And first, it is to be observed here, that for many reasons I did not think fit to let them know any thing of the sloop I had framed, and which I thought of setting up among them; for I found, at least at my first coming, such seeds of division among them, that I saw it plainly, had I set up the sloop, and left it among them, they would, upon very light disgust, have separated, and gone away from one another; or perhaps have turned pirates, and so made the island a den of thieves, instead of a plantation of sober and religious people, as I intended it to be; nor did I leave the two pieces of brass cannon that I had on board, or the two quarter-deck guns, that my nephew took extraordinary, for the same reason:  I thought they had enough to qualify them for a defensive war, against any that should invade them; but I was not to set them up for an offensive war, or to encourage them to go abroad to attack others, which, in the end, would only bring ruin and destruction upon themselves and all their undertakings:  I reserved the sloop, therefore, and the guns, for their service another way, as I shall observe in its place.

I have now done with the island:  I left them all in good circumstances, and in a flourishing condition, and went on board my ship again the fifth day of May, having been five and twenty days among them; and, as they were all resolved to stay upon the island till I came to remove them, I promised to send some further relief from the Brasils, if I could possibly find an opportunity; and particularly I promised to send them some cattle; such as sheep, hogs, and cows; for as to the two cows and calves which I brought from England, we had been obliged, by the length of our voyage, to kill them at sea, for want of hay to feed them.

The next day, giving them a salute of five guns at parting, we set sail, and arrived at the bay of All Saints, in the Brasils, in about twenty-two days; meeting nothing remarkable in our passage but this, that about three days after we sailed, being becalmed, and the current setting strong to the N.N.E. running, as it were, into a bay or gulf on the land side, we were driven something out of our course; and once or twice our men cried Land, to the westward; but whether it was the continent, or islands, we could not tell by any means.

But the third day, towards evening, the sea smooth and the weather calm, we saw the sea, as it were, covered towards the land, with something very black, not being able to discover what it was; but, after some time, our chief mate going up the main shrouds a little way, and looking at them with a perspective, cried out, it was an army.  I could not imagine what he meant by an army, and spoke a little hastily, calling the fellow a fool, or some such word:  “Nay, Sir,” says he, “don’t be angry, for it is an army, and a fleet too; for I believe there are a thousand canoes, and you may see them paddle along, and they are coming towards us too apace, and full of men.”