On this supposition they came all about us in two or three hours time, with ten or twelve large boats, having some of them eight, some ten men in a boat, intending, no doubt, to have come on board and plunder the ship; and if they had found us there, to have carried us away for slaves to their king, or whatever they call him, for we knew not who was their governor.

When they came up to the ship, and began to row round her, they discovered us all hard at work, on the outside of the ship’s bottom and side, washing, and graving, and stopping, as every seafaring man knows how.

They stood for awhile gazing at us, and we, who were a little surprised, could not imagine what their design was; but being willing to be sure, we took this opportunity to get some of us into the ship, and others to hand down arms and ammunition to those that were at work to defend themselves with, if there should be occasion; and it was no more than need; for in less than a quarter of an hour’s consultation, they agreed, it seems, that the ship was really a wreck; that we were all at work endeavouring to save her, or to save our lives by the help of our boats; and when we handed our arms into the boats, they concluded by that motion that we were endeavouring to save some of our goods.  Upon this they took it for granted they all belonged to them, and away they came directly upon our men, as if it had been in a line of battle.

Our men seeing so many of them began to be frighted, for we lay but in an ill posture to fight, and cried out to us to know what they should do?  I immediately called to the men who worked upon the stages, to slip them down and get up the side into the ship, and bade those in the boat to row round and come on board; and those few of us who were on board worked with all the strength and hands we had to bring the ship to rights; but, however, neither the men upon the stage, nor those in the boats, could do as they were ordered, before the Cochinchinese were upon them, and with two of their boats boarded our long-boat, and began to lay hold of the men as their prisoners.

The first man they laid hold of was an English seaman, a stout, strong fellow, who having a musket in his hand, never offered to fire it, but laid it down in the boat, like a fool as I thought.  But he understood his business better than I could teach him; for he grappled the Pagan, and dragged him by main force out of their own boat into ours; where taking him by the two ears, he beat his head so against the boat’s gunnel, that the fellow died instantly in his hands; and in the mean time a Dutchman, who stood next, took up the musket, and with the but-end of it so laid about him, that he knocked down five of them who attempted to enter the boat.  But this was little towards resisting thirty or forty men, who fearless, because ignorant of their danger, began to throw themselves into the long-boat, where we had but five men to defend it.  But one accident gave our men a complete victory, which deserved our laughter rather than any thing else, and that was this:—­