<h2>CHAPTER XI—WARNED OF DANGER BY A COUNTRYMAN</h2>
<p>A little while after this there came in a Dutch ship from
Batavia; she was a coaster, not an European trader, of about two
hundred tons burden; the men, as they pretended, having been so
sickly that the captain had not hands enough to go to sea with,
so he lay by at Bengal; and having, it seems, got money enough,
or being willing, for other reasons, to go for Europe, he gave
public notice he would sell his ship. This came to my ears
before my new partner heard of it, and I had a great mind to buy
it; so I went to him and told him of it. He considered a
while, for he was no rash man neither; and at last replied,
“She is a little too big—however, we will have
her.” Accordingly, we bought the ship, and agreeing
with the master, we paid for her, and took possession. When
we had done so we resolved to engage the men, if we could, to
join with those we had, for the pursuing our business; but, on a
sudden, they having received not their wages, but their share of
the money, as we afterwards learned, not one of them was to be
found; we inquired much about them, and at length were told that
they were all gone together by land to Agra, the great city of
the Mogul’s residence, to proceed from thence to Surat, and
then go by sea to the Gulf of Persia.</p>
<p>Nothing had so much troubled me a good while as that I should
miss the opportunity of going with them; for such a ramble, I
thought, and in such company as would both have guarded and
diverted me, would have suited mightily with my great design; and
I should have both seen the world and gone homeward too.
But I was much better satisfied a few days after, when I came to
know what sort of fellows they were; for, in short, their history
was, that this man they called captain was the gunner only, not
the commander; that they had been a trading voyage, in which they
had been attacked on shore by some of the Malays, who had killed
the captain and three of his men; and that after the captain was
killed, these men, eleven in number, having resolved to run away
with the ship, brought her to Bengal, leaving the mate and five
men more on shore.</p>
<p>Well, let them get the ship how they would, we came honestly
by her, as we thought, though we did not, I confess, examine into
things so exactly as we ought; for we never inquired anything of
the seamen, who would certainly have faltered in their account,
and contradicted one another. Somehow or other we should
have had reason to have suspected, them; but the man showed us a
bill of sale for the ship, to one Emanuel Clostershoven, or some
such name, for I suppose it was all a forgery, and called himself
by that name, and we could not contradict him: and withal, having
no suspicion of the thing, we went through with our
bargain. We picked up some more English sailors here after
this, and some Dutch, and now we resolved on a second voyage to
the south-east for cloves, &c.—that is to say, among
the Philippine and Malacca isles. In short, not to fill up
this part of my story with trifles when what is to come is so
remarkable, I spent, from first to last, six years in this
country, trading from port to port, backward and forward, and
with very good success, and was now the last year with my new
partner, going in the ship above mentioned, on a voyage to China,
but designing first to go to Siam to buy rice.</p>
<p>In this voyage, being by contrary winds obliged to beat up and
down a great while in the Straits of Malacca and among the
islands, we were no sooner got clear of those difficult seas than
we found our ship had sprung a leak, but could not discover where
it was. This forced us to make some port; and my partner,
who knew the country better than I did, directed the captain to
put into the river of Cambodia; for I had made the English mate,
one Mr. Thompson, captain, not being willing to take the charge
of the ship upon myself. This river lies on the north side
of the great bay or gulf which goes up to Siam. While we
were here, and going often on shore for refreshment, there comes
to me one day an Englishman, a gunner’s mate on board an
English East India ship, then riding in the same river.
“Sir,” says he, addressing me, “you are a
stranger to me, and I to you; but I have something to tell you
that very nearly concerns you. I am moved by the imminent
danger you are in, and, for aught I see, you have no knowledge of
it.”—“I know no danger I am in,” said I,
“but that my ship is leaky, and I cannot find it out; but I
intend to lay her aground to-morrow, to see if I can find
it.”—“But, sir,” says he, “leaky or
not leaky, you will be wiser than to lay your ship on shore
to-morrow when you hear what I have to say to you. Do you
know, sir,” said he, “the town of Cambodia lies about
fifteen leagues up the river; and there are two large English
ships about five leagues on this side, and three
Dutch?”—“Well,” said I, “and what
is that to me?”—“Why, sir,” said be,
“is it for a man that is upon such adventures as you are to
come into a port, and not examine first what ships there are
there, and whether he is able to deal with them? I suppose
you do not think you are a match for them?” I could
not conceive what he meant; and I turned short upon him, and
said: “I wish you would explain yourself; I cannot imagine
what reason I have to be afraid of any of the company’s
ships, or Dutch ships. I am no interloper. What can
they have to say to me?”—“Well, sir,”
says he, with a smile, “if you think yourself secure you
must take your chance; but take my advice, if you do not put to
sea immediately, you will the very next tide be attacked by five
longboats full of men, and perhaps if you are taken you will be
hanged for a pirate, and the particulars be examined
afterwards. I thought, sir,” added he, “I
should have met with a better reception than this for doing you a
piece of service of such importance.”—“I can
never be ungrateful,” said I, “for any service, or to
any man that offers me any kindness; but it is past my
comprehension what they should have such a design upon me for:
however, since you say there is no time to be lost, and that
there is some villainous design on hand against me, I will go on
board this minute, and put to sea immediately, if my men can stop
the leak; but, sir,” said I, “shall I go away
ignorant of the cause of all this? Can you give me no
further light into it?”</p>
<p>“I can tell you but part of the story, sir,” says
he; “but I have a Dutch seaman here with me, and I believe
I could persuade him to tell you the rest; but there is scarce
time for it. But the short of the story is this—the
first part of which I suppose you know well enough—that you
were with this ship at Sumatra; that there your captain was
murdered by the Malays, with three of his men; and that you, or
some of those that were on board with you, ran away with the
ship, and are since turned pirates. This is the sum of the
story, and you will all be seized as pirates, I can assure you,
and executed with very little ceremony; for you know merchant
ships show but little law to pirates if they get them into their
power.”—“Now you speak plain English,”
said I, “and I thank you; and though I know nothing that we
have done like what you talk of, for I am sure we came honestly
and fairly by the ship; yet seeing such a work is doing, as you
say, and that you seem to mean honestly, I will be upon my
guard.”—“Nay, sir,” says he, “do
not talk of being upon your guard; the best defence is to be out
of danger. If you have any regard for your life and the
lives of all your men, put to sea without fail at high-water; and
as you have a whole tide before you, you will be gone too far out
before they can come down; for they will come away at high-water,
and as they have twenty miles to come, you will get near two
hours of them by the difference of the tide, not reckoning the
length of the way: besides, as they are only boats, and not
ships, they will not venture to follow you far out to sea,
especially if it blows.”—“Well,” said I,
“you have been very kind in this: what shall I do to make
you amends?”—“Sir,” says he, “you
may not be willing to make me any amends, because you may not be
convinced of the truth of it. I will make an offer to you:
I have nineteen months’ pay due to me on board the ship
---, which I came out of England in; and the Dutchman that is
with me has seven months’ pay due to him. If you will
make good our pay to us we will go along with you; if you find
nothing more in it we will desire no more; but if we do convince
you that we have saved your lives, and the ship, and the lives of
all the men in her, we will leave the rest to you.”</p>
<p>I consented to this readily, and went immediately on board,
and the two men with me. As soon as I came to the
ship’s side, my partner, who was on board, came out on the
quarter-deck, and called to me, with a great deal of joy,
“We have stopped the leak—we have stopped the
leak!”—“Say you so?” said I; “thank
God; but weigh anchor, then,
immediately.”—“Weigh!” says he;
“what do you mean by that? What is the
matter?”—“Ask no questions,” said I;
“but set all hands to work, and weigh without losing a
minute.” He was surprised; however, he called the
captain, and he immediately ordered the anchor to be got up; and
though the tide was not quite down, yet a little land-breeze
blowing, we stood out to sea. Then I called him into the
cabin, and told him the story; and we called in the men, and they
told us the rest of it; but as it took up a great deal of time,
before we had done a seaman comes to the cabin door, and called
out to us that the captain bade him tell us we were chased by
five sloops, or boats, full of men. “Very
well,” said I, “then it is apparent there is
something in it.” I then ordered all our men to be
called up, and told them there was a design to seize the ship,
and take us for pirates, and asked them if they would stand by
us, and by one another; the men answered cheerfully, one and all,
that they would live and die with us. Then I asked the
captain what way he thought best for us to manage a fight with
them; for resist them I was resolved we would, and that to the
last drop. He said readily, that the way was to keep them
off with our great shot as long as we could, and then to use our
small arms, to keep them from boarding us; but when neither of
these would do any longer, we would retire to our close quarters,
for perhaps they had not materials to break open our bulkheads,
or get in upon us.</p>
<p>The gunner had in the meantime orders to bring two guns, to
bear fore and aft, out of the steerage, to clear the deck, and
load them with musket-bullets, and small pieces of old iron, and
what came next to hand. Thus we made ready for fight; but
all this while we kept out to sea, with wind enough, and could
see the boats at a distance, being five large longboats,
following us with all the sail they could make.</p>
<p>Two of those boats (which by our glasses we could see were
English) outsailed the rest, were near two leagues ahead of them,
and gained upon us considerably, so that we found they would come
up with us; upon which we fired a gun without ball, to intimate
that they should bring to: and we put out a flag of truce, as a
signal for parley: but they came crowding after us till within
shot, when we took in our white flag, they having made no answer
to it, and hung out a red flag, and fired at them with a
shot. Notwithstanding this, they came on till they were
near enough to call to them with a speaking-trumpet, bidding them
keep off at their peril.</p>
<p>It was all one; they crowded after us, and endeavoured to come
under our stern, so as to board us on our quarter; upon which,
seeing they were resolute for mischief, and depended upon the
strength that followed them, I ordered to bring the ship to, so
that they lay upon our broadside; when immediately we fired five
guns at them, one of which had been levelled so true as to carry
away the stern of the hindermost boat, and we then forced them to
take down their sail, and to run all to the head of the boat, to
keep her from sinking; so she lay by, and had enough of it; but
seeing the foremost boat crowd on after us, we made ready to fire
at her in particular. While this was doing one of the three
boats that followed made up to the boat which we had disabled, to
relieve her, and we could see her take out the men. We then
called again to the foremost boat, and offered a truce, to parley
again, and to know what her business was with us; but had no
answer, only she crowded close under our stern. Upon this,
our gunner who was a very dexterous fellow ran out his two
case-guns, and fired again at her, but the shot missing, the men
in the boat shouted, waved their caps, and came on. The
gunner, getting quickly ready again, fired among them a second
time, one shot of which, though it missed the boat itself, yet
fell in among the men, and we could easily see did a great deal
of mischief among them. We now wore the ship again, and
brought our quarter to bear upon them, and firing three guns
more, we found the boat was almost split to pieces; in
particular, her rudder and a piece of her stern were shot quite
away; so they handed her sail immediately, and were in great
disorder. To complete their misfortune, our gunner let fly
two guns at them again; where he hit them we could not tell, but
we found the boat was sinking, and some of the men already in the
water: upon this, I immediately manned out our pinnace, with
orders to pick up some of the men if they could, and save them
from drowning, and immediately come on board ship with them,
because we saw the rest of the boats began to come up. Our
men in the pinnace followed their orders, and took up three men,
one of whom was just drowning, and it was a good while before we
could recover him. As soon as they were on board we crowded
all the sail we could make, and stood farther out to the sea; and
we found that when the other boats came up to the first, they
gave over their chase.</p>
<p>Being thus delivered from a danger which, though I knew not
the reason of it, yet seemed to be much greater than I
apprehended, I resolved that we should change our course, and not
let any one know whither we were going; so we stood out to sea
eastward, quite out of the course of all European ships, whether
they were bound to China or anywhere else, within the commerce of
the European nations. When we were at sea we began to
consult with the two seamen, and inquire what the meaning of all
this should be; and the Dutchman confirmed the gunner’s
story about the false sale of the ship and of the murder of the
captain, and also how that he, this Dutchman, and four more got
into the woods, where they wandered about a great while, till at
length he made his escape, and swam off to a Dutch ship, which
was sailing near the shore in its way from China.</p>
<p>He then told us that he went to Batavia, where two of the
seamen belonging to the ship arrived, having deserted the rest in
their travels, and gave an account that the fellow who had run
away with the ship, sold her at Bengal to a set of pirates, who
were gone a-cruising in her, and that they had already taken an
English ship and two Dutch ships very richly laden. This
latter part we found to concern us directly, though we knew it to
be false; yet, as my partner said, very justly, if we had fallen
into their hands, and they had had such a prepossession against
us beforehand, it had been in vain for us to have defended
ourselves, or to hope for any good quarter at their hands;
especially considering that our accusers had been our judges, and
that we could have expected nothing from them but what rage would
have dictated, and an ungoverned passion have executed.
Therefore it was his opinion we should go directly back to
Bengal, from whence we came, without putting in at any port
whatever—because where we could give a good account of
ourselves, could prove where we were when the ship put in, of
whom we bought her, and the like; and what was more than all the
rest, if we were put upon the necessity of bringing it before the
proper judges, we should be sure to have some justice, and not to
be hanged first and judged afterwards.</p>
<p>I was some time of my partner’s opinion; but after a
little more serious thinking, I told him I thought it was a very
great hazard for us to attempt returning to Bengal, for that we
were on the wrong side of the Straits of Malacca, and that if the
alarm was given, we should be sure to be waylaid on every
side—that if we should be taken, as it were, running away,
we should even condemn ourselves, and there would want no more
evidence to destroy us. I also asked the English
sailor’s opinion, who said he was of my mind, and that we
certainly should be taken. This danger a little startled my
partner and all the ship’s company, and we immediately
resolved to go away to the coast of Tonquin, and so on to the
coast of China—and pursuing the first design as to trade,
find some way or other to dispose of the ship, and come back in
some of the vessels of the country such as we could get.
This was approved of as the best method for our security, and
accordingly we steered away NNE., keeping above fifty leagues off
from the usual course to the eastward. This, however, put
us to some inconvenience: for, first, the winds, when we came
that distance from the shore, seemed to be more steadily against
us, blowing almost trade, as we call it, from the E. and ENE., so
that we were a long while upon our voyage, and we were but ill
provided with victuals for so long a run; and what was still
worse, there was some danger that those English and Dutch ships
whose boats pursued us, whereof some were bound that way, might
have got in before us, and if not, some other ship bound to China
might have information of us from them, and pursue us with the
same vigour.</p>
<p>I must confess I was now very uneasy, and thought myself,
including the late escape from the longboats, to have been in the
most dangerous condition that ever I was in through my past life;
for whatever ill circumstances I had been in, I was never pursued
for a thief before; nor had I ever done anything that merited the
name of dishonest or fraudulent, much less thievish. I had
chiefly been my own enemy, or, as I may rightly say, I had been
nobody’s enemy but my own; but now I was woefully
embarrassed: for though I was perfectly innocent, I was in no
condition to make that innocence appear; and if I had been taken,
it had been under a supposed guilt of the worst kind. This
made me very anxious to make an escape, though which way to do it
I knew not, or what port or place we could go to. My
partner endeavoured to encourage me by describing the several
ports of that coast, and told me he would put in on the coast of
Cochin China, or the bay of Tonquin, intending afterwards to go
to Macao, where a great many European families resided, and
particularly the missionary priests, who usually went thither in
order to their going forward to China.</p>
<p>Hither then we resolved to go; and, accordingly, though after
a tedious course, and very much straitened for provisions, we
came within sight of the coast very early in the morning; and
upon reflection on the past circumstances of danger we were in,
we resolved to put into a small river, which, however, had depth
enough of water for us, and to see if we could, either overland
or by the ship’s pinnace, come to know what ships were in
any port thereabouts. This happy step was, indeed, our
deliverance: for though we did not immediately see any European
ships in the bay of Tonquin, yet the next morning there came into
the bay two Dutch ships; and a third without any colours spread
out, but which we believed to be a Dutchman, passed by at about
two leagues’ distance, steering for the coast of China; and
in the afternoon went by two English ships steering the same
course; and thus we thought we saw ourselves beset with enemies
both one way and the other. The place we were in was wild
and barbarous, the people thieves by occupation; and though it is
true we had not much to seek of them, and, except getting a few
provisions, cared not how little we had to do with them, yet it
was with much difficulty that we kept ourselves from being
insulted by them several ways. We were in a small river of
this country, within a few leagues of its utmost limits
northward; and by our boat we coasted north-east to the point of
land which opens the great bay of Tonquin; and it was in this
beating up along the shore that we discovered we were surrounded
with enemies. The people we were among were the most
barbarous of all the inhabitants of the coast; and among other
customs they have this one: that if any vessel has the misfortune
to be shipwrecked upon their coast, they make the men all
prisoners or slaves; and it was not long before we found a spice
of their kindness this way, on the occasion following.</p>
<p>I have observed above that our ship sprung a leak at sea, and
that we could not find it out; and it happened that, as I have
said, it was stopped unexpectedly, on the eve of our being
pursued by the Dutch and English ships in the bay of Siam; yet,
as we did not find the ship so perfectly tight and sound as we
desired, we resolved while we were at this place to lay her on
shore, and clean her bottom, and, if possible, to find out where
the leaks were. Accordingly, having lightened the ship, and
brought all our guns and other movables to one side, we tried to
bring her down, that we might come at her bottom; but, on second
thoughts, we did not care to lay her on dry ground, neither could
we find out a proper place for it.</p>
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