about it, though not more upon him than any of the rest; that as to
having no command in the ship, that was true; nor did I exercise
any authority, only took the liberty of speaking my mind in things
which publicly concerned us all; and what concern I had in the
voyage was none of his business; that I was a considerable owner in
the ship. In that claim I conceived I had a right to speak even
further than I had done, and would not be accountable to him or any
one else, and began to be a little warm with him. He made but
little reply to me at that time, and I thought the affair had been
over. We were at this time in the road at Bengal; and being
willing to see the place, I went on shore with the supercargo in
the ship’s boat to divert myself; and towards evening was preparing
to go on board, when one of the men came to me, and told me he
would not have me trouble myself to come down to the boat, for they
had orders not to carry me on board any more. Any one may guess
what a surprise I was in at so insolent a message; and I asked the
man who bade him deliver that message to me? He told me the
coxswain.
I immediately found out the supercargo, and told him the story,
adding that I foresaw there would be a mutiny in the ship; and
entreated him to go immediately on board and acquaint the captain
of it. But I might have spared this intelligence, for before I had
spoken to him on shore the matter was effected on board. The
boatswain, the gunner, the carpenter, and all the inferior
officers, as soon as I was gone off in the boat, came up, and
desired to speak with the captain; and then the boatswain, making a
long harangue, and repeating all he had said to me, told the
captain that as I was now gone peaceably on shore, they were loath
to use any violence with me, which, if I had not gone on shore,
they would otherwise have done, to oblige me to have gone. They
therefore thought fit to tell him that as they shipped themselves
to serve in the ship under his command, they would perform it well
and faithfully; but if I would not quit the ship, or the captain
oblige me to quit it, they would all leave the ship, and sail no
further with him; and at that word ALL he turned his face towards
the main-mast, which was, it seems, a signal agreed on, when the
seamen, being got together there, cried out, “ONE AND ALL! ONE AND
ALL!”
My nephew, the captain, was a man of spirit, and of great presence
of mind; and though he was surprised, yet he told them calmly that
he would consider of the matter, but that he could do nothing in it
till he had spoken to me about it. He used some arguments with
them, to show them the unreasonableness and injustice of the thing,
but it was all in vain; they swore, and shook hands round before
his face, that they would all go on shore unless he would engage to
them not to suffer me to come any more on board the ship.
This was a hard article upon him, who knew his obligation to me,
and did not know how I might take it. So he began to talk smartly
to them; told them that I was a very considerable owner of the
ship, and that if ever they came to England again it would cost
them very dear; that the ship was mine, and that he could not put
me out of it; and that he would rather lose the ship, and the
voyage too, than disoblige me so much: so they might do as they
pleased. However, he would go on shore and talk with me, and
invited the boatswain to go with him, and perhaps they might
accommodate the matter with me. But they all rejected the
proposal, and said they would have nothing to do with me any more;