bark, which they hired at sea there, to put them on shore, and
afterwards to carry them to France, if they could get provisions to
victual themselves with. When I say all the French went on shore,
I should remember that the young priest I spoke of, hearing we were
bound to the East Indies, desired to go the voyage with us, and to
be set on shore on the coast of Coromandel; which I readily agreed
to, for I wonderfully liked the man, and had very good reason, as
will appear afterwards; also four of the seamen entered themselves
on our ship, and proved very useful fellows.
From hence we directed our course for the West Indies, steering
away S. and S. by E. for about twenty days together, sometimes
little or no wind at all; when we met with another subject for our
humanity to work upon, almost as deplorable as that before.
CHAPTER II – INTERVENING HISTORY OF COLONY
IT was in the latitude of 27 degrees 5 minutes N., on the 19th day
of March 1694-95, when we spied a sail, our course SE. and by S.
We soon perceived it was a large vessel, and that she bore up to
us, but could not at first know what to make of her, till, after
coming a little nearer, we found she had lost her main-topmast,
fore-mast, and bowsprit; and presently she fired a gun as a signal
of distress. The weather was pretty good, wind at NNW. a fresh
gale, and we soon came to speak with her. We found her a ship of
Bristol, bound home from Barbadoes, but had been blown out of the
road at Barbadoes a few days before she was ready to sail, by a
terrible hurricane, while the captain and chief mate were both gone
on shore; so that, besides the terror of the storm, they were in an
indifferent case for good mariners to bring the ship home. They
had been already nine weeks at sea, and had met with another
terrible storm, after the hurricane was over, which had blown them
quite out of their knowledge to the westward, and in which they
lost their masts. They told us they expected to have seen the
Bahama Islands, but were then driven away again to the south-east,
by a strong gale of wind at NNW., the same that blew now: and
having no sails to work the ship with but a main course, and a kind
of square sail upon a jury fore-mast, which they had set up, they
could not lie near the wind, but were endeavouring to stand away
for the Canaries.
But that which was worst of all was, that they were almost starved
for want of provisions, besides the fatigues they had undergone;
their bread and flesh were quite gone – they had not one ounce left
in the ship, and had had none for eleven days. The only relief
they had was, their water was not all spent, and they had about
half a barrel of flour left; they had sugar enough; some succades,
or sweetmeats, they had at first, but these were all devoured; and
they had seven casks of rum. There was a youth and his mother and
a maid-servant on board, who were passengers, and thinking the ship
was ready to sail, unhappily came on board the evening before the
hurricane began; and having no provisions of their own left, they
were in a more deplorable condition than the rest: for the seamen
being reduced to such an extreme necessity themselves, had no
compassion, we may be sure, for the poor passengers; and they were,
indeed, in such a condition that their misery is very hard to
describe.
I had perhaps not known this part, if my curiosity had not led me,
the weather being fair and the wind abated, to go on board the
ship. The second mate, who upon this occasion commanded the ship,
had been on board our ship, and he told me they had three
passengers in the great cabin that were in a deplorable condition.
“Nay,” says he, “I believe they are dead, for I have heard nothing