doing you a piece of service of such importance."—" I can never be ungrateful," said I, " for any service, or to any man that offers me any kindness; but it is past my comprehension what they should have such a design upon me for: however, since you say there is no time to be lost, and that there is some villanous design on hand against me, I will go on board this minute, and put to sea immediately, if my men can stop the leak, or if we can swim without stopping it: but, Sir," said I, "shall I go away ignorant of the cause of all this? Can you give me no further light into it?"—" I can tell you but part of the story, Sir," says he; "but I have a Dutch seaman here with me, and I believe I could persuade him to tell you the rest; but there is scarce time for it: but the short of the story is this, the first part of which, I suppose, you know well enough, viz. that you was with this ship at Sumatra; that there your captain was murdered by the Malays, with three of his men; and that you, or some of those that were on board with you, ran away with the ship, and are since turned pirates. This is the sum of the story, and you will all be seized as pirates, I can assure you, and executed with very little ceremony; for you know merchant ships show but little law to pirates, if they get them into their power."—" Now you speak plain English," said I, " and I thank you; and though I know nothing that we have done like what you talk of, for I am sure we came honestly and fairly by the ship; yet seeing such a work is doing, as you say, and that you seem to mean honestly, I will be upon my guard."—" Nay, Sir," says he, "do not talk of being upon your guard; the best defence is to be out of the danger; if you have any regard for your life, and the lives of all your men, put to sea, without fail, at high water; and as you have a whole tide before you, you will be gone too far out before they can come down; for they will come away at high water, and as they have twenty miles to come, you will get near two hours of them by the difference of the tide, not reckoning the length of the way; besides, as they are only boats, and not ships, they will not venture to follow you far out to sea, especially if it blows."—" Well," said I, " you have been very kind in this; what shall I do for you to make you amends ?"- -"Sir," says he, " you may not be willing to make me any amends, because you may not be convinced of the truth of it: I will make an offer to you; I have nineteen months pay due to me on board the ship

,

which I came out of England in; and the Dutchman that is with me has seven months pay due to him; if you will make

good our pay to us, we will go along with you : if you find nothing more in it, we will desire no more; but if we do convince you that we have saved your lives, and the ship, and the lives of all the men in her, we will leave the rest to you."

I consented to this readily, and went immediately on board, and the two men with me. As soon as I came to the ship's side, my partner, who was on board, came out on the quarter-deck, and called to me, with a great deal of joy, "O ho! Oho! we have stopped the leak! we have stopped the leak!"—" Say you so!" said I, "thank God; but weigh anchor then immediately."—" Weigh!" says he, "What do you mean by that? What is the matter?"- "Ask no questions," said I; " but all hands to work, and weigh without losing a minute!" He was surprised, but, however, he called the captain, and he immediately ordered the anchor to be got up; and though the tide was not quite down, yet a little land breeze blowing, we stood out to sea. Then I called him into the cabin, and told him the story; and we called in the men, and they told us the rest of it but as it took up a great deal of time, before we had done a seaman comes to the cabin-door, and called out to us that the captain bade him tell us we were chased. "Chased!" says I; by what?"—" By five sloops, or boats," says the fellow, "full of men.". "Very well," said I; "then it is apparent there is something in it." In the next place, I ordered all our men to be called up, and told them there was a design to seize the ship, and to take us for pirates, and asked them if they would stand by us, and by one another; the men answered cheerfully, one and all, that they would live and die with us. Then I asked the captain what way he thought best for us to manage a fight with them; for resist them I was resolved we would, and that to the last drop. He said readily that the way was to keep them off with our great shot as long as we could, and then to fire at them with our small arms, to keep them from boarding us; but when neither of these would do any longer, we should retire to our close quarters; perhaps they had not materials to break open our bulk-heads, or get in upon us.

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The gunner had, in the mean time, orders to bring two guns to bear fore and aft, out of the steerage, to clear the deck, and load them with musket-bullets and small pieces of old iron, and what came next to hand; and thus we made ready for fight but all this while we kept out to sea, with wind enough, and could see the boats at a distance, being five large long-boats, following us with all the sail they could make.

Two of those boats (which by our glasses we could see were

English) out-sailed the rest, were near two leagues a-head of them, and gained upon us considerably, so that we found they would come up with us; upon which we fired a gun without ball, to intimate that they should bring to and we put out a flag of truce, as a signal for parley; but they came crowding after us, till they came within shot, when we took in our white flag, they having made no answer to it, and hung out our red flag, and fired at them with a shot. Notwithstanding this, they came on till they were near enough to call to them with a speaking trumpet which we had on board; so we called to them, and bade them keep off, at their peril.

It was all one; they crowded after us, and endeavoured to come under our stern, so as to board us on our quarter; upon which, seeing they were resolute for mischief, and depended upon the strength that followed them, I ordered to bring the ship to, so that they lay upon our broadside, when immediately we fired five guns at them, one of which had been levelled so true as to carry away the stern of the hindermost boat, and bring them to the necessity of taking down their sail, and running all to the head of the boat to keep her from sinking; so she lay by, and had enough of it; but seeing the foremost boat crowd on after us, we made ready to fire at her in particular. While this was doing, one of the three boats that was behind, being forwarder than the other two, made up to the boat which we had disabled, to relieve her, and we could see her take out the men we called again to the foremost boat, and offered a truce, to parley again, and to know what her business was with us; but had no answer, only she crowded close under our stern. Upon this our gunner, who was a very dexterous fellow, run out his two chase-guns, and fired again at her, but the shot missing, the men in the boat shouted, waved their caps, and came on; but the gunner getting quickly ready again, fired among them a second time, one shot of which, though it missed the boat itself, yet fell in among the men, and we could easily see had done a great deal of mischief among them; but we took no notice of that, weared the ship again, and brought our quarter to bear upon them, and firing three guns more, we found the boat was almost split to pieces; in particular, her rudder and a piece of her stern was shot quite away; so they handed her sail immediately, and were in great disorder. But to complete their misfortune, our gunner let fly two guns at them again; where he hit them we could not tell, but we found the boat was sinking, and some of the men already in the water: upon this I immediately manned out our pinnace, which we had kept close by our side, with orders to pick up some of the men,

if they could, and save them from drowning, and immediately come on board the ship with them, because we saw the rest of the boats began to come up. Our men in the pinnace followed their orders, and took up three men, one of whom was just drowning, and it was a good while before we could recover him. As soon as they were on board, we crowded all the sail we could make, and stood farther out to sea; and we found that when the other three boats came up to the first, they gave over their chase.

Being thus delivered from a danger, which, though I knew not the reason of it, yet seemed to be much greater than I apprehended, I resolved that we should change our course, and not let any one know whither we were going so we stood out to sea eastward, quite out of the course of all European ships, whether they were bound to China or any where else, within the commerce of the European nations.

When we were at sea, we began to consult with the two seamen, and inquire what the meaning of all this should be; and the Dutchman let us into the secret at once, telling us that the fellow that sold us the ship, as we said, was no more than a thief, that had run away with her. Then he told us how the captain, whose name too he told us, though I do not remember it now, was treacherously murdered by the natives on the coast of Malacca, with three of his men; and that he, this Dutchman, and four more, got into the woods, where they wandered about a great while, till at length he, in particular, in a miraculous manner, made his escape, and swam off to a Dutch ship, which sailing near the shore in its way from China, had sent their boat on shore for fresh water; that he durst not come to that part of the shore where the boat was, but made shift in the night to take the water farther off, and swimming a great while, at last the ship's boat took him up.

He then told us that he went to Batavia, where two of the seamen belonging to the ship arrived, having deserted the rest in their travels, and gave an account that the fellow who had run away with the ship sold her at Bengal to a set of pirates, which were gone a cruizing in her; and that they had already taken an English ship and two Dutch ships very richly laden.

This latter part was found to concern us directly, though we knew it to be false; yet, as my partner said very justly, if we had fallen into their hands, and they had had such a prepossession against us before-hand, it had been in vain for us to have defended ourselves, or to hope for any good quarter at their hands; and especially considering that our accusers had

been our judges, and that we could have expected nothing from them but what rage would have dictated, and an ungoverned passion have executed; and therefore it was his opinion we should go directly back to Bengal, from whence we came, without putting in at any port whatever; because there we could give a good account of ourselves, could prove where we were when the ship put in, of whom we bought her, and the like; and, which was more than all the rest, if we were put upon the necessity of bringing it before the proper judges, we should be sure to have some justice, and not to be hanged first and judged afterwards.

I was some time of my partner's opinion; but after a little more serious thinking, I told him I thought it was a very great hazard for us to attempt returning to Bengal, for that we were on the wrong side of the Straits of Malacca, and that if the alarm was given, we should be sure to be way-laid on every side, as well by the Dutch of Batavia as the English elsewhere; that if we should be taken, as it were, running away, we should even condemn ourselves, and there would want no more evidence to destroy us. I also asked the English sailor's opinion, who said he was of my mind, and that we should certainly be taken. This danger a little startled my partner, and all the ship's company, and we immediately resolved to go away to the coast of Tonquin, and so on to the coast of China; and, pursuing the first design as to trade, find some way or other to dispose of the ship, and come back in some of the vessels of the country, such as we could get. This was approved of as the best method for our security; and accordingly we steered away N. N. E. keeping above fifty leagues off from the usual course to the eastward. This, however, put us to some inconvenience; for, first, the winds, when we came to that distance from the shore, seemed to be more steadily against us, blowing almost trade, as we call it, from the E. and E. N. E. so that we were a long while upon our voyage, and we were but ill provided with victuals for so long a run; and, which was still worse, there was some danger that those English and Dutch ships, whose boats pursued us, whereof some were bound that way, might be got in before us, and if not, some other ship bound to China might have information of us from them, and pursue us with the same vigour.

I must confess, I was now very uneasy, and thought myself, including the late escape from the long-boats, to have been in the most dangerous condition that ever I was through my past life; for whatever ill circumstances I had been in, I

never pursued for a thief before; nor had I ever done any