obliged to put in at Galway, in Ireland, where we lay wind-bound
two-and-twenty days; but we had this satisfaction with the
disaster, that provisions were here exceeding cheap, and in the
utmost plenty; so that while we lay here we never touched the
ship’s stores, but rather added to them. Here, also, I took in
several live hogs, and two cows with their calves, which I
resolved, if I had a good passage, to put on shore in my island;
but we found occasion to dispose otherwise of them.
We set out on the 5th of February from Ireland, and had a very fair
gale of wind for some days. As I remember, it might be about the
20th of February in the evening late, when the mate, having the
watch, came into the round-house and told us he saw a flash of
fire, and heard a gun fired; and while he was telling us of it, a
boy came in and told us the boatswain heard another. This made us
all run out upon the quarter-deck, where for a while we heard
nothing; but in a few minutes we saw a very great light, and found
that there was some very terrible fire at a distance; immediately
we had recourse to our reckonings, in which we all agreed that
there could be no land that way in which the fire showed itself,
no, not for five hundred leagues, for it appeared at WNW. Upon
this, we concluded it must be some ship on fire at sea; and as, by
our hearing the noise of guns just before, we concluded that it
could not be far off, we stood directly towards it, and were
presently satisfied we should discover it, because the further we
sailed, the greater the light appeared; though, the weather being
hazy, we could not perceive anything but the light for a while. In
about half-an-hour’s sailing, the wind being fair for us, though
not much of it, and the weather clearing up a little, we could
plainly discern that it was a great ship on fire in the middle of
the sea.
I was most sensibly touched with this disaster, though not at all
acquainted with the persons engaged in it; I presently recollected
my former circumstances, and what condition I was in when taken up
by the Portuguese captain; and how much more deplorable the
circumstances of the poor creatures belonging to that ship must be,
if they had no other ship in company with them. Upon this I
immediately ordered that five guns should be fired, one soon after
another, that, if possible, we might give notice to them that there
was help for them at hand and that they might endeavour to save
themselves in their boat; for though we could see the flames of the
ship, yet they, it being night, could see nothing of us.
We lay by some time upon this, only driving as the burning ship
drove, waiting for daylight; when, on a sudden, to our great
terror, though we had reason to expect it, the ship blew up in the
air; and in a few minutes all the fire was out, that is to say, the
rest of the ship sunk. This was a terrible, and indeed an
afflicting sight, for the sake of the poor men, who, I concluded,
must be either all destroyed in the ship, or be in the utmost
distress in their boat, in the middle of the ocean; which, at
present, as it was dark, I could not see. However, to direct them
as well as I could, I caused lights to be hung out in all parts of
the ship where we could, and which we had lanterns for, and kept
firing guns all the night long, letting them know by this that
there was a ship not far off.
About eight o’clock in the morning we discovered the ship’s boats
by the help of our perspective glasses, and found there were two of
them, both thronged with people, and deep in the water. We
perceived they rowed, the wind being against them; that they saw
our ship, and did their utmost to make us see them. We immediately