As the ship had been leaky, we took the opportunity, in this place to search her, and to stop up the places which let in the water.  We accordingly lightened her, and bringing our guns and other moveable things to one side, we essayed to bring her down, that we might come to her bottom:  but, upon second consideration, we did not think it safe to let her lie on dry ground, neither indeed was the place convenient for it.  The inhabitants not used to such a sight as to see a ship lie down on one side; and heel in towards the shore, and not perceiving her men, who were at work on her bottom, with stages and boats on the off side, presently imagined the ship had been cast away, and lay fast on the ground.  Agreeable to this supposition, they surrounded us with ten or twelve large boats, with a resolution, undoubtedly to plunder the ship, and to carry away those they found alive for slaves to their king.  But when they perceived our men hard at work on the ship’s bottom and side, washing, graving, and stopping her, it filled them all with such surprise, that they stood gazing as though they were confounded.  Nor could we imagine what their design was; however, for fear of danger, we handed down arms and ammunition to those at work, in order to defend themselves; and, indeed, this precaution was absolutely necessary; for, in a quarter of an hour after, the natives, concluding it was really a shipwreck, and that we were saving our lives and goods, which they thought belonged to them, came down upon our men as though it had been in line of battle.  We lay at present but in a very unfit posture to fight; and before the stages could be got down, or the men in the boat come on board as they were ordered, the Cochinchinese were upon them, and two of their boats boarding our long boat, they began to lay hold of our men as prisoners.  The first they seized was a stout English sailor, who never fired his musket, like a fool, as I imagined, but laid it down in the boat:  but he knew what he was doing; for, by main force, he dragged the Pagan out of the boat into ours by the two ears, and knocked his brains out against the boat’s gunnel; a Dutchman that was next him, snatched up the musket, and knocked down five more with the but-end of it; however, this was doing very little to their number; but a strange unexpected accident, which rather merits laughter than any thing else, gave our men a complete victory over them.

It seems the carpenter, who was preparing to grave the outside of the ship, as well as to pay the seams, where he caulked to stop the leaks, had gotten two kettles just let down in the boat, one filled with boiling pitch, and the other with rosin, tallow, oil, and such stuffs as the shipwrights use; the carpenter’s man had a great iron ladle with which he used to supply the workmen with hot stuff, & as two of the enemies entered the boat where the fellow stood, he saluted them with a full ladle of the hot boiling liquor; which, the poor creatures being half naked, made them