ship on fire; to prevent which, I ordered them to get their boats out, and fasten them, one close by the head, and the other by the stern, well manned, with skeets and buckets to extinguish the flames, should it so happen.  The savages soon came up with us, but there were not so many as the mate had said, for instead of a thousand canoes there were only one hundred and twenty; too many indeed for us, several of their canoes containing about sixteen or seventeen men.

As they approached us, they seemed to be in the greatest amazement, not knowing what to make of us.  They rowed round the ship, which occasioned us to call to the men in the boats, not to suffer them to come near them.  Hereupon they beckoned to the savages to keep back, which they accordingly did; but at their retreat they let fly about fifty arrows among us, and very much wounded one of our men in the long-boat.  I called to them not to fire upon any account, but handing them down some deal boards, the carpenters made them a kind of fence to shield them from the arrows.  In half an hour after they came so near astern of us, that we had a perfect sight of them; then they rowed a little farther out, till they came directly along-side of us, and then approached so near, that they could hear us speak; this made me order all our men to keep close, and get their guns ready.  In the mean time I ordered Friday to go out upon deck, and ask them in his language what they meant.  No sooner did he do so, but six of the savages, who were in the foremost canoes, stooping down, showed us their naked backsides, as much as to say in English, Kiss our——­:  but Friday quickly knew what this meant, by immediately crying out they were going to shoot; unfortunately for him, poor creature, who fell under the cloud of three hundred arrows, no less than seven piercing through his body, killing one of the best servants, and faithfullest of companions in all my solitudes and afflictions.

So enraged was I at the death of poor Friday, that the guns, which before were charged only with powder, to frighten them, I ordered to be loaded with small shot; nor did the gunners fail in their aim, but at this broadside split and overset thirteen or fourteen of their canoes, which killed numbers of them, and set the rest a swimming, the others, frightened out of their wits, little regarding their fellows drowning, scoured away as fast as they could.  One poor wretch our people took up, swimming for his life, an hour after.  He was very sullen at first, to that he would neither eat nor speak; but I took a way to cure him, by ordering them to throw him into the sea, which they did, and then he came swimming back like a cork, calling in his tongue, as I suppose, to save him.  So we took him on board, but it was a long time before we could make him speak or understand English; yet when we had taught him, he told us, ‘they were going with their kings to fight a great battle;’ and when we asked him, what made them come up to us? he said, to makee de great wonder look; where it is to be noted, that those natives, and those of Africa, always add to e’s at the end of English words, as makee, takee, and the like, from which it is very difficult thing to make them break off.