A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 eBook

Robert Kerr (writer)
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 787 pages of information about A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17.

A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 eBook

Robert Kerr (writer)
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 787 pages of information about A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17.
so inaccessible.  Beyond this, I, with some others, having reached another bay, found driven ashore some parts of the wreck, but no kind of provision; nor did we meet with any shell-fish, which we were chiefly in search of.  We therefore returned to the rest, and for that day made no other repast than what the wild sellery afforded us.  The ensuing night proved exceedingly tempestuous; and, the sea running very high, threatened those on board with immediate destruction by the parting of the wreck.  They then were as solicitous to get ashore as they were before obstinate in refusing the assistance we sent them; and when they found the boat did not come to their relief at the instant they expected it, without considering how impracticable a thing it was to send it them in such a sea, they fired one of the quarter-deck guns at the hut, the ball of which did but just pass over the covering of it, and was plainly heard by the captain and us who were within.  Another attempt, therefore, was made to bring these madmen to land; which, however, by the violence of the sea and other impediments, occasioned by the mast that lay alongside, proved ineffectual.  This unavoidable delay made the people on board outrageous; they fell to beating every thing to pieces that fell in the way; and, carrying their intemperance to the greatest excess, broke open chests and cabins for plunder that could be of no use to them; and so earnest were they in this wantonness of theft, that one man had evidently been murdered on account of some division of the spoil, or for the sake of the share that fell to him, having all the marks of a strangled corpse.  One thing in this outrage they seemed particularly attentive to, which was, to provide themselves with arms and ammunition, in order to support them in putting their mutinous designs in execution, and asserting their claim to a lawless exemption from the authority of their officers, which they pretended must cease with the loss of the ship.  But of these arms, which we stood in great need of, they were soon bereaved upon coming ashore, by the resolution of Captain Cheap and Lieutenant Hamilton of the marines.  Among these mutineers who had been left on board, as I observed before, was the boatswain, who, instead of exerting the authority he had over the rest, to keep them within bounds as much as possible, was himself a ringleader in their riot; him, without respect to the figure he then made, for he was in laced clothes, Captain Cheap, by a blow well laid on with his cane, felled to the ground.  It was scarce possible to refrain from laughter at the whimsical appearance these fellows made, who, having rifled the chests of the officers best suits, had put them on over their greasy trowsers and dirty checked shirts.  They were soon stripped of their finery, as they had before been obliged to resign their arms.

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A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.