A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17

but depart presently on account of the Misconduct of our Men.--Our Number dreadfully reduced by Famine.-- Des

ther ceremony fired a pistol at his head, which narrowly missed him. The captain, hearing the report of the pistol, and perhaps the purser's words, that Cozens was come to mutiny, ran out of his hut with a cocked pistol in his hand, and, without asking any questions, immediately shot him through the head. I was at this time in my hut, as the weather was extremely bad, but running out upon the alarm of this firing, the first thing I saw was Mr Cozens on the ground weltering in his blood: he was sensible, and took me by the hand, as he did several others, shaking his head, as if he meant to take leave of us. If Mr Cozens' behaviour to his captain was indecent and provoking, the captain's, on the other hand, was rash and hasty. If the first was wanting in that respect and observance which is due from a petty officer to his commander, the latter was still more unadvised in the method he took for the enforcement of his authority; of which, indeed, he was jealous to the last degree, and which he saw daily declining, and ready to be trampled upon. His mistaken apprehension of a mutinous design in Mr Cozens, the sole motive of this rash action, was so far from answering the end he proposed by it, that the men, who before were much dissatisfied and uneasy, were by this unfortunate step thrown almost into open sedition and revolt. It was evident that the people, who ran out of their tents, alarmed by the report of fire-arms, though they disguised their real sentiments for the present, were extremely affected at this catastrophe of Mr Cozens, for he was greatly beloved by them: their minds were now exasperated, and it was to be apprehended, that their resentment, which was smothered for the present, would shortly shew itself in some desperate enterprize. The unhappy victim, who lay weltering in his blood on the ground before them, seemed to absorb their whole attention; the eyes of all were fixed upon him; and visible mar

ject to little or no controul, endeavoured to seduce their wives, which gave the Indians such offence, that in a short time they found means to depart, taking every thing along with them; and we, being sensible of the cause, never expected to see them return again. The carpenter having made some progress in his work upon the long-boat, in which he was enabled to proceed tolerably, by the tools and other articles of his business retrieved from the wreck, the men began to think of the course they should take to get home; or rather, having borrowed Sir John Narborough's voyage of Captain Cheap, by the application of Mr Bulkely, which book he saw me reading one day in my tent, they immediately upon perusing it, concluded upon making their voyage home by the Straits of Magellan. This plan was propos

g, a party came to my door, and told me their necessiti

his accident did not discourage him, but that soon after, having procured an ox's hide, used on board for sifting powder, and called a gunner's hide, by the assistance of some hoops he formed something like a canoe, in which he made several successful voyages. When the weather would permit us, we seldom failed of getting some wild-fowl, though never in any plenty, by putting off with our boats; but this most inhospitable climate is not only deprived of the sun for the most part by a thick, rainy atmosphere, but is also visited by almost incessant tempests. It must be confessed we reaped some benefit from these hard gales and overgrown seas, which drove several things ashore; but there was no dependence on such accidental relief; and we were always alert to avail ourselves of every interval of fair weather, though so little to be depended on, that we were often unexpectedly and to our peril overtaken by a sudden change. In one of our excursions, I, with two more, in a wretched punt of our own making, had no sooner landed at our station upon a high rock, than the punt was driven loose by a sudden squall; and had not one of the men, at the risk of his life, jumped into the sea and swam on board her, we must in all probability have perished, for we were more than three leagues from the island at the time. Among the birds we generally shot, was the painted goose, whose plumage is variegated with the most lively colours; and a bird much larger than a goose, which we called the racehorse, from the velocity with which it moved upon the surface of the water, in a sort of half-flying half- running motion. But we were not so successful in our endeavours by land; for though we somet

which we had brought with us, in the wood, opposite to where the barge lay. As this tent was not large enough to contain us all, I proposed to four of the people to go to the end of the bay, about two miles distant from the bell-tent, to occupy the skeleton of an old Indian wigwam, which I had discovered in a walk that way upon our first landing. This we covered to windward with sea-weed; and lighting a fire, laid ourselves down, in hopes of finding a remedy for our hunger in sleep; but we had not long composed ourselves before one of our company was disturbed by the blowing of some animal at his face, and upon opening his eyes was not a little astonished to see by the glimmering of the fire, a large beast standing over him. He had presence of mind enough to snatch a brand from the fire, which was now very low, and thrust it at the nose of the animal, who thereupon

nkenness. This cabal was chiefly held in a large tent, which the people belonging to it had taken some pains to make snug and convenient, and lined with bales of broad cloth driven from the wreck. Eighteen of the stoutest fellows of the ship's company had possession of this tent, from whence were dispatched committees to the captain, with the resolutions they had taken with regard to their departure, but oftener for liquor. Their determination was to go in the long-boat to the southward by the Straits of Magellan; and the point they were labouring, was to prevail upon the captain to accompany them. But though he had fixed upon a quite different plan, which was to go to the northward

g supernumeraries aboard, were now no less strenuous for his enlargement, and being left to his option of staying behind. Therefore, after having distributed their share in the reserved stock of provision, which was very small, we departed, leaving Captain Cheap, Mr Hamilton of the marines, and the surgeon, upon the island. I had all along been in the dark as to the turn this affair would take; and not

ur was to be lengthened out by a mixture of sea-weed; and our other supplies depended upon the success of our guns and industry among the rocks. Captain Pemberton having brought on board his men, we weighed, but by a sudden squall of wind having split our foresail, we with difficulty cleared the rocks by means of our boats, bore away for a sandy bay on the south side of the lagoon, and anchored in ten fathom. The next morning we got under weigh, but it blowing hard at W. by N.

conceive the distressed situation we were now in at the time of the long- boat's departure. I don't mention this event as the occasion of it; by which, if we who were left on the island experienced any alteration at all, it was for the better, and which, in all probability, had it been deferred, might have been fatal to the greatest part of us; but at this time the subsistence on which we had hitherto depended chiefly, which was the shell- fish, were every where along shore eat up; and as to stock saved from the wreck, it may be guessed what the amount of that might be, when the share allotted to the captain, Lieutenant Hamilton, and the surgeon, was no more than six pieces of beef, as many of pork, and ninety pounds of flour. As to myself and those that left the long-boat, it was the least revenge they thought they could take of us to withhold our provision from us, though

o patch up the boats for our purpose. In the height of our distresses, when hunger, which seems to include and absorb all others, was most prevailing, we were cheered with the appearance once more of our friendly Indians, as we thought, from whom we hoped for some relief; but as the consideration was wanting for which alone they would part with their commodities, we were not at all benefited by their stay, which was very short. The little reserve too of flour made by the captain for our sea-stock when we should leave the island, was now diminished by theft: the thieves, who were three of our men, were however soon discovered, and two of them apprehended, but the third made his escape to the woods. Considering the pressing state of our necessities, this theft was looked upon as a most heinous crime, and therefore required an extraordinary punishment: accordingly, the captain ordered these delinquents to be severely whipped, and then to be banished to an island at some distance from us; but before this latter part of the sentence could be put in execution, one of them fled, but the other was put alone upon a barren island, which afforded not the least shelter: however, we, in compassion, and contrary to or

e thought it a fine opportunity to run across the bay. But he first desired two or three of us to accompany him to our place of observation, the top of Mount Misery, when, looking through his perspective, he observed to us that the sea ran very high without. However, this had no weight with the people, who were

e island, from Mount Misery; and it seemed to be distant between twenty and thirty leagues from us. We were now obliged to bear away right before the wind. Though the yawl was not far from us, we could see nothing of her, except now and then upon the top of a mountainous sea. In both the boats the men were obliged to sit as close as possible, to receive the seas on their backs, to prevent their filling us, which was what we every moment expected. We were obliged to throw every thing overboard to lighten the boats, all our beef, and even the grapnel, to prevent sinking. Night was coming on, an

t was impossible for any of us to get a moment's sleep; and having flung overboard our provision the day before, there being no prospect of finding any thing to eat on this coast, in the morning we pulled out of the cove, but found so great a sea without, that we could make but little of it. After tugging all day, towards ni

and perceiving a large opening between very high land and a low point, we steered for it, and when got that length, found a large bay, down which we rowed, flattering ourselves there might be a pa