The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton

in of the great ocean east of New Guinea. However, as Isaid, we stood away large, and made fresh way, when, on the sudden,from a dark cloud which hovered over our heads, came a flash, or ratherblast, of lightning, which was so terrible, and quivered so long amongus, that not I only, but all our men, thought the ship was on fire. Theheat of the flash, or fire, was so sensibly felt in our faces, that someof our men had blisters raised by it on their skins, not immediately,perhaps, by the heat, but by the poisonous or noxious particles whichmixed themselves with the matter inflamed. But this was not all; theshock of the air, which the fracture in the clouds made, was suchthat our ship shook as when a broadside is fired; and her motion beingchecked, as it were at once, by a repulse superior to the force thatgave her way before, the sails all flew back in a moment, and the shiplay, as we might truly say, thunder-struck. As the blast from the cloudwas so very near us, it was but a few moments after the flash that theterriblest clap of thunder followed that was ever heard by mortals. Ifirmly believe a blast of a hundred thousand barrels of gunpowder couldnot have been greater to our hearing; nay, indeed, to some of our men ittook away their hearing.

  It is not possible for me to describe, or any one to conceive, theterror of that minute. Our men were in such a consternation, that not aman on board the ship had presence of mind to apply to the proper dutyof a sailor, except friend William; and had he not run very nimbly,and with a composure that I am sure I was not master of, to let go thefore-sheet, set in the weather-brace of the fore-yard, and haul downthe top-sails, we had certainly brought all our masts by the board, andperhaps have been overwhelmed in the sea.

  As for myself, I must confess my eyes were open to my danger, though notthe least to anything of application for remedy. I was all amazement andconfusion, and this was the first time that I can say I began to feelthe effects of that horror which I know since much more of, upon thejust reflection on my former life. I thought myself doomed by Heaven tosink that moment into eternal destruction; and with this peculiar markof terror, viz., that the vengeance was not executed in the ordinaryway of human justice, but that God had taken me into His immediatedisposing, and had resolved to be the executer of His own vengeance.

  Let them alone describe the confusion I was in who know what was thecase of [John] Child, of Shadwell, or Francis Spira. It is impossibleto describe it. My soul was all amazement and surprise. I thought myselfjust sinking into eternity, owning the divine justice of my punishment,but not at all feeling any of the moving, softening tokens of a sincerepenitent; afflicted at the punishment, but not at the crime; alarmed atthe vengeance, but not terrified at the guilt; having the same gust tothe crime, though terrified to the last degree at the thought of thepunishment, which I concluded I was just now going to receive.

  But perhaps many that read this will be sensible of the thunder andlightning, that may think nothing of the rest, or rather may make a jestof it all; so I say no more of it at this time, but proceed to the storyof the voyage. When the amazement was over, and the men began to cometo themselves, they fell a-calling for one another, every one for hisfriend, or for those he had most respect for; and it was a singularsatisfaction to find that nobody was hurt. The next thing was toinquire if the ship had received no damage, when the boatswain, steppingforward, found that part of the head was gone, but not so as toendanger the bowsprit; so we hoisted our top-sails again, hauled aft thefore-sheet, braced the yards, and went our course as before. Nor can Ideny but that we were all somewhat like the ship; our first astonishmentbeing a little over, and that we found the ship swim again, we were soonthe same irreligious, hardened crew that we were before, and I among therest.

  As we now steered, our course lay N.N.E., and we passed thus, with afair wind, through the strait or channel between the island of Giloloand the land of Nova Guinea, when we were soon in the open sea or ocean,on the south-east of the Philippines, being the great Pacific, or SouthSea, where it may be said to join itself with the vast Indian Ocean.

  As we passed into these seas, steering due north, so we soon crossed theline to the north side, and so sailed on towards Mindanao and Manilla,the chief of the Philippine Islands, without meeting with any purchasetill we came to the northward of Manilla, and then our trade began;for here we took three Japanese vessels, though at some distance fromManilla. Two of them had made their market, and were going home withnutmegs, cinnamon, cloves, &c., besides all sorts of European goods,brought with the Spanish ships from Acapulco. They had togethereight-and-thirty ton of cloves, and five or six ton of nutmegs, and asmuch cinnamon. We took the spice, but meddled with very little of theEuropean goods, they being, as we thought, not worth our while; but wewere very sorry for it soon after, and therefore grew wiser upon thenext occasion.

  The third Japanese was the best prize to us; for he came with money, anda great deal of gold uncoined, to buy such goods as we mentioned above.We eased him of his gold, and did him no other harm, and having nointention to stay long here, we stood away for China.

  We were at sea above two months upon this voyage, beating it up againstthe wind, which blew steadily from the N.E., and within a point or twoone way or other; and this indeed was the reason why we met with themore prizes in our voyage.

  We were just gotten clear of the Philippines, and we purposed to go tothe isle of Formosa, but the wind blew so fresh at N.N.E. that there wasno making anything of it, and we were forced to put back to Laconia, themost northerly of those islands. We rode here very secure, and shiftedour situation, not in view of any danger, for there was none, but for abetter supply of provisions, which we found the people very willing tosupply us with.

  There lay, while we remained here, three very great galleons, or Spanishships, from the south seas; whether newly come in or ready to sail wecould not understand at first; but as we found the China traders beganto load and set forward to the north, we concluded the Spanish ships hadnewly unloaded their cargo, and these had been buying; so we doubtednot but we should meet with purchase in the rest of the voyage, neither,indeed, could we well miss of it.

  We stayed here till the beginning of May, when we were told the Chinesetraders would set forward; for the northern monsoons end about thelatter end of March or beginning of April; so that they are sure of fairwinds home. Accordingly we hired some of the country boats, whichare very swift sailers, to go and bring us word how affairs stood atManilla, and when the China junks would sail; and by this intelligencewe ordered our matters so well, that three days after we set sail wefell in with no less than eleven of them; out of which, however, havingby misfortune of discovering ourselves, taken but three, we contentedourselves and pursued our voyage to Formosa. In these three vessels wetook, in short, such a quantity of cloves, nutmegs, cinnamon, and mace,besides silver, that our men began to be of my opinion,--that we wererich enough; and, in short, we had nothing to do now but to consider bywhat methods to secure the immense treasure we had got.

  I was secretly glad to hear that they were of this opinion, for I hadlong before resolved, if it were possible, to persuade them to think ofreturning, having fully perfected my first projected design of rummagingamong the Spice Islands; and all those prizes, which were exceeding richat Manilla, was quite beyond my design.

  But now I had heard what the men said, and how they thought we were verywell, I let them know by friend William, that I intended only to sailto the island of Formosa, where I should find opportunity to turn ourspices and Europe goods into ready money, and that then I would tackabout for the south, the northern monsoons being perhaps by that timealso ready to set in. They all approved of my design, and willinglywent forward; because, besides the winds, which would not permit untilOctober to go to the south, I say, besides this, we were now a very deepship, having near two hundred ton of goods on board, and particularly,some very valuable; the sloop also had a proportion.

  With this resolution we went on cheerfully, when, within about twelvedays' sail more, we made the island Formosa, at a great distance, butwere ourselves shot beyond the south
ernmost part of the island, being toleeward, and almost upon the coast of China. Here we were a little ata loss, for the English factories were not far off, and we might beobliged to fight some of their ships, if we met with them; which, thoughwe were able enough to do, yet we did not desire it on many accounts,and particularly because we did not think it was our business to have itknown who we were, or that such a kind of people as we had been seen onthe coast. However, we were obliged to keep to the northward, keeping asgood an offing as we could with respect to the coast of China.

  We had not sailed long but we chased a small Chinese junk, and havingtaken her, we found she was bound to the island of Formosa, having nogoods on board but some rice and a small quantity of tea; but she hadthree Chinese merchants in her; and they told us that they were going tomeet a large vessel of their country, which came from Tonquin, and layin a river in Formosa, whose name I forgot; and they were going to thePhilippine Islands, with silks, muslins, calicoes, and