When approaching the coasts of Angola, and not far from the port of Cabinda, he saw an English vessel of fifty-four guns bearing down upon him. To decoy her Montauban hung out Dutch colours, while the English fired guns, as a signal of friendship. The Frenchman, pretending to wait, sailed slow, as if heavy laden or encumbered for want of sails and men. "We kept in this manner," writes the privateersman, "from break of day till ten in the forenoon. He gave me a gun from time to time without ball, to assure me of what he was, but finding at last I did not answer him on my part in the same manner, he gave me one again with ball, which made me presently put up French colours, and answer him with another. Hereupon the English captain, without any more ado, gave me two broadsides, which I received without returning him one again, though he had killed me seven men; for I was in hopes, if I could have got something nearer to him, to put him out of condition ever to get away from me. I endeavoured to come within a fusil shot of him and was desirous to give him an opportunity to show his courage in boarding me, since I could not so well do the same by him, as being to the leeward. At last being come by degrees nearer, and finding him within the reach of my fusils, which for that end I kept concealed upon the deck from his sight, they were discharged upon him, and my men continued to make so great a fire with them, that the enemy on their part began quickly to flag. In the mean time, as their ship's crew consisted of above 300 men and that they saw their cannon could not do their work for them, they resolved to board us, which they did with a great shout and terrible threatenings of giving no quarter, if we did not surrender. Their grappling-irons failing to catch the stern of my ship, made theirs run in such a manner, that their stern ran upon my boltsprit and broke it. Having observed my enemy thus encumbered, my men plied them briskly with their small shot, and made so terrible a fire upon them for an hour and a-half, that being unable to resist any longer, and having lost a great many men, they left the sport and ran down between decks, and I saw them presently after make signals with their hats of crying out for quarter. I caused my men therefore to give over their firing, and commanded the English to embark in their shallops and come on board of me, while I made some of my crew at the same time leap into the enemy's ship and seize her, and so prevent any surprise from them. I already rejoiced within myself for the taking of such a considerable prize, and so much the more in that I hoped that after having taken this vessel, that was the guard-ship of Angola, and the largest the English had in those seas, I should find myself in a condition still to take better prizes, and attack any man-of-war I should meet with. My ship's crew were also as joyful as myself, and did the work they were engaged in with a great deal of pleasure; but the enemy's powder suddenly taking fire, by the means of a match the captain had left burning on purpose, as hoping he might escape with his two shallops, blew both the ships into the air, and made the most horrible crack that was ever heard. It is impossible to set forth this horrid spectacle to the life; the spectators themselves were the actors of this bloody scene, not knowing whether they saw it or not, and not being able to judge of that which themselves felt. Wherefore leaving the reader to imagine the horror which the blowing up of two ships above 200 fathoms into the air must work in us, where there was formed as it were a mountain of water, fire, wreck of the ships, cordages, cannon, men, and a most horrible clap made, what with the cannon that went off in the air, and the waves of the sea that were tossed up thither, to which we may add the cracking of masts and boards, the rending of the sails and ropes, the cries of men, and the breaking of bones—I say, leaving these things to the imagination of the reader, I shall only take notice of what befell myself, and by what good fortune it was that I escaped.
"When the fire first began I was upon the fore-deck of my own ship, where I gave the necessary orders. Now I was carried up on part of the said deck so high, that I fancy it was the height alone prevented my being involved in the wreck of the ships, where I must infallibly have perished, and been cut into a thousand pieces. I fell back into the sea (you may be sure giddy-headed enough), and continued a long time under water, without being able to get up to the surface of it. At last falling into a debate with the water, as a person who was afraid of being drowned, I got upon the face of it, and laid hold of a broken piece of a mast that I found near. I called to some of my men whom I saw swimming round about me, and exhorted them to take courage, hoping we might yet save our lives, if we could light upon any one of our shallops. But what afflicted me more than my very misfortune, was to see two half bodies, who had still somewhat of life remaining in them, from time to time mount up to the face of the water, and leave the place where they remained all dyed with blood. It was also much the same thing to see round about a vast number of members and scattered parts of men's bodies, and most of them spitted upon splinters of wood. At last one of my men, having met with a whole shallop among all the wreck, that swam up and down upon the water, came to tell me that we must endeavour to stop some holes therein, and to take out the canoe that lay on board her.
"We got, to the number of fifteen or sixteen of us who had escaped, near unto this shallop, every man upon his piece of wood, and took the pains to loosen our canoe, which at length we effected. We went all on board her, and after we had got in saved our chief gunner, who in the fight had had his leg broke. We took up three or four oars, or pieces of board, which served us to that purpose, and when we had done that we sought out for somewhat to make a sail and a little mast, and, having fitted up all things as well as we possibly could, committed ourselves to the Divine Providence, who alone could give us life and deliverance. As soon as I had done working I found myself all over besmeared with blood, that ran from a wound I had received on my head at the time of my fall. We made some lint out of my handkerchief, and a fillet to bind it withal out of my shirt, after I had first washed the wound with urine. The same thing was done to the rest that had been wounded, and our shallop in the meanwhile sailed along without our knowing where we were going, and, what was still more sad, without victuals, and we had already spent three days without either eating or drinking. One of our men, being greatly afflicted with hunger and thirst at the same time, drank so much salt water that he died of it." Most of the men vomited continually, Montauban's body swelled, and he was finally cured of his dropsy by a quartan-ague. All his hair and one side of his face and body were burnt with powder, and he bled as "bombardiers do at sea," at the nose, ears, and mouth.
But this was no time, he says manfully, for a consultation of physicians, while they were dying of hunger, so leaving the English, they forced their way over the bar of Carthersna, an adverse wind preventing their landing at the port of Cabinda. Here they found some oysters sticking to the trees that grew round a pond, and opening them with their clasp knives, which they lent, Montauban says, "charitably and readily to each other," they made a lusty meal.
Having spent two days there, they divided into three small companies, and went up the country, but could find no houses, and see nothing but herds of buffaloes that fled from them. On reaching Cape Corsa they found negroes assembled to furnish ships with wood and water in exchange for brandy, knives, and hatchets.
Montauban, who had often traded in these parts, knew several of the natives, and tried to make them believe he was the man he represented; but disfigured as he was by his late misfortune, they considered him an impostor. In their own language he told them he was dying of famine, but could get nothing but a few bananas to eat.
He then desired them to carry him and his men to Prince Thomas, the son to the king of that country, upon whom he had conferred many favours. But the Prince refused to recognize him, till he showed him the scar of a wound in his thigh which he had once seen when they bathed together. On seeing this the Prince rose and embraced him; commanded victuals to be given to his men; expressed his sorrow for their misfortunes; and quartered them among his negro lords. Montauban he kept at his own expense, and made him eat at his own table. In a few days he took him some leagues up the country in a canoe, to see the king his father, who ruled over a village of 300 huts among the marshes. The high priest was just dead, and during the funeral ceremonies, lasting for seven days, Montauban was regaled with elephant's flesh. The king he found surrounded by women, and guarded by negroes armed with lances and fusils. Flags, trumpets, and drums preceded this monarch of a realm of hunters, who was himself clothed in a robe of white and blue striped cotton. The black prince shook the French captain by the hand, being the first man whose hand he had ever thus honoured. He asked many questions about his brother of France, and when he heard that he sometimes waged war with England and Holland singlehanded, and sometimes with Germany and Spain, the king expressed himself pleased, and, calling for palm wine, said he would drink the French king's health, and as he drank the drums and trumpets sounded, just as they do in Hamlet, and the negro guard discharged their pieces. Prince Thomas then asked the name of the French king who was so powerful, and being told it was Louis le Grand, declared he would give that name to his son, who was about to be baptised, and that Montauban should be godfather. He also expressed his hope that at some future voyage Montauban would carry the child to France, and present him to the brother monarch, and have him brought up in that country. "Assure him," said the same prince, "that I am his friend, and that if he has occasion for my service, I will go myself into France, with all the lances and fusils belonging to the king my father." The king said, if need were he would go himself in person. At this generous promise the guard discharged their muskets frantically, and the men and women shouted their admiration. The drums and trumpets went to it again, and the spearmen ran from one side to the other, uttering horrible cries, sounding like pain, but expressive of joy. Then the glasses went round faster, and the ceremony concluded by the negro king presenting Montauban with two cakes of wax. The white men now rose in public estimation. Whenever they stirred out, they were followed by crowds of negroes bringing presents of fruits and buffalo flesh, never having seen a white face before, and generally supposing the devil to be of that colour. Sable philosophers begged to be allowed to scrape their skin with knives, till the king issued an edict forbidding any one, under pain, scraping or rubbing the strangers.
The baptism passed off with great éclat. There being no priest in the town who knew how to baptize, or remembered the words of the service, a priest was procured from a Portuguese ship lying at the Cape. The freebooter speaks with much unction of his sponsorship. "I did it with so much the more pleasure," quoth he, "in that I was helping to make a Christian and sanctify a soul."
A few days after this ceremony, which afforded so much satisfaction to Montauban's tender conscience, he determined to embark on board an English ship lying at the Cape; but the black king would not have him trust himself into the hands of his enemies, and soon after he set sail in a Portuguese vessel that arrived to barter iron, arms, and brandy, for ivory, wax, and negroes. Two of his men, who had strayed up the country, he left behind. The Portuguese captain turned out to be an old friend, and took him at once to St. Thomas's, and here he stayed a month, the governor of the island showing him a thousand civilities. He then embarked on board an English vessel, with whose captain he contracted an intimate friendship, in spite of the governor's warnings. He gave up his own cabin to Montauban, to use our adventurer's own words, "with all the pleasure and diversion he could think of, for the solacing of my spirits under the afflictions I had from time to time endured."