craft fit for their purpose, to get to the main. But before they could effect this, we found means to prevail upon the armourer and one of the carpenter's crew, two very useful men to us, who had imprudently joined them, to come over again to their duty. The rest, (one or two excepted) having built a punt, and converted the hull of one of the ship's masts into a canoe, went away up one of the lagoons, and never were heard of more. CHAPTER III. Unfortunate Death of Mr Cozens.-Improper Conduct of Captain Cheap-The Indians join us in a friendly Manner, but depart presently on account of the Misconduct of our Men. Our Number dreadfully reduced by Famine.- Description of the various Contrivances used for procuring Food. -Further Transactions.-Departure from the Island. THESE being a desperate and factious set, did not distress us much by their departure, but rather added to our future security. One in particular, Janies Mitchell by name, we had all the reason in the world to think had committed no less than two murders since the loss of our ship, one on the person found strangled on board, another on the body of a man whom we discovered among some bushes upon Mount Misery, stabbed in several places, and shockingly mangled. This diminution of our number was succeeded by an unfor tunate accident much more affecting in its consequences, I mean the death of Mr Cozens, midshipman; in relating which with the necessary impartiality and exactness, I think myself obliged to be more than ordinary particular. Having one day, among other things, got a cask of pease out of the wreck, about which I was almost constantly employed, I brought it to shore in the yawl, when having landed it, the captain came down upon the beach, and bid me to go up to some of the tents and order hands to come down and roll it up; but finding none except Mr Cozens, I delivered him him the orders, who immediately came down to the captain, where I left them when I returned to the wreck. Upon my coming on shore again, I found that Mr Cozens was put under confinement by the captain for being drunk and giving him abusive language; however, he was soon after released. A day or two after he had some dispute with the surgeon, and came to blows: all these things incensed the captain greatly against him. I believe this unfortunate man was kept warm with liquor, and set on by some ill-designing persons; for, when sober, I never knew a betternatured man, or one more inoffensive. Some little time after, at the hour of serving provisions, Mr Cozens was at the store-tent; and having, it seems, lately had a quarrel with the purser, and now some words arising between them, the latter told him he was come to mutiny; and without any further 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 ex asperated asperated, and it was to be apprehended, that their résent ment, 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 marks of the deepest concern appeared in the countenances of the spectators. The persuasion the captain was under, at the time he shot Mr Cozens, that his intentions were mutinous, together with a jealousy of the diminution of his authority, occasioned also his behaving with less compassion and tenderness towards him afterwards than was consistent with the unhap'py condition of the poor sufferer: for when it was begged as a favour by his mess-mates, that Mr Cozens might be removed to their tent, though a necessary thing in his dangerous situation, yet it was not permitted; but the poor wretch was suffered to languish on the ground some days, with no other covering than a bit of canvas thrown over some bushes, where he died. But to return to our story: the captain, addressing himself to the people thus assembled, told them, that it was his resolution to maintain his command over them as usual, which still remained in as much force as ever; and then ordered them all to return to their respective tents, with which order they instantly complied. Now we had saved our long-boat from the wreck, and got it in our possession, there was nothing that seemed so necessary towards the advancing our delivery from this desolate place as the new-modelling this vessel, so as to have room for all those who were inclined to go off in her, and to put her in a condition to bear the stormy seas we must of course encounter. We therefore hauled her up, and having placed her upon blocks, sawed her in two, in order to lengthen her about twelve feet by the keel. For this purpose, all those who could be spared from the more immediate task of procuring subsistence, were employed in fitting and shaping timber as the carpenter directed them; I say, in procuring subsistence, because the weather lately having been very tempestuous, and the wreck working much, had disgorged a great part of her contents, which were every where dispersed about the shore. We now sent frequent parties up the lagoons, which sometimes succeeded in getting some sea-fowl for us. The Indians appearing again in the offing, we put off our yawl in order to frustrate any design they might have of going up the lagoon towards the deserters, who would have availed themselves of some of their canoes to have got upon the main. Having conducted them in, we found that their intention was to settle among us, for they had brought their wives and children with them, in all about fifty persons, who immediately set about building themselves wigwams, and seemed much reconciled to our company; and, could we have entertained them as we ought, they would have been of great assistance to us, who were extremely put to it to subsist ourselves, being a hundred in number; but the men, now subject 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 proposed to the captain, who by no means approved of it, his design being to go northwards, with a view of seizing a ship of the enemy's, by which means he might join the commodore: at present, therefore, here it rested. But the men were in high spirits from the prospect they had of getting off in the long-boat, overlooking all the difficulties and hazards of a voyage al most impracticable, and caressing the carpenter, who indeed was an excellent workman, and deserved all the encouragement they could give him. The Indians baving left us, and the weather continuing tempestuous and rainy, the distresses of the people for want of food became insupportable. Our number, which was at first 145, was now reduced to 100, and chiefly by famine, which put the rest upon all shifts and devices to support themselves. One day, when I was at home in my hut with my Indian dog, a party came to my door, and told me their necessities were such, that they must eat the creature or starve. 2 Though Though their plea was urgent, I could not help using some arguments to endeavour to dissuade them from killing him, as his faithful services and fondness deserved it at my hands; but, without weighing my arguments, they took him away by force and killed him; upon which, thinking that I had at least as good a right to a share as the rest, sat down with them and partook of their repast. Three weeks after that I was glad to make a meal of his paws and skin, which, upon recollecting the spot where they had killed him, I found thrown aside and rotten. The pressing calls of hunger drove our men to their wit's end, and put them upon a variety of devices to satisfy it. Among the ingenious this way, one Phipps, a boatswain's mate, having got a water puncheon, scuttled it; then lashing two logs, one on each side, set out in quest of adventures in this extraordinary and original piece of embarkation, By this means he would frequently, when all the rest were starving, provide himself with wild-fowl; and it must have been very bad weather indeed which could deter him from putting out to sea when his occasions required. Sometimes he would venture far out in the offing, and be absent the whole day; at last, it was his misfortune, at a great distance from shore, to be overset by a heavy sea, but being near a rock, though no swimmer, he managed so as to scramble to it, and with great difficulty ascended it: There he remained two days with very little hopes of any relief, for he was too far off to be seen from shore; but fortunately a boat, having put off and gone in quest of wild-fowl that way, discovered him making such signals as he was able, and brought him back to the island. But this 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 |