They answered it was the second mate; that they had never shown themselves discontented, much less disorderly, in the ship; that they had, on all occasions, done their duty through the whole voyage till now; and that they had no ill design upon any one, much less had they any design to destroy the voyage, or injure the captain; but that they were all told by the second mate, that the captain had imposed upon them, by proposing a mad voyage to the south pole, that would be the death of them all, and that they were to lay aside the trading and cruising voyages which they came out upon, and were now to spend the whole voyage in new discoveries; by which the men could propose nothing to themselves but hardships, and perhaps perishing with hunger and cold; whereas, had they gone to the South Seas as was intended, they might all have been made; and that the hazards, with that prospect, had some consolation in them; whereas, in this project, there was nothing but certain destruction.
The mate delivered them a copy of the scheme I had proposed, the reasons of it, the trade I had designed, the return I was to make, and everything, as I have already mentioned, and bade them take it and consider of it.
As I was justly provoked to see how I had been abused and misrepresented to the men, so they were astonished when they read my scheme, and saw what mischiefs they had been led into, for they knew not what, and without any reason or just consideration: and, after they had debated things awhile among themselves, they desired the chief mate might come to them again, which he did; then they told him, that as they had been thus grossly abused, and drawn into mischiefs which they never designed, by such plausible pretences, and by being told such a long story full of lies, and to carry on an infernal project of the second mate"s, they hoped their being so much imposed upon would a little extenuate their fault; that they were convinced the captain had proposed nothing but what was very rational, and a voyage that might be very profitable to the owners and to every individual; and they entirely threw themselves upon the captain"s mercy, and humbly begged pardon; that, if I pleased to forgive them, they would endeavour to merit such forgiveness by their future behaviour; and that, in the mean time, they submitted to what punishment I pleased to lay upon them: and, particularly, that, as they had forfeited, by their conspiracy, all the claims they had upon the ship, and might justly have been turned on sh.o.r.e at the first land they came to, they were willing to sign a discharge for all their wages due to them, which was now near eight months a man, and to be considered for the rest of the voyage as they deserved: that they would all take a solemn oath of fidelity to me to do their duty, to go wherever I would carry them, and to behave with the greatest submission and diligence, in hopes to regain my favour by their future behaviour, and to show their grat.i.tude for the pardon I should grant them.
This was, indeed, just as I would have it, for I wanted nothing more than to have something offered, which I might give them back again; for I ever thought, and have found it by experience, to be the best way; and men were always secured in their duty by a generous kindness, better than by absolute dominion and severity: indeed, my opinion was justified in all the measures I took with these men; for as I found they were sufficiently humbled, and that I had brought them low enough, I let them know that it was not their punishment but their amendment I desired; that I scorned to make a prey of them, and take that forfeiture they had offered, by putting the wages due to them for their labour in my pocket.
I then sent them word I was very glad to hear that they were sensible how much they had been imposed upon; that, as it was not my design to offer anything to them which they or any honest men ought to refuse, so it was not my desire to make any advantages of their follies but what might tend to bring them back to their duty; that, as I had no prospect that was inconsistent with their safety and interest, so I scorned to make an advantage of their submission; that as to their wages, though they had forfeited them by their mutiny, yet G.o.d forbid I should convert them to my own profit; and since forgiving their offence was in my power, the crime being in one particular an offence against me, they should never be able to say I made a gain of their submission, and, like the Pope, should sell them my pardon; that, upon their solemnly engaging to me never to offer the least disturbance of any kind in the ship for the future, but to do their duty faithfully and cheerfully, I would forget all that was pa.s.sed; only this I expected, that two of them, who were particularly guilty of threatening the life of Captain Merlotte, should be punished as they deserved.
They could not deny but this was most just; and they did not so much as offer to intercede for those two; but, when one of the two moved the rest to pet.i.tion for them, they answered they could not do it, for they had received favour enough for themselves, and they could not desire anything of the captain for their sakes, for they had all deserved punishment as well as they.
In a word, the two men were brought upon deck, and soundly whipped and pickled; and they all proved very honest ever after: and these, as I said at first, were two-and-thirty in all.
All this while Captain Merlotte with his Frenchmen were in arms, and had possession on the quarter-deck to the number of twenty-three stout men; I had possession of the main-deck with eighteen men and the sixteen Dutchmen, and my chief mate with the midshipman, had possession of the cook-room and quarter-deck; the Dutch captain, our supercargo, the surgeon, and the other captain, kept the great cabins with a guard of twelve musketeers without the door, and about eight more within, besides servants. Captain Merlotte"s man also had a guard of eight men in the roundhouse. I had now nothing to do but with my men who were on sh.o.r.e; and of these, six were no way culpable, being men not embarked in the design, but carried on sh.o.r.e by the chief mate, with a design to engage them with him; so that, indeed, they fell into a punishment before they fell into the crime, and what to do with these men was a nice point to manage.
The first thing I did, was to dismiss my visitor, the Dutch captain, whom I had a great deal of reason to think myself exceedingly obliged to: and, first, I handsomely rewarded his men, to whom I gave four pieces of eight a man; and having waited on the captain to the ship"s side, and seen him into his boat, I fired him twenty-one guns at his going off; for which he fired twenty-five when he came on board his ship.
The same afternoon I sent my pinnace on board him for my drunken c.o.c.kswain, and with the pinnace I sent the captain three dozen bottles of English beer, and a quarter cask of Canary, which was the best present I had to make him; and sent every one of his other seamen a piece of eight per man; and, indeed, the a.s.sistance I had from the ship deserved it; and to the mate, who acted so bravely with my men on sh.o.r.e, I sent fifty pieces of eight.
The next day I went on sh.o.r.e to pay my respects to the governor, when I had all the prisoners delivered up to me. Six men I caused to be immediately set at liberty, as having been innocent, and brought all the rest on board, tied hand and foot, as prisoners, and continued them so, a great while afterward, as the reader will find. As for the second mate, I tried him formally by a council of war, as I was empowered by my commission to do, and sentenced him to be hanged at the yard-arm: and though I suspended the execution from day to day, yet I kept him in expectation of the halter every hour; which, to some, would have been as grievous as the hanging itself.
Thus we conquered this desperate mutiny, all princ.i.p.ally proceeding from suffering the private disputes among ourselves, which ought to have been the arcana of the whole voyage, and kept as secret as death itself could have kept it, I mean so as not to come among the seamen afore the mast.
We lay here twelve days, during which time we took in fresh water as much as we had casks for, and were able to stow. On the 13th day of August, we weighed and stood away to the east, designing to make no land any more till we came to Java Head, and the Straits of Sunda, for that way we intended to sail; but the wind sprung up at E. and E. S. E., and blew so fresh, that we were obliged, after two days" beating against it, to bear away afore it, and run back to the Cape of Good Hope.
While we were here, there came in two Dutch East Indiamen more, homeward-bound, to whom had happened a very odd accident.
They had been attacked by a large ship of forty-four guns, and a stout sloop of eight guns; the Dutch ships resolving to a.s.sist one another, stood up to the Frenchman, (for such it seems he was,) and fought him very warmly. The engagement lasted six or seven hours; in which the privateer had killed them some men; but in the heat of the fight, the sloop received a shot, which brought her mainmast by the board; and this caused the captain of the frigate to sheer off, fearing his sloop would be taken; but the sloop"s men took care of themselves, for, hauling a little out of the fight, they got into their own boats, and a boat which the frigate sent to their help, and abandoned the sloop; which the Dutchmen perceiving, they manned out their boats, and sent and took the sloop with all that was in her, and brought her away with them.
The Dutchmen came into the road at the Cape with this prize while our ship was there the second time; and we saw them bringing the sloop in tow, having no mast standing, but a little pole-mast set up for the present, and her mizen, which was also disabled, and of little use to her.
I no sooner saw her, but it came into my thoughts, that, if she was anything of a sea-boat, she would do our business to a t.i.ttle; and, as we had always resolved to get another ship, but had been disappointed, this would answer our end exactly; accordingly I went with my chief mate, in our shallop, on board my old acquaintance the Dutch captain, and inquiring there, was informed that it was a prize taken, and that in all probability the captain that took her would be glad to part with her; and the captain promised me to go on board the ship that brought her in, and inquire about it, and let me know.
Accordingly, the next morning the captain sent me word I might have her; that she carried eight guns, had good store of provisions on board, with ammunition sufficient, and I might have her and all that was in her for twelve hundred pieces of eight. In a word, I sent my chief mate back with the same messenger and the money, giving him commission to pay for her, and take possession of her, if he liked her; and the Dutch captain, my friend, lent him twelve men to bring her off to us, which they did the same day.
I was a little put to it for a mast for her, having not anything on board we could spare that was fit for a main-mast; but resolving at last to mast her not as a sloop, but as a brigantine, we made shift with what pieces we had, and a spare foretop-mast, which one of the Dutch ships helped me to; so we fitted her up very handsomely, made her carry twelve guns, and put sixty men on board. One of the best things we found on board her, were casks, which we greatly wanted, especially for barrelling up beef and other provisions, which we found very difficult; but our cooper eked them out with making some new ones out of her old ones.
After staying here sixteen days more, we sailed again. Indeed, I thought once we should never have gone away at all; for it is certain above half the men in the ship had been made uneasy, and there remained still some misunderstanding of my design, and a supposition of all the frightful things the second mate had put in their heads; and, by his means, the boatswain and gunner.
As these three had the princ.i.p.al management of the conspiracy, and that I had pardoned all the rest, I had some thoughts of making an example of these; I took care to let them know it, too, in a manner that they had no room to think it was in jest, but I intended to have them all three hanged; and I kept them above three weeks in suspense about it: however, as I had no intention to put them to death, I thought it was a piece of cruelty, something worse than death, to keep them continually in expectation of it, and in a place too where they had but little more than room to breathe.
So, having been seventeen days gone from the Cape, I resolved to relieve them a little, and yet at the same time remove them out of the way of doing me any capital injury, if they should have any such design still in their heads. For this purpose, I caused them to be removed out of the ship into brigantine, and there I permitted them to have a little more liberty than they had on board the great ship; and where two of them entered into another conspiracy, as wild and foolish as ever I heard of, or as, perhaps, was ever heard of by any other; but of this I shall say more in its place.
We were now to sail in company, and we went away from the Cape, the 3rd of September, 1714. We found the brigantine was an excellent sea-boat, and could bear the weather to a miracle, and no bad sailer; she kept pace with us on all occasions, and in a storm we had at S. S. E., some days after, she shifted as well as we did in the great ship, which made us all well pleased with her.
This storm drove us away to the northward; and I once thought we should have been driven back to the Cape again; which, if it had happened, I believe we should never have gone on with the voyage; for the men began to murmur again, and say we were bewitched; that we were beaten off first from the south of America, that we could never get round there, and now driven back from the south of Africa; so that, in short, it looked as if fate had determined this voyage to be pursued no farther.
The wind continued, and blew exceeding hard: and, in short, we were driven so far to the north, that we made the south point of the island of Madagascar.
My pilot knew it to be Madagascar as soon as he had a clear view of the land; and, having beaten so long against the sea to no purpose, and being in want of many things, we resolved to put in; and accordingly made for Port St. Augustine, on the west side of the island, where we came to an anchor in eleven fathom water, and a very good road.
I could not be without a great many anxious thoughts upon our coming into this island; for I knew very well that there was a gang of desperate rogues here, especially on the northern coast, who had been famous for their piracies; and I did not know but that they might be either strong enough as pirates to take us, or rogues enough to entice a great many of my men to run away; so I resolved neither to come near enough the sh.o.r.e to be surprised, nor to suffer any of my men to go on sh.o.r.e, such excepted as I could be very secure of.
But I was soon informed by a Dutchman, who came off to me with some of the natives in a kind of canva.s.s boat, that there were no Europeans there but himself, and the pirates were on the north part of the island; that they had no ship with them of any force, and that they would be glad to be fetched off by any Christian ship; that they were not above two hundred in number, their chief leaders, with the only ships of force they had, being out a cruising on the coast of Arabia, and the Gulf of Persia.
After this, I went on sh.o.r.e myself with Captain Merlotte, and some of the men whom I could trust; and we found it true as the Dutchman had related. The Dutchman gave us a long history of his adventures, and how he came to be left there by a ship he came in from Europe, which, he running up into the country for sport with three more of his comrades, went away without them, and left them among the natives, who, however, used them extremely well; and that now he served them for an interpreter and a broker, to bargain for them with the European ships for provisions. Accordingly, he engaged to bring us what provisions we pleased, and proposed such trinkets in return as he knew the natives desired, and as were of value little enough to us; but he desired a consideration for himself in money, which, though it was of no use to him there, he said it might be hereafter; and, as his demand was but twenty pieces of eight, we thought he very well deserved them.
Here we bought a great quant.i.ty of beef, which, having no casks to spare, we salted, and then cured it in the sun, by the Dutchman"s direction, and it proved of excellent use to us through the whole voyage; for we kept some of it till we came to England, but it was then so hard, that a good hatchet would hardly cut it.
While we lay here, it came into my thoughts, that now was a good time to execute justice upon my prisoners; so I called up the officers to a kind of council of war, and proposed it to them in general terms, not letting them know my mind as to the manner of it. They all agreed it was necessary, and the second mate, boatswain, and gunner, had so much intelligence of it from the men, that they prepared for death as much as if I had signed a dead-warrant for their execution, and that they were to be hanged at the yard-arm.
But, in the midst of those resolves, I told the council of officers, my design was to the north part of the island, where a gang of pirates were said to be settled, and that I was persuaded I might get a good ship among them, and as many men as we desired, for that I was satisfied the greatest part of them were so wearied of their present situation, that they would be glad of an opportunity to come away, and especially such as had, either by force, or rash, hasty resolutions, been, as it were, surprised into that sort of life; that I had been informed they were very far from being in such a formidable posture as they had been represented to us in Europe, or anything near so numerous; but that, on the contrary, we should find them poor, divided, in distress, and willing to get away upon any terms they could.
Some of the officers of the ship differed from me in my opinion. They had received such ideas of the figure those people made in Madagascar, from the common report in England, that they had no notion of them, but as of a little commonwealth of robbers; that they were immensely rich; that Captain Avery was king of the Island; that they were eight thousand men; that they had a good squadron of stout ships, and that they were able to resist a whole fleet of men of war; having a harbour so well fortified at the entrance into it, that there was no coming at them without a good army for land-service, to a.s.sist in the enterprise.
I convinced them how impossible this was to be true, and told them all the discourse I had with the Dutchman, at the place where I now was, who had received a full account of the particulars from several of them who had come down to St. Augustine"s in little boats in order to make their escape from their comrades, and to get pa.s.sage for Europe; that he had always a.s.sisted, and got them off, whenever any ship touched at that port; and that they all agreed in their relation of their state and condition, which was indeed miserable enough, saving that they wanted not for victuals.
In a word, I soon brought them to enter into the reason of it, and to be of my opinion; and, accordingly, I ordered to get ready, and in three days" time weighed anchor, and stood away for the north of the island, taking care not to communicate our debates and resolves to the men before the mast, as had been done before, we having had enough of that already.
While we were thus coasting the island to the north, and in the channel or sea between the island and the main of Africa, it came into my thoughts, that I might now make use of my traitors to my advantage and their own too, and that I might, if they were honest, gain my end, and get a full intelligence of the people I had my eye upon; and, if they were still traitors, they would desert and go over to the pirates, and I should be well rid of them, without the necessity of bringing them to the yard-arm; for I was very uneasy in my mind about hanging them, nor could I ever have been brought to do it, I believe, whatever risk I had run from their mutinous disposition.
I was now got in the lat.i.tude of fifteen degrees and a half south of the line, and began to think of standing in for the sh.o.r.e; when I ordered the second mate, who lay in irons in the brigantine, to be brought on board the great ship, and to be called up into the great cabin. He came in great concern, though he was of himself a very bold and resolute fellow, yet, as he made no doubt that he was sent for to execution, he appeared thoroughly softened, and quite another man than he was before.
When he was brought in, I caused him to be set down in a nook of the cabin where he could not stir to offer any violence to me, had he been so inclined, two large chests being just before him; and I ordered all my people to withdraw, except Captain Merlotte and the supercargo; and then, turning myself to the criminal, I told him, as he knew his circ.u.mstances, I need not repeat them, and the fact for which he was brought into that condition; that I had hitherto, from time to time, delayed his execution, contrary to the opinion of the rest of the chief officers, who in full council had unanimously condemned him; that a sudden thought had come into my mind, which, if he knew how to merit mercy, and to retrieve his circ.u.mstances by his future fidelity, might once again put it into his power, not only to save his life, but to be trusted in the ship again, if he inclined to be honest; that, however, if he had no inclination to merit by his service, I would put it to his choice, either to undertake with courage and fidelity what I had to propose to him, in which case he might expect to be very well treated, or, if not, I would pardon him as to the death he had reason to expect, and he with his two fellow-criminals should be set on sh.o.r.e to go whither they pleased.
He waited, without offering to speak a word, till I made a full stop, and then asked me if I gave him leave to answer.
I told him he might say whatever he thought proper.
Then he asked if I gave him leave to speak freely, and would not take offence at what he might say? I replied, he should speak as freely as if he had never offended; and that, as I had given him his life, I now would give him my word, nothing he could say should revoke the grant; and that he should not only go freely on sh.o.r.e, (for I expected by his words that he had made that choice) but I would give him the lives of his two fellow-prisoners; and would give them arms and ammunition, and anything else that was reasonable for them to ask, or necessary to their subsisting on sh.o.r.e in such a country.
He told me then, that had it been any other part of the world than at Madagascar, he would readily have chosen to have gone on sh.o.r.e; nay, though the place had been really desolate and uninhabited; that he did not object because my offer was not very generous and kind, and that it would be always with regret that he should look back upon the mercy he should have received, and how ill he had deserved it at my hands.
But that as it was at this place that I mentioned setting him at liberty, he told me, that though he had been mutinous and disorderly, for which he had acknowledged he had deserved to die, yet he hoped I could not think so ill of him as to believe he could turn pirate; and begged that, rather than entertain such hard thoughts of him, I would execute the worst part of the sentence, and send him out of the world a penitent and an honest man, which he should esteem far better than to give him his life in a condition in which he could preserve it upon no other terms than those of being the worst of villains. He added, that if there was anything he could do to deserve so much mercy as I intended him, he begged me that I would give him room to behave himself as became him, and he would leave it wholly to me to use him as he should deserve, even to the recalling the pardon that I had granted him.
I was extremely satisfied with what he said, and more particularly with the manner of his speaking it; I told him I was glad to see that he had a principle of so much honesty at the bottom of a part so unhappy as he had acted; and I would be very far from prompting him to turn pirate, and much more from forcing him to do so, and that I would, according to his desire, put an opportunity into his hands to show himself a new man, and, by his fidelity, to wipe out all that was past. And then, without any more ceremony, I told him my whole design, which was, to send him, and four or five more men with him, on sh.o.r.e among the pirates as spies, to see what condition they were in, and to see whether there were any apprehensions of violence from them, or whether they were in the mean circ.u.mstances that I had reason to believe they were in; and, lastly, whether they had any ship or vessel which might be bought of them, and whether men might be had to increase our company; that is to say, such men as, being penitent for their rogueries and tired with their miseries, would be glad of the opportunity of turning honest men before they were brought to it by distress and the gallows.
He embraced the offer with the greatest readiness, and gave me all the a.s.surances that I could desire of his fidelity. I then asked him whether he thought his two fellow-prisoners might be trusted upon the same conditions.
In reply, he asked me if I would take it for a piece of sincerity, if, after a trial, he should tell me his mind, and would not be displeased if he declined speaking his thoughts till he had talked with them.
I told him he should be at liberty to give his farther answer after he had proposed it to them; but I insisted upon his opinion first, because it was only his opinion that I asked now; whereas, if he reported it to them, then he had no more to do but to report their answer.
He then asked me if I would please to grant him one thing, that, whatever his opinion should be, what he should say should be no prejudice to them in their present condition.
I told him it was a reasonable caution in him, and I would a.s.sure him that, whatever he said should not do them any prejudice; and, to convince him of it, I gave him my word that I would not put them to death on any account whatsoever, merely for his sake.
He bowed, and thanked me very heartily for that grant, which, he said, obliged him to be the plainer with me on that head; and as, he said, he would not deceive me in anything whatever, so he would not in this, especially; and therefore told me it was his opinion, they would not serve me faithfully; and he referred me to the experience I should find of it; and added, that he would be so just to me in the beginning, as that, while he begged to be merciful to them, yet for my own sake he would also beg me not to trust them.
I took the hint, and said no more at that time, but ordered his irons to be taken off, with direction for him to have leave to go to his former cabin, and to have his chests and things restored to him; so that he was at full liberty in the ship, though not in any office, or appointed to any particular business.