I got nobody to come back with me but the supercargo and two men, and with these I walked back to the boats. It was a very great piece of folly in me, I confess, to venture back as it were alone; for as it began now to be almost day, and the alarm had run over the country, there stood about forty men armed with lances and bows at the little place where the twelve or thirteen houses stood mentioned before, but by accident I missed the place, and came directly to the sea-side; and by that time I got to the sea-side it was broad day: immediately I took the pinnace and went aboard, and sent her back to assist the men in what might happen.
I observed that about the time I came to the boat-side the fire was pretty well out, and the noise abated; but in about half an hour after I got on board I heard a volley of our men’s fire-arms, and saw a great smoke; this, as I understood afterwards, was our men falling upon the forty men, who, as I said, stood at the few houses on the way; of whom they killed sixteen or seventeen, and set all those houses on fire, but did not meddle with the women or children.
By the time the men got to the shore again with the pinnace our men began to appear; they came dropping in some and some, not in two bodies, and in form, as they went out, but all in heaps, straggling here and there in such a manner that a small force of resolute men might have cut them all off.
But the dread of them was upon the whole country. The people were amazed and surprised, and so frighted that I believe a hundred of them would have fled at the sight of but five of our men. Nor in all this terrible action was there a man who made any considerable defence; they were so surprised between the terror of the fire, and the sudden attack of our men in the dark, that they knew not which way to turn themselves; for if they fled one way they were met by one party, if back again by another; so that they were every where knocked down. Nor did any of our men receive the least hurt, except one who strained his foot, and another had one of his hands very much burnt.
I was very angry with my nephew the captain, and indeed with all the men, in my mind, but with him in particular, as well for his acting so out of his duty, as commander of the ship, and having the charge of the voyage upon him, as in his prompting rather than cooling the rage of his men in so bloody and cruel an enterprise: my nephew answered me very respectfully, but told me that when he saw the body of the poor seaman whom they had murdered in such a cruel and barbarous manner, he was not master of himself, neither could he govern his passion; he owned he should not have done so, as he was commander of the ship, but as he was a man, and nature moved him, he could not bear it. As for the rest of the men, they were not subject to me at all, and they knew it well enough, so they took no notice of my dislike.
The next day we set sail, so we never heard any more of it. Our men differed in the account of the number they killed; some said one thing, some another; but according to the best of their accounts, put all together, they killed or destroyed about a hundred and fifty people, men, women, and children, and left not a house standing in the town.
As for the poor fellow, Thomas Jeffrys, as he was quite dead, for his throat was so cut that his head was half off, it would do him no service to bring him away; so they left him where they found him, only took him down from the tree where he was hanged by one hand.
However just our men thought this action to be, I was against them in it, and I always after that time told them God would blast the voyage; for I looked upon the blood they shed that night to be murder in them: for though it is true that they killed Thomas Jeffrys, yet it was as true that Jeffrys was the aggressor, had broken the truce, and had violated or debauched a young woman of theirs, who came to our camp innocently, and on the faith of their capitulation.
The boatswain defended this quarrel when we were afterwards on board. He said, it was true that we seemed to break the truce, but really had not, and that the war was begun the night before by the natives themselves, who had shot at us, and killed one of our men without any just provocation; so that as we were in a capacity to fight them, we might also be in a capacity to do ourselves justice upon them in an extraordinary manner; that though the poor man had taken liberty with a wench, he ought not to have been murdered, and that in such a villanous manner; and that they did nothing but what was just, and that the laws of God allowed to be done to murderers.
One would think this should have been enough to have warned us against going on shore among heathens and barbarians; but it is impossible to make mankind wise but at their own experience; and their experience seems to be always of most use to them when it is dearest bought.