Deeming it in vain to attempt reaching the bank, after examining what was left in the boat, (a few of the trifles which they had put into her to buy the friendship of the natives, and Ascott's greatcoat, but neither a compass nor a morsel of provisions,) they determined, by the advice of Shaw, who of these three miserable people was the only one that understood any thing of navigation, to run direct for Timor, for which place the wind was then happily fair. To the westward, therefore, they directed their course, trusting (as the printed account stated) to that Providence which had delivered them from the cannibals at Tate Island.*
[* The narrative of this most horrible affair, as printed at Calcutta, was reprinted entire in the European Magazine for May and June 1797.]
Without provisions, destitute of water, and almost without bodily strength, it cannot be doubted that their sufferings were very great before they reached a place of safety and relief. They left the island on the 3rd of July, the day on which their companions were butchered. On the 7th, having the preceding day passed a sand-bank covered with birds, they providentially, in the morning, found two small birds in the boat, one of which they immediately divided into three parts, and were considerably relieved by eating it. On the 8th they found themselves with land on both sides. Through these straits they passed, and continued their course to the westward. All that could be done with their wounds was to keep them clean by opening them occasionally, and washing them with salt water. On the 11th they saw land, and pushed their boat into a bay, all agreeing that they had better trust to the chance of being well received on shore, than to that of perishing in the course of a day or two more at sea. Here they procured some water and a roasted yam from the natives, who also gave them to understand that Timor was to the southward of them. Not thinking themselves quite so safe here as they would be at Coupang, they again embarked. They soon after found a proa in chase of them, which they eluded by standing with their boat over a reef that the proa would not encounter. On the morning of the 13th they saw a point of land ahead, which, with the wind as it then was, they could not weather. They therefore ran into a small bay, where the natives received them, calling out 'Bligh! Bligh!' Here they landed, were hospitably received, and providentially saved from the horror of perishing by famine.
This place was called by the natives Sarrett, and was distinct from Timor Land, which was the first place they refreshed at. They were also informed, that there was another small island to the northward, called by them Fardatte, but which in some charts was named Ta-na-bor. They also understood that a proa came yearly from Banda to trade at Tanabor, and that her arrival was expected in the course of seven or eight months.
They were much gratified with this information, and soon found that they had fallen into the hands of a hospitable and humane race of people.
On the 25th of July Mr. Carter's wound was entirely healed, after having had thirteen pieces of the fractured skull taken out. But this gentleman was fated not long to survive his sufferings. He remained in perfect health until the 17th of November, when he caught a fever, of which he died on the 10th of December, much regretted by his two friends (for adversity makes friends of those who perhaps, in other situations, would never have shaken hands).
The two survivors waited in anxious expectation for the arrival of the annual trading proa from Banda. To their great joy she came on the 12th of March 1794.
For Banda they sailed on the 10th of April, and arrived there on the 1st of May following, where they were received with the greatest hospitality by the governor, who supplied them with every thing necessary for people in their situation, and provided them with a passage on board an Indiaman bound to Batavia, where they arrived on the 10th of the following October; adding another to the many instances of escape from the perils which attend on those whose hard fate have driven them to navigate the ocean in an open boat.
Hard indeed was the fate of Captain Hill and Mr. Carter. They were gentlemen of liberal education, qualified to adorn the circles of life in which their rank in society placed them. How lamentable thus to perish, the one by the hands and rude weapons of barbarous savages, cut off in the prime of life and most perfect enjoyment of his faculties, lost for ever to a mother and sister whom he tenderly loved, his body mangled, roasted, and devoured by cannibals; the other, after escaping from those cannibals, to perish* in a country where all were strangers to him, except his two companions in misery Shaw and Ascott, to give up all his future prospects in life, never more to meet the cheering eye of friendship or of love, and without having had the melancholy satisfaction of recounting his perils, his escape, and sufferings, to those who would sympathise with him in the tale of his sorrows.
[* It is evident, if this account be true, that Mr. Dell must have been mistaken in his opinion of having carried on board the Shah Hormuzear a hand which, from a certain mark on it, he knew to have belonged to Mr. Carter.]