The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton

me by his speaking-trumpet, which all the men mighthear as well as I; thus, calling me by my name, "I hear they are honestfellows; pray tell them they are all welcome, and make them a bowl ofpunch."

  As the men heard it as well as I, there was no need to tell them whatthe captain said; and, as soon as the trumpet had done, they set up ahuzza, that showed us they were very hearty in their coming to us; butwe bound them to us by a stronger obligation still after this, for whenwe came to Madagascar, Captain Wilmot, with consent of all the ship'scompany, ordered that these men should have as much money given them outof the stock as was due to them for their pay in the ship they hadleft; and after that we allowed them twenty pieces of eight a man bountymoney; and thus we entered them upon shares, as we were all, and bravestout fellows they were, being eighteen in number, whereof two weremidshipmen, and one a carpenter.

  It was the 28th of November, when, having had some bad weather, we cameto an anchor in the road off St Augustine Bay, at the south-west endof my old acquaintance the isle of Madagascar. We lay here awhile andtrafficked with the natives for some good beef; though the weather wasso hot that we could not promise ourselves to salt any of it up to keep;but I showed them the way which we practised before, to salt it firstwith saltpetre, then cure it by drying it in the sun, which made it eatvery agreeably, though not so wholesome for our men, that not agreeingwith our way of cooking, viz., boiling with pudding, brewis, &c., andparticularly this way, would be too salt, and the fat of the meat berusty, or dried away so as not to be eaten.

  This, however, we could not help, and made ourselves amends by feedingheartily on the fresh beef while we were there, which was excellent,good and fat, every way as tender and as well relished as in England,and thought to be much better to us who had not tasted any in Englandfor so long a time.

  Having now for some time remained here, we began to consider thatthis was not a place for our business; and I, that had some views aparticular way of my own, told them that this was not a station forthose who looked for purchase; that there were two parts of the islandwhich were particularly proper for our purposes; first, the bay on theeast side of the island, and from thence to the island Mauritius, whichwas the usual way which ships that came from the Malabar coast, or thecoast of Coromandel, Fort St George, &c., used to take, and where, if wewaited for them, we ought to take our station.

  But, on the other hand, as we did not resolve to fall upon the Europeantraders, who were generally ships of force and well manned, and whereblows must be looked for; so I had another prospect, which I promisedmyself would yield equal profit, or perhaps greater, without any of thehazard and difficulty of the former; and this was the Gulf of Mocha, orthe Red Sea.

  I told them that the trade here was great, the ships rich, and theStrait of Babelmandel narrow; so that there was no doubt but we mightcruise so as to let nothing slip our hands, having the seas open fromthe Red Sea, along the coast of Arabia, to the Persian Gulf, and theMalabar side of the Indies.

  I told them what I had observed when I sailed round the island in myformer progress; how that, on the northernmost point of the island,there were several very good harbours and roads for our ships; thatthe natives were even more civil and tractable, if possible, than thosewhere we were, not having been so often ill-treated by European sailorsas those had in the south and east sides; and that we might always besure of a retreat, if we were driven to put in by any necessity, eitherof enemies or weather.

  They were easily convinced of the reasonableness of my scheme; andCaptain Wilmot, whom I now called our admiral, though he was at first ofthe mind to go and lie at the island Mauritius, and wait for some ofthe European merchant-ships from the road of Coromandel, or the Bay ofBengal, was now of my mind. It is true we were strong enough to haveattacked an English East India ship of the greatest force, though someof them were said to carry fifty guns; but I represented to him thatwe were sure to have blows and blood if we took them; and, after we haddone, their loading was not of equal value to us, because we had no roomto dispose of their merchandise; and, as our circumstances stood, we hadrather have taken one outward-bound East India ship, with her ready cashon board, perhaps to the value of forty or fifty thousand pounds, thanthree homeward-bound, though their loading would at London be worththree times the money, because we knew not whither to go to dispose ofthe cargo; whereas the ships from London had abundance of things weknew how to make use of besides their money, such as their stores ofprovisions and liquors, and great quantities of the like sent to thegovernors and factories at the English settlements for their use; sothat, if we resolved to look for our own country ships, it should bethose that were outward-bound, not the London ships homeward.

  All these things considered, brought the admiral to be of my mindentirely; so, after taking in water and some fresh provisions wherewe lay, which was near Cape St Mary, on the south-west corner of theisland, we weighed and stood away south, and afterwards S.S.E., toround the island, and in about six days' sail got out of the wake of theisland, and steered away north, till we came off Port Dauphin, and thennorth by east, to the latitude of 13 degrees 40 minutes, which was, inshort, just at the farthest part of the island; and the admiral, keepingahead, made the open sea fair to the west, clear of the whole island;upon which he brought to, and we sent a sloop to stand in round thefarthest point north, and coast along the shore, and see for a harbourto put into, which they did, and soon brought us an account that therewas a deep bay, with a very good road, and several little islands, underwhich they found good riding, in ten to seventeen fathom water, andaccordingly there we put in.

  However, we afterwards found occasion to remove our station, as youshall hear presently. We had now nothing to do but go on shore, andacquaint ourselves a little with the natives, take in fresh water andsome fresh provisions, and then to sea again. We found the peoplevery easy to deal with, and some cattle they had; but it being at theextremity of the island, they had not such quantities of cattle here.However, for the present we resolved to appoint this for our place ofrendezvous, and go and look out. This was about the latter end of April.

  Accordingly we put to sea, and cruised away to the northward, for theArabian coast. It was a long run, but as the winds generally blow tradefrom the S. and S.S.E. from May to September, we had good weather; andin about twenty days we made the island of Socotra, lying south from theArabian coast, and E.S.E. from the mouth of the Gulf of Mocha, or theRed Sea.

  Here we took in water, and stood off and on upon the Arabian shore. Wehad not cruised here above three days, or thereabouts, but I spied asail, and gave her chase; but when we came up with her, never was such apoor prize chased by pirates that looked for booty, for we found nothingin her but poor, half-naked Turks, going a pilgrimage to Mecca, to thetomb of their prophet Mahomet. The junk that carried them had no onething worth taking away but a little rice and some coffee, which wasall the poor wretches had for their subsistence; so we let them go, forindeed we knew not what to do with them.

  The same evening we chased another junk with two masts, and in somethingbetter plight to look at than the former. When we came on board we foundthem upon the same errand, but only that they were people of some betterfashion than the other; and here we got some plunder, some Turkishstores, a few diamonds in the ear-drops of five or six persons, somefine Persian carpets, of which they made their saffras to lie upon, andsome money; so we let them go also.

  We continued here eleven days longer, and saw nothing but now and then afishing-boat; but the twelfth day of our cruise we spied a ship: indeedI thought at first it had been an English ship, but it appeared to bean European freighted for a voyage from Goa, on the coast of Malabar, tothe Red Sea, and was very rich. We chased her, and took her without anyfight, though they had some guns on board too, but not many. We foundher manned with Portuguese seamen, but under the direction of fivemerchant Turks, who had hired her on the coast of Malabar of somePortugal merchants, and had laden her with pepper, saltpetre, somespices, and the rest of the loading was ch
iefly calicoes and wroughtsilks, some of them very rich.

  We took her and carried her to Socotra; but we really knew not what todo with her, for the same reasons as before; for all their goods were oflittle or no value to us. After some days we found means to let one ofthe Turkish merchants know, that if he would ransom the ship we wouldtake a sum of money and let them go. He told me that if I would let oneof them go on shore for the money they would do it; so we adjusted thevalue of the cargo at 30,000 ducats. Upon this agreement, we allowed thesloop to carry him on shore, at Dofar, in Arabia, where a rich merchantlaid down the money for them, and came off with our sloop; and onpayment of the money we very fairly and honestly let them go.

  Some days after this we took an Arabian junk, going from the Gulf ofPersia to Mocha, with a good quantity of pearl on board. We gutted himof the pearl, which it seems was belonging to some merchants at Mocha,and let him go, for there was nothing else worth our taking.

  We