I carried also a hundred spare arms, muskets, and fuzees, besides some pistols, a considerable quantity of shot of all sizes, three or four tons of lead, and two pieces of brass cannon; and because I knew not what time and what extremities I was providing for, I carried an hundred barrels of powder, besides swords, cutlasses, and the iron part of some pikes and halberts; so that, in short, we had a large magazine of all sorts of stores; and I made my nephew carry two small quarter-deck guns more than he wanted for his ship, to leave behind if there was occasion; that when they came there we might build a fort, and man it against all sorts of enemies: and indeed I at first thought there would be need enough of it all, and much more, if we hoped to maintain our possession of the island, as shall be seen in the course of the story.
I had not such bad luck in this voyage as I had been used to meet with; and therefore shall have the less occasion to interrupt the reader, who perhaps may be impatient to hear how matters went with my colony; yet some odd accidents, cross winds, and bad weather happened on this first setting out, which made the voyage longer than I expected it at first; and I, who had never made but one voyage, viz. my first voyage to Guinea, in which I might be said to come back again as the voyage was at first designed, began to think the same ill fate still attended me; and that I was born to be never contented with being on shore, and yet to be always unfortunate at sea.
Contrary winds first put us to the northward, and we were obliged to put in at Galway, in Ireland, where we lay wind bound two-and-thirty days; but we had this satisfaction with the disaster, that provisions were here, exceeding cheap, and in the utmost plenty; so that while we lay here we never touched the ship’s stores, but rather added to them: here also I took several hogs, and two cows with their calves, which I resolved, if I had a good passage, to put on shore in my island; but we found occasion to dispose otherwise of them.
We set out the 5th of February from Ireland, and had a very fair gale of wind for some days; as I remember, it might be about the 20th of February in the evening late, when the mate having the watch, came into the round-house, and told us he saw a flash of fire, and heard a gun fired; and while he was telling us of it, a boy came in, and told us the boatswain heard another. This made us all run out upon the quarter-deck, where for a while we heard nothing, but in a few minutes we saw a very great light, and found that there was some very terrible fire at a distance. Immediately we had recourse to our reckonings, in which we all agreed that there could be no land that way in which the fire shewed itself, no, not for five hundred leagues, for it appeared at W.N.W. Upon this we concluded it must be some ship on fire at sea; and as by our hearing the noise of guns just before, we concluded it could not be far off, we stood directly towards it, and were presently satisfied we should discover it, because the farther we sailed the greater the light appeared, though the weather being hazy we could not perceive any thing but the light for a while; in about half an hour’s sailing, the wind being fair for us, though not much of it, and the weather clearing up a little, we could plainly discern that it was a great ship on fire in the middle of the sea.
I was most sensibly touched with this disaster, though not at all acquainted with the persons engaged in it; I presently recollected my former circumstances, in what condition I was in when taken up by the Portugal captain; and how much more deplorable the circumstances of the poor creatures belonging to this ship must be if they had no other ship in company with them: upon this I immediately ordered that five guns should be fired, one soon after another, that, if possible, we might give notice to them that there was help for them at hand, and that they might endeavour to save themselves in their boat; for though we could see the flame in the ship, yet they, it being night, could see nothing of us.
We lay by some time upon this, only driving as the burning ship drove, waiting for daylight; when on a sudden, to our great terror, though we had reason to expect it, the ship blew up in the air, and immediately sunk. This was terrible, and indeed an afflicting sight, for the sake of the poor men, who, I concluded, must be either all destroyed in the ship, or be in the utmost distress in their boats in the middle of the ocean, which, at present, by reason it was dark, I could not see: however, to direct them as well as I could, I caused lights to be hung out in all the parts of the ship where we could, and which we had lanterns for, and kept firing guns all the night long; letting them know by this, that there was a ship not far off.
About eight o’clock in the morning we discovered the ship’s boats, by the help of our perspective-glasses; and found there were two of them, both thronged with people, and deep in the water; we perceived they rowed, the wind being against them; that they saw our ship, and did the utmost to make us see them.
We immediately spread our ancient, to let them know we saw them; and hung a waft out, as a signal for them to come on board; and then made more sail, standing directly to them. In a little more than half an hour we came up with them, and in a word took them all in, being no less than sixty-four men, women, and children; for there were a great many passengers.
Upon the whole, we found it was a French merchant-ship of three hundred tons, homeward-bound from Quebec, in the river of Canada. The master gave us a long account of the distress of his ship, how the fire began in the steerage by the negligence of the steersman; but, on his crying out for help, was, as everybody thought, entirely put out: but they soon found that some sparks of the first fire had gotten into some part of the ship, so difficult to come at, that they could not effectually quench it; and afterwards getting in between the timbers, and within the ceiling of the ship, it proceeded into the hold, and mastered all the skill and all the application they were able to exert.
They had no more to do then but to get into their boats, which, to their great comfort, were pretty large; being their long-boat, and a great shallop, besides a small skiff, which was of no great service to them, other than to get some fresh water and provisions into her, after they had secured themselves from the fire. They had indeed small hope of their lives by getting into these boats at that distance from any land; only, as they said well, that they were escaped from the fire, and had a possibility, that some ship might happen to be at sea, and might take them in. They had sails, oars, and a compass; and were preparing to make the best of their way to Newfoundland, the wind blowing pretty fair; for it blew an easy gale at S.E. by E. They had as much provisions and water, as, with sparing it so as to be next door to starving, might support them about twelve days; in which, if they had no bad weather, and no contrary winds, the captain said, he hoped he might get to the banks of Newfoundland, and might perhaps take some fish to sustain them till they might go on shore. But there were so many chances against them in all these cases; such as storms to overset and founder them; rains and cold to benumb and perish their limbs; contrary winds to keep them out and starve them; that it must have been next to miraculous if they had escaped.