A New Voyage Round the World by a Course Never Sailed Before

by Daniel Defoe

But I was soon informed by a Dutchman, who came off to me with some of the natives in a kind of canvass 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 shore 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 quantity 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 assist 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 passage for Europe; that he had always assisted, 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.