rebuild, and to
assist them with needful supplies. Their three countrymen, who were not
yet noted for having the least inclination to do any thing good, yet, as
soon as they heard of it (for they, living remote, knew nothing till all
was over), came and offered their help and assistance, and did very
friendly work for several days to restore their habitations and make
necessaries for them; and thus in a little time they were set upon their
legs again.
About two days after this they had the farther satisfaction of seeing
three of the savages’ canoes come driving onshore, and at some distance
from them, with two drowned men; by which they had reason to believe
that they had met with a storm at sea, which had overset some of them,
for it blew very hard the night after they went off.
However, as some might miscarry, so on the other hand enough of them
escaped to inform the rest, as well of what they had done, as of what
happened to them; and to whet them on to another enterprise of the same
nature, which they, it seems, resolved to attempt, with sufficient force
to carry all before them; for except what the first man told them of
inhabitants, they could say little to it of their own knowledge; for
they never saw one man, and the fellow being killed that had affirmed
it, they had no other witness to confirm it to them.
It was five or six months after this before they heard any more of the
savages, in which time our men were in hopes they had not forgot their
former bad luck, or had given over the hopes of better; when on a sudden
they were invaded with a most formidable fleet of no less than
twenty-eight canoes, full of savages, armed with bows and arrows, great
clubs, wooden swords, and such-like engines of war; and they brought
such numbers with them, that in short it put all our people into the
utmost consternation.
As they came on shore in the evening, and at the easternmost side of the
island, our men had that night to consult and consider what to do; and
in the first place, knowing that their being entirely concealed was
their only safety before, and would much more be so now, while the
number of their enemies was so great, they therefore resolved, first of
all, to take down the huts which were built for the two Englishmen, and
drive away their goats to the old cave; because they supposed the
savages would go directly thither as soon as it was day, to play the old
game over again, though they did not now land within two leagues of it.
In the next place, they drove away all the flock of goats they had at
the old bower, as I called it, which belonged to the Spaniards; and, in
short, left as little appearance of inhabitants any where as possible;
and the next morning early they posted themselves with all their force
at the plantation of the two men, waiting for their coming. As they
guessed, so it happened: these new invaders, leaving their canoes at the
east end of the island, came ranging along the shore, directly towards
the place, to the number of two hundred and fifty, as near as our men
could judge. Our army was but small indeed; but that which was worse,
they had not arms for all their number neither: the whole account, it
seems, stood thus:—first, as to men:
17 Spaniards.
5 Englishmen.
1 Old Friday, or Friday’s father.
3 Slaves, taken with the women, who proved very
faithful.
3 Other slaves who lived with the Spaniards.
—
29
To arm these they had:
11 Muskets.
5 Pistols.
3 Fowling-pieces.
5 Muskets, or fowling-pieces, which were taken by
me from the mutinous seamen whom I reduced.
2 Swords.
3 Old halberts.
—
29
To their slaves they did not give either musket or fusil, but they had
every one an halbert, or a long staff, like a quarter-staff, with a
great spike of iron fastened into each end of it, and by his side a
hatchet; also every one of our men had hatchets. Two of the women could
not be prevailed upon but they would come into the fight, and they had
bows and arrows, which the Spaniards had taken from the savages when the
first action happened, which I have spoken of, where the Indians fought
with one another; and the women had hatchets too.
The Spaniard governor, whom I have described so often, commanded the
whole; and William Atkins, who, though a dreadful fellow for wickedness,
was a most daring, bold fellow, commanded under him. The savages came
forward like lions, and our men, which was the worst of their fate, had
no advantage in their situation; only that Will Atkins, who now proved a
most useful fellow, with six men, was planted just behind a small
thicket of bushes, as an advanced guard, with orders to let the first of
them pass by, and then fire into the middle of them; and as soon as he
had fired to make his retreat, as nimbly as he could, round a part of
the wood, and so come in behind the Spaniards where they stood, having a
thicket of trees all before them.
When the savages came on, they ran straggling about every way in heaps,
out of all manner of order, and Will Atkins let about fifty of them pass
by him; then seeing the rest come in a very thick throng, he orders
three of his men to fire, having loaded their muskets with six or seven
bullets apiece, about as big as large pistol-bullets. How many they
killed or wounded they knew not; but the consternation and surprise was
inexpressible among the savages, who were frighted to the last degree,
to hear such a dreadful noise, and see their men killed, and others
hurt, but see nobody that did it. When in the middle of their fright,
William Atkins and his other three let fly again among the thickest of
them and in less than a minute the first three, being loaded again, gave
them a third volley.
Had William Atkins and his men retired immediately, as soon as they had
fired, as they were ordered to do; or had the rest of the body been at
hand to have poured in their shot continually, the savages had been
effectually routed; for the terror that was among them came principally
from this; viz. that they were killed by the gods with thunder and
lightning, and could see nobody that hurt them: but William Atkins
staying to load again, discovered the cheat; some of the savages who
were at a distance, spying them, came upon them behind; and though
Atkins and his men fired at them also, two or three times, and killed
above twenty, retiring as fast as they could, yet they wounded Atkins
himself, and killed one of his fellow Englishmen with their arrows, as
they did afterwards one Spaniard, and one of the Indian slaves who came
with the women. This slave was a most gallant fellow, and fought most
desperately, killing five of them with his own hand, having no weapon
but one of the armed staves and a hatchet.
Our men being thus hard laid at, Atkins wounded, and two other men
killed, retreated to a rising ground in the wood; and the Spaniards,
after firing three vollies upon them, retreated also; for their number
was so great, and they were so desperate, that though above fifty of
them were killed, and more than so many wounded, yet they came on in the
teeth of our men, fearless of danger, and shot their arrows like a
cloud; and it was observed, that their wounded men, who were not quite
disabled, were made outrageous by their wounds, and fought like madmen.
When our men retreated, they left the Spaniard and the Englishman that
were killed behind them; and the savages, when they came up to them,
killed them over again in a wretched manner, breaking their arms, legs,
and heads, with their clubs and wooden swords, like true savages. But
finding our men were gone, they did not seem inclined to pursue them,
but drew themselves up in a kind of ring, which is, it seems, their
custom, and shouted twice in token of their victory; after which, they
had the mortification to see several of their wounded men fall, dying
with the mere loss of blood.
The Spaniard governor having drawn his little body up together upon a
rising ground, Atkins, though he was wounded, would have had him march,
and charge them again all together at once: but the Spaniard replied,
“Seignior Atkins, you see how their wounded men fight; let them alone
till morning; all these wounded men will be stiff and sore with their
wounds, and faint with the loss of blood, and so we shall have the fewer
to engage.”
The advice was good; but Will Atkins replied merrily, “That’s true,
Seignior, and so shall I too; and that’s the reason I would go on while
I am warm.”—“Well, Seignior Atkins,” says the Spaniard, “you have
behaved gallantly, and done your part; we will fight for you, if you
cannot come on; but I think it best to stay till morning:” so
they waited.
But as it was a clear moonlight night, and they found the savages in
great disorder about their dead and wounded men, and a great hurry and
noise among them where they lay, they afterwards resolved to fall upon
them in the night, especially if they could come to give them but one
volley before they were discovered. This they had a fair opportunity to
do; for one of the two Englishmen, in whose quarter it was where the
fight began, led them round between the woods and the sea-side,
westward, and turning short south, they came so near where the thickest
of them lay, that before they were seen or heard, eight of them fired in
among them, and did dreadful execution upon them; in half a minute more
eight others fired after them, pouring in their small shot in such a
quantity, that abundance were killed and wounded; and all this while
they were not able to see who hurt them, or which way to fly.
The Spaniards charged again with the utmost expedition, and then
divided themselves into three bodies, and resolved to fall in among them
all together. They had in each body eight persons; that is to say,
twenty-four, whereof were twenty-two men, and the two women, who, by the
way, fought desperately.
They divided the fire-arms equally in each party, and so of the halberts
and staves. They would have had the women keep back; but they said they
were resolved to die with their husbands. Having thus formed their
little army, they marched out from among the trees, and came up to the
teeth of the enemy, shouting and hallooing as loud as they could. The
savages stood all together, but were in the utmost confusion, hearing
the noise of our men shouting from three quarters together; they would
have fought if they had seen us; and as soon as we came near enough to
be seen, some arrows were shot, and poor old Friday was wounded, though
not dangerously. But our men gave them no time, but running up to them,
fired among them three ways, and then fell in with the butt ends of
their muskets, their swords, armed staves, and hatchets; and laid about
them so well, that in a word they set up a dismal screaming and howling,
flying to save their lives which way soever they could.
Our men were tired with the execution; and killed, or mortally wounded,
in the two fights, about one hundred and eighty of them: the rest, being
frighted out of their wits, scoured through the woods and over the
hills, with all the speed that fear and nimble feet could help them to
do; and as we did not trouble ourselves much to pursue them, they got
all together to the sea-side, where they landed, and where their canoes
lay. But their disaster was not at an end yet, for it blew a terrible
storm of wind that evening from the seaward, so that it was impossible
for them to put off; nay, the storm continuing all night, when the tide
came up their canoes were most of them driven by the surge of the sea so
high upon the shore, that it required infinite toil to get them off; and
some of them were even dashed to pieces against the beach, or against
one another.
Our men, though glad of their victory, yet got little rest that night;
but having refreshed themselves as well as they could, they resolved to
march to that part of the island where the savages were fled, and see
what posture they were in. This necessarily led them over the place
where the fight had been, and where they found several of the poor
creatures not quite dead, and yet past recovering life; a sight
disagreeable enough to generous minds; for a truly great man, though
obliged by the law of battle to destroy his enemy, takes no delight in
his misery.
However, there was no need to give any order in this case; for their own
savages, who were their servants, dispatched those poor creatures with
their hatchets.
At length they came in view of the place where the more miserable
remains of the savages’ army lay, where there appeared about one hundred
still: their posture was generally sitting upon the ground, with their
knees up towards their mouth, and the head put between the hands,
leaning down upon the knees.
When our men came within two musket-shot of them, the Spaniard governor
ordered two muskets to be fired without ball, to alarm them; this he
did, that by their countenance he might know what to expect, viz.
whether they were still in heart to fight, or were so heartily beaten,
as to be dispirited and discouraged, and so he might manage accordingly.
This stratagem took; for as soon as the savages heard the first gun, and
saw the flash of the second, they started up upon their feet in the
greatest consternation imaginable; and as our men advanced swiftly
towards them, they all ran screaming and yawling away, with a kind of an
howling noise, which our men did not understand, and had never heard
before; and thus they ran up the hills into the country.
At first our men had much rather the weather had been calm, and they
had all gone away to sea; but they did not then consider, that this
might probably have been the occasion of their coming again in such
multitudes as not to be resisted; or, at least, to come so many and so
often, as would quite desolate the island and starve them. Will Atkins
therefore, who, notwithstanding his wound, kept always with them, proved
the best counsellor in this case. His advice was, to take the advantage
that offered, and clap in between them and their boats, and so deprive
them of the capacity of ever returning any more to plague the island.
They consulted long about this, and some were against it, for fear of
making the wretches fly into the woods, and live there desperate; and so
they should have them to hunt like wild beasts, be afraid to stir about
their business, and have their plantation continually rifled, all their
tame goats destroyed, and, in short, be reduced to a life of
continual distress.
Will Atkins told them they had better have to do with one hundred men
than with one hundred nations; that as they must destroy their boats, so
they must destroy the men, or be all of them destroyed themselves. In a
word, he shewed them the necessity of it so plainly, that they all came
into it; so they went to work immediately with the boats, and getting
some dry wood together from a dead tree, they tried to set some of them
on fire; but they were so wet that they would scarce burn. However, the
fire so burned the upper part, that it soon made them unfit for swimming
in the sea as boats. When the Indians saw what they were about, some of
them came running out of the woods, and coming as near as they could to
our men, kneeled down and cried, _Oa, Oa, Waramokoa_, and some other
words of their language, which none of the others understood any thing
of; but as they made pitiful gestures and strange noises, it was easy to
understand they begged to have their boats spared, and that they would
be gone, and never return thither again.
But our men were now satisfied, that they had no way to preserve
themselves or to save their colony, but effectually to prevent any of
these people from ever going home again; depending upon this, that if
ever so much as one of them got back into their country to tell the
story, the colony was undone; so that letting them know that they should
not have any mercy, they fell to work with their canoes, and destroyed
them, every one that the storm had not destroyed before; at the sight of
which the savages raised a hideous cry in the woods, which our people
heard plain enough; after which they ran about the island like
distracted men; so that, in a word, our men did not really know at first
what to do with them.
Nor did the Spaniards, with all their prudence, consider that while they
made those people thus desperate, they ought to have kept good guard at
the same time upon their plantations; for though it is true they had
driven away their cattle, and the Indians did not find their main
retreat, I mean my old castle at the hill, nor the cave in the valley;
yet they found out my plantation at the bower, and pulled it all to
pieces, and all the fences and planting about it; trod all the corn
under foot; tore up the vines and grapes, being just then almost ripe,
and did our men an inestimable damage, though to themselves not one
farthing’s-worth of service.
Though our men were able to fight them upon all occasions, yet they were
in no condition to pursue them, or hunt them up and down; for as they
were too nimble of foot for our men when they found them single, so our
men durst not go about single for fear of being surrounded with their
numbers: the best was, they had no weapons; for though they had bows
they had no arrows left, nor any materials to make any, nor had they any
edged tool or weapon among them. The extremity and distress they were
reduced to was great, and indeed deplorable, but at the same time our
men were also brought to very hard circumstances by them; for though
their retreats were preserved, yet their provision was destroyed, and
their harvest spoiled; and what to do or which way to turn themselves,
they knew not; the only refuge they had now was the stock of cattle they
had in the valley by the cave, and some little corn which grew there.
The three Englishmen, William Atkins and his comrades, were now reduced
to two, one of them being killed by an arrow, which struck him on the
side of his head, just under the temples, so that he never spoke more;
and it was very remarkable, that this was the same barbarous fellow who
cut the poor savage slave with his hatchet, and who afterwards intended
to have murdered the Spaniards.
I look upon their case to have been worse at this time than mine was at
any time after I first discovered the grains of barley and rice, and got
into the method of planting and raising my corn, and my tame cattle; for
now they had, as I may say, an hundred wolves upon the island, which
would devour every thing they could come at, yet could be very hardly
come at themselves.