Chapter IX. Dreadful Occurrences in Madagascar

by Daniel Defoe

　　I had no more business to go to the East Indies than a man at fullliberty has to go to the turnkey at Newgate, and desire him to lockhim up among the prisoners there, and starve him. Had I taken asmall vessel from England and gone directly to the island; had Iloaded her, as I did the other vessel, with all the necessaries forthe plantation and for my people; taken a patent from thegovernment here to have secured my property, in subjection only tothat of England; had I carried over cannon and ammunition, servantsand people to plant, and taken possession of the place, fortifiedand strengthened it in the name of England, and increased it withpeople, as I might easily have done; had I then settled myselfthere, and sent the ship back laden with good rice, as I might alsohave done in six months' time, and ordered my friends to havefitted her out again for our supply - had I done this, and stayedthere myself, I had at least acted like a man of common sense. ButI was possessed of a wandering spirit, and scorned all advantages:I pleased myself with being the patron of the people I placedthere, and doing for them in a kind of haughty, majestic way, likean old patriarchal monarch, providing for them as if I had beenfather of the whole family, as well as of the plantation. But Inever so much as pretended to plant in the name of any governmentor nation, or to acknowledge any prince, or to call my peoplesubjects to any one nation more than another; nay, I never so muchas gave the place a name, but left it as I found it, belonging tonobody, and the people under no discipline or government but myown, who, though I had influence over them as a father andbenefactor, had no authority or power to act or command one way orother, further than voluntary consent moved them to comply. Yeteven this, had I stayed there, would have done well enough; but asI rambled from them, and came there no more, the last letters I hadfrom any of them were by my partner's means, who afterwards sentanother sloop to the place, and who sent me word, though I had notthe letter till I got to London, several years after it waswritten, that they went on but poorly; were discontented with theirlong stay there; that Will Atkins was dead; that five of theSpaniards were come away; and though they had not been muchmolested by the savages, yet they had had some skirmishes withthem; and that they begged of him to write to me to think of thepromise I had made to fetch them away, that they might see theircountry again before they died.But I was gone a wildgoose chase indeed, and they that will haveany more of me must be content to follow me into a new variety offollies, hardships, and wild adventures, wherein the justice ofProvidence may be duly observed; and we may see how easily Heavencan gorge us with our own desires, make the strongest of our wishesbe our affliction, and punish us most severely with those verythings which we think it would be our utmost happiness to beallowed to possess. Whether I had business or no business, away Iwent: it is no time now to enlarge upon the reason or absurdity ofmy own conduct, but to come to the history - I was embarked for thevoyage, and the voyage I went.I shall only add a word or two concerning my honest Popishclergyman, for let their opinion of us, and all other heretics ingeneral, as they call us, be as uncharitable as it may, I verilybelieve this man was very sincere, and wished the good of all men:yet I believe he used reserve in many of his expressions, toprevent giving me offence; for I scarce heard him once call on theBlessed Virgin, or mention St. Jago, or his guardian angel, thoughso common with the rest of them. However, I say I had not theleast doubt of his sincerity and pious intentions; and I am firmlyof opinion, if the rest of the Popish missionaries were like him,they would strive to visit even the poor Tartars and Laplanders,where they have nothing to give them, as well as covet to flock toIndia, Persia, China, &c., the most wealthy of the heathencountries; for if they expected to bring no gains to their Churchby it, it may well be admired how they came to admit the ChineseConfucius into the calendar of the Christian saints.A ship being ready to sail for Lisbon, my pious priest asked meleave to go thither; being still, as he observed, bound never tofinish any voyage he began. How happy it had been for me if I hadgone with him. But it was too late now; all things Heaven appointsfor the best: had I gone with him I had never had so many thingsto be thankful for, and the reader had never heard of the secondpart of the travels and adventures of Robinson Crusoe: so I musthere leave exclaiming at myself, and go on with my voyage. Fromthe Brazils we made directly over the Atlantic Sea to the Cape ofGood Hope, and had a tolerably good voyage, our course generallysouth-east, now and then a storm, and some contrary winds; but mydisasters at sea were at an end - my future rubs and cross eventswere to befall me on shore, that it might appear the land was aswell prepared to be our scourge as the sea.Our ship was on a trading voyage, and had a supercargo on board,who was to direct all her motions after she arrived at the Cape,only being limited to a certain number of days for stay, bycharter-party, at the several ports she was to go to. This wasnone of my business, neither did I meddle with it; my nephew, thecaptain, and the supercargo adjusting all those things between themas they thought fit. We stayed at the Cape no longer than wasneedful to take in-fresh water, but made the best of our way forthe coast of Coromandel. We were, indeed, informed that a Frenchman-of-war, of fifty guns, and two large merchant ships, were gonefor the Indies; and as I knew we were at war with France, I hadsome apprehensions of them; but they went their own way, and weheard no more of them.I shall not pester the reader with a tedious description of places,journals of our voyage, variations of the compass, latitudes,trade-winds, &c.; it is enough to name the ports and places whichwe touched at, and what occurred to us upon our passages from oneto another. We touched first at the island of Madagascar, where,though the people are fierce and treacherous, and very well armedwith lances and bows, which they use with inconceivable dexterity,yet we fared very well with them a while. They treated us verycivilly; and for some trifles which we gave them, such as knives,scissors, &c., they brought us eleven good fat bullocks, of amiddling size, which we took in, partly for fresh provisions forour present spending, and the rest to salt for the ship's use.We were obliged to stay here some time after we had furnishedourselves with provisions; and I, who was always too curious tolook into every nook of the world wherever I came, went on shore asoften as I could. It was on the east side of the island that wewent on shore one evening: and the people, who, by the way, arevery numerous, came thronging about us, and stood gazing at us at adistance. As we had traded freely with them, and had been kindlyused, we thought ourselves in no danger; but when we saw thepeople, we cut three boughs out of a tree, and stuck them up at adistance from us; which, it seems, is a mark in that country notonly of a truce and friendship, but when it is accepted the otherside set up three poles or boughs, which is a signal that theyaccept the truce too; but then this is a known condition of thetruce, that you are not to pass beyond their three poles towardsthem, nor they to come past your three poles or boughs towards you;so that you are perfectly secure within the three poles, and allthe space between your poles and theirs is allowed like a marketfor free converse, traffic, and commerce. When you go there youmust not carry your weapons with you; and if they come into thatspace they stick up their javelins and lances all at the firstpoles, and come on unarmed; but if any violence is offered them,and the truce thereby broken, away they run to the poles, and layhold of their weapons, and the truce is at an end.It happened one evening, when we went on shore, that a greaternumber of their people came down than usual, but all very friendlyand civil; and they brought several kinds of provisions, for whichwe satisfied them with such toys as we had; the women also broughtus milk and roots, and several things very acceptable to us, andall was quiet; and we made us a little tent or hut of some boughsor trees, and lay on shore all night. I know not what was theoccasion, but I was not so well satisfied to lie on shore as therest; and the boat riding at an anchor at about a stone's cast fromthe land, with two men in her to take care of her, I made one ofthem come on shore; and getting some boughs of trees to cover usalso in the boat, I spread the sail on the bottom of the boat, andlay under the cover of the branches of the trees all night in theboat.About two o'clock in the morning we heard one of our men making aterrible noise on the shore, calling out, for God's sake, to bringthe boat in and come and help them, for they were all like to bemurdered; and at the same time I heard the fire of five muskets,which was the number of guns they had, and that three times over;for it seems the natives here were not so easily frightened withguns as the savages were in America, where I had to do with them.All this while, I knew not what was the matter, but rousingimmediately from sleep with the noise, I caused the boat to bethrust in, and resolved with three fusees we had on board to landand assist our men. We got the boat soon to the shore, but our menwere in too much haste; for being come to the shore, they plungedinto the water, to get to the boat with all the expedition theycould, being pursued by between three and four hundred men. Ourmen were but nine in all, and only five of them had fusees withthem; the rest had pistols and swords, indeed, but they were ofsmall use to them.We took up seven of our men, and with difficulty enough too, threeof them being very ill wounded; and that which was still worse was,that while we stood in the boat to take our men in, we were in asmuch danger as they were in on shore; for they poured their arrowsin upon us so thick that we were glad to barricade the side of theboat up with the benches, and two or three loose boards which, toour great satisfaction, we had by mere accident in the boat. Andyet, had it been daylight, they are, it seems, such exact marksmen,that if they could have seen but the least part of any of us, theywould have been sure of us. We had, by the light of the moon, alittle sight of them, as they stood pelting us from the shore withdarts and arrows; and having got ready our firearms, we gave them avolley that we could hear, by the cries of some of them, hadwounded several; however, they stood thus in battle array on theshore till break of day, which we supposed was that they might seethe better to take their aim at us.In this condition we lay, and could not tell how to weigh ouranchor, or set up our sail, because we must needs stand up in theboat, and they were as sure to hit us as we were to hit a bird in atree with small shot. We made signals of distress to the ship, andthough she rode a league off, yet my nephew, the captain, hearingour firing, and by glasses perceiving the posture we lay in, andthat we fired towards the shore, pretty well understood us; andweighing anchor with all speed, he stood as near the shore as hedurst with the ship, and then sent another boat with ten hands inher, to assist us. We called to them not to come too near, tellingthem what condition we were in; however, they stood in near to us,and one of the men taking the end of a tow-line in his hand, andkeeping our boat between him and the enemy, so that they could notperfectly see him, swam on board us, and made fast the line to theboat: upon which we slipped out a little cable, and leaving ouranchor behind, they towed us out of reach of the arrows; we all thewhile lying close behind the barricade we had made. As soon as wewere got from between the ship and the shore, that we could lay herside to the shore, she ran along just by them, and poured in abroadside among them, loaded with pieces of iron and lead, smallbullets, and such stuff, besides the great shot, which made aterrible havoc among them.When we were got on board and out of danger, we had time to examineinto the occasion of this fray; and indeed our supercargo, who hadbeen often in those parts, put me upon it; for he said he was surethe inhabitants would not have touched us after we had made atruce, if we had not done something to provoke them to it. Atlength it came out that an old woman, who had come to sell us somemilk, had brought it within our poles, and a young woman with her,who also brought us some roots or herbs; and while the old woman(whether she was mother to the young woman or no they could nottell) was selling us the milk, one of our men offered some rudenessto the girl that was with her, at which the old woman made a greatnoise: however, the seaman would not quit his prize, but carriedher out of the old woman's sight among the trees, it being almostdark; the old woman went away without her, and, as we may suppose,made an outcry among the people she came from; who, upon notice,raised that great army upon us in three or four hours, and it wasgreat odds but we had all been destroyed.One of our men was killed with a lance thrown at him just at thebeginning of the attack, as he sallied out of the tent they hadmade; the rest came off free, all but the fellow who was theoccasion of all the mischief, who paid dear enough for hisbrutality, for we could not hear what became of him for a greatwhile. We lay upon the shore two days after, though the windpresented, and made signals for him, and made our boat sail upshore and down shore several leagues, but in vain; so we wereobliged to give him over; and if he alone had suffered for it, theloss had been less. I could not satisfy myself, however, withoutventuring on shore once more, to try if I could learn anything ofhim or them; it was the third night after the action that I had agreat mind to learn, if I could by any means, what mischief we haddone, and how the game stood on the Indians' side. I was carefulto do it in the dark, lest we should be attacked again: but Iought indeed to have been sure that the men I went with had beenunder my command, before I engaged in a thing so hazardous andmischievous as I was brought into by it, without design.We took twenty as stout fellows with us as any in the ship, besidesthe supercargo and myself, and we landed two hours before midnight,at the same place where the Indians stood drawn up in the eveningbefore. I landed here, because my design, as I have said, waschiefly to see if they had quitted the field, and if they had leftany marks behind them of the mischief we had done them, and Ithought if we could surprise one or two of them, perhaps we mightget our man again, by way of exchange.We landed without any noise, and divided our men into two bodies,whereof the boatswain commanded one and I the other. We neithersaw nor heard anybody stir when we landed: and we marched up, onebody at a distance from another, to the place. At first we couldsee nothing, it being very dark; till by-and-by our boatswain, wholed the first party, stumbled and fell over a dead body. This madethem halt a while; for knowing by the circumstances that they wereat the place where the Indians had stood, they waited for my comingup there. We concluded to halt till the moon began to rise, whichwe knew would be in less than an hour, when we could easily discernthe havoc we had made among them. We told thirty-two bodies uponthe ground, whereof two were not quite dead; some had an arm andsome a leg shot off, and one his head; those that were wounded, wesupposed, they had carried away. When we had made, as I thought, afull discovery of all we could come to the knowledge of, I resolvedon going on board; but the boatswain and his party sent me wordthat they were resolved to make a visit to the Indian town, wherethese dogs, as they called them, dwelt, and asked me to go alongwith them; and if they could find them, as they still fancied theyshould, they did not doubt of getting a good booty; and it might bethey might find Tom Jeffry there: that was the man's name we hadlost.Had they sent to ask my leave to go, I knew well enough what answerto have given them; for I should have commanded them instantly onboard, knowing it was not a hazard fit for us to run, who had aship and ship-loading in our charge, and a voyage to make whichdepended very much upon the lives of the men; but as they sent meword they were resolved to go, and only asked me and my company togo along with them, I positively refused it, and rose up, for I wassitting on the ground, in order to go to the boat. One or two ofthe men began to importune me to go; and when I refused, began togrumble, and say they were not under my command, and they would go."Come, Jack," says one of the men, "will you go with me? I'll gofor one." Jack said he would - and then another - and, in a word,they all left me but one, whom I persuaded to stay, and a boy leftin the boat. So the supercargo and I, with the third man, wentback to the boat, where we told them we would stay for them, andtake care to take in as many of them as should be left; for I toldthem it was a mad thing they were going about, and supposed most ofthem would have the fate of Tom Jeffry.They told me, like seamen, they would warrant it they would comeoff again, and they would take care, &c.; so away they went. Ientreated them to consider the ship and the voyage, that theirlives were not their own, and that they were entrusted with thevoyage, in some measure; that if they miscarried, the ship might belost for want of their help, and that they could not answer for itto God or man. But I might as well have talked to the mainmast ofthe ship: they were mad upon their journey; only they gave me goodwords, and begged I would not be angry; that they did not doubt butthey would be back again in about an hour at furthest; for theIndian town, they said, was not above half-a mile off, though theyfound it above two miles before they got to it.Well, they all went away, and though the attempt was desperate, andsuch as none but madmen would have gone about, yet, to give themtheir due, they went about it as warily as boldly; they weregallantly armed, for they had every man a fusee or musket, abayonet, and a pistol; some of them had broad cutlasses, some ofthem had hangers, and the boatswain and two more had poleaxes;besides all which they had among them thirteen hand grenadoes.Bolder fellows, and better provided, never went about any wickedwork in the world. When they went out their chief design wasplunder, and they were in mighty hopes of finding gold there; but acircumstance which none of them were aware of set them on fire withrevenge, and made devils of them all.When they came to the few Indian houses which they thought had beenthe town, which was not above half a mile off, they were undergreat disappointment, for there were not above twelve or thirteenhouses, and where the town was, or how big, they knew not. Theyconsulted, therefore, what to do, and were some time before theycould resolve; for if they fell upon these, they must cut all theirthroats; and it was ten to one but some of them might escape, itbeing in the night, though the moon was up; and if one escaped, hewould run and raise all the town, so they should have a whole armyupon them; on the other hand, if they went away and left thoseuntouched, for the people were all asleep, they could not tellwhich way to look for the town; however, the last was the bestadvice, so they resolved to leave them, and look for the town aswell as they could. They went on a little way, and found a cowtied to a tree; this, they presently concluded, would be a goodguide to them; for, they said, the cow certainly belonged to thetown before them, or the town behind them, and if they untied her,they should see which way she went: if she went back, they hadnothing to say to her; but if she went forward, they would followher. So they cut the cord, which was made of twisted flags, andthe cow went on before them, directly to the town; which, as theyreported, consisted of above two hundred houses or huts, and insome of these they found several families living together.Here they found all in silence, as profoundly secure as sleep couldmake them: and first, they called another council, to considerwhat they had to do; and presently resolved to divide themselvesinto three bodies, and so set three houses on fire in three partsof the town; and as the men came out, to seize them and bind them(if any resisted, they need not be asked what to do then), and soto search the rest of the houses for plunder: but they resolved tomarch silently first through the town, and see what dimensions itwas of, and if they might venture upon it or no.They did so, and desperately resolved that they would venture uponthem: but while they were animating one another to the work, threeof them, who were a little before the rest, called out aloud tothem, and told them that they had found - Tom Jeffry: they all ranup to the place, where they found the poor fellow hanging up nakedby one arm, and his throat cut. There was an Indian house just bythe tree, where they found sixteen or seventeen of the principalIndians, who had been concerned in the fray with us before, and twoor three of them wounded with our shot; and our men found they wereawake, and talking one to another in that house, but knew not theirnumber.The sight of their poor mangled comrade so enraged them, as before,that they swore to one another that they would be revenged, andthat not an Indian that came into their hands should have anyquarter; and to work they went immediately, and yet not so madly asmight be expected from the rage and fury they were in. Their firstcare was to get something that would soon take fire, but, after alittle search, they found that would be to no purpose; for most ofthe houses were low, and thatched with flags and rushes, of whichthe country is full; so they presently made some wildfire, as wecall it, by wetting a little powder in the palm of their hands, andin a quarter of an hour they set the town on fire in four or fiveplaces, and particularly that house where the Indians were not goneto bed.As soon as the fire begun to blaze, the poor frightened creaturesbegan to rush out to save their lives, but met with their fate inthe attempt; and especially at the door, where they drove themback, the boatswain himself killing one or two with his poleaxe.The house being large, and many in it, he did not care to go in,but called for a hand grenado, and threw it among them, which atfirst frightened them, but, when it burst, made such havoc amongthem that they cried out in a hideous manner. In short, most ofthe Indians who were in the open part of the house were killed orhurt with the grenado, except two or three more who pressed to thedoor, which the boatswain and two more kept, with their bayonets onthe muzzles of their pieces, and despatched all that came in theirway; but there was another apartment in the house, where the princeor king, or whatever he was, and several others were; and thesewere kept in till the house, which was by this time all in a lightflame, fell in upon them, and they were smothered together.All this while they fired not a gun, because they would not wakenthe people faster than they could master them; but the fire beganto waken them fast enough, and our fellows were glad to keep alittle together in bodies; for the fire grew so raging, all thehouses being made of light combustible stuff, that they couldhardly bear the street between them. Their business was to followthe fire, for the surer execution: as fast as the fire eitherforced the people out of those houses which were burning, orfrightened them out of others, our people were ready at their doorsto knock them on the head, still calling and hallooing one toanother to remember Tom Jeffry.While this was doing, I must confess I was very uneasy, andespecially when I saw the flames of the town, which, it beingnight, seemed to be close by me. My nephew, the captain, who wasroused by his men seeing such a fire, was very uneasy, not knowingwhat the matter was, or what danger I was in, especially hearingthe guns too, for by this time they began to use their firearms; athousand thoughts oppressed his mind concerning me and thesupercargo, what would become of us; and at last, though he couldill spare any more men, yet not knowing what exigence we might bein, he took another boat, and with thirteen men and himself cameashore to me.He was surprised to see me and the supercargo in the boat with nomore than two men; and though he was glad that we were well, yet hewas in the same impatience with us to know what was doing; for thenoise continued, and the flame increased; in short, it was next toan impossibility for any men in the world to restrain theircuriosity to know what had happened, or their concern for thesafety of the men: in a word, the captain told me he would go andhelp his men, let what would come. I argued with him, as I didbefore with the men, the safety of the ship, the danger of thevoyage, the interests of the owners and merchants, &c., and toldhim I and the two men would go, and only see if we could at adistance learn what was likely to be the event, and come back andtell him. It was in vain to talk to my nephew, as it was to talkto the rest before; he would go, he said; and he only wished he hadleft but ten men in the ship, for he could not think of having hismen lost for want of help: he had rather lose the ship, thevoyage, and his life, and all; and away he went.I was no more able to stay behind now than I was to persuade themnot to go; so the captain ordered two men to row back the pinnace,and fetch twelve men more, leaving the long-boat at an anchor; andthat, when they came back, six men should keep the two boats, andsix more come after us; so that he left only sixteen men in theship: for the whole ship's company consisted of sixty-five men,whereof two were lost in the late quarrel which brought thismischief on.Being now on the march, we felt little of the ground we trod on;and being guided by the fire, we kept no path, but went directly tothe place of the flame. If the noise of the guns was surprising tous before, the cries of the poor people were now quite of anothernature, and filled us with horror. I must confess I was never atthe sacking a city, or at the taking a town by storm. I had heardof Oliver Cromwell taking Drogheda, in Ireland, and killing man,woman, and child; and I had read of Count Tilly sacking the city ofMagdeburg and cutting the throats of twenty-two thousand of allsexes; but I never had an idea of the thing itself before, nor isit possible to describe it, or the horror that was upon our mindsat hearing it. However, we went on, and at length came to thetown, though there was no entering the streets of it for the fire.The first object we met with was the ruins of a hut or house, orrather the ashes of it, for the house was consumed; and just beforeit, plainly now to be seen by the light of the fire, lay four menand three women, killed, and, as we thought, one or two more lay inthe heap among the fire; in short, there were such instances ofrage, altogether barbarous, and of a fury something beyond what washuman, that we thought it impossible our men could be guilty of it;or, if they were the authors of it, we thought they ought to beevery one of them put to the worst of deaths. But this was notall: we saw the fire increase forward, and the cry went on just asthe fire went on; so that we were in the utmost confusion. Weadvanced a little way farther, and behold, to our astonishment,three naked women, and crying in a most dreadful manner, cameflying as if they had wings, and after them sixteen or seventeenmen, natives, in the same terror and consternation, with three ofour English butchers in the rear, who, when they could not overtakethem, fired in among them, and one that was killed by their shotfell down in our sight. When the rest saw us, believing us to betheir enemies, and that we would murder them as well as those thatpursued them, they set up a most dreadful shriek, especially thewomen; and two of them fell down, as if already dead, with thefright.My very soul shrunk within me, and my blood ran chill in my veins,when I saw this; and, I believe, had the three English sailors thatpursued them come on, I had made our men kill them all; however, wetook some means to let the poor flying creatures know that we wouldnot hurt them; and immediately they came up to us, and kneelingdown, with their hands lifted up, made piteous lamentation to us tosave them, which we let them know we would: whereupon they creptall together in a huddle close behind us, as for protection. Ileft my men drawn up together, and, charging them to hurt nobody,but, if possible, to get at some of our people, and see what devilit was possessed them, and what they intended to do, and to commandthem off; assuring them that if they stayed till daylight theywould have a hundred thousand men about their ears: I say I leftthem, and went among those flying people, taking only two of ourmen with me; and there was, indeed, a piteous spectacle among them.Some of them had their feet terribly burned with trampling andrunning through the fire; others their hands burned; one of thewomen had fallen down in the fire, and was very much burned beforeshe could get out again; and two or three of the men had cuts intheir backs and thighs, from our men pursuing; and another was shotthrough the body and died while I was there.I would fain have learned what the occasion of all this was; but Icould not understand one word they said; though, by signs, Iperceived some of them knew not what was the occasion themselves.I was so terrified in my thoughts at this outrageous attempt that Icould not stay there, but went back to my own men, and resolved togo into the middle of the town, through the fire, or whatever mightbe in the way, and put an end to it, cost what it would;accordingly, as I came back to my men, I told them my resolution,and commanded them to follow me, when, at the very moment, camefour of our men, with the boatswain at their head, roving overheaps of bodies they had killed, all covered with blood and dust,as if they wanted more people to massacre, when our men hallooed tothem as loud as they could halloo; and with much ado one of themmade them hear, so that they knew who we were, and came up to us.As soon as the boatswain saw us, he set up a halloo like a shout oftriumph, for having, as he thought, more help come; and withoutwaiting to hear me, "Captain," says he, "noble captain! I am gladyou are come; we have not half done yet. Villainous hell-hounddogs! I'll kill as many of them as poor Tom has hairs upon hishead: we have sworn to spare none of them; we'll root out the verynation of them from the earth;" and thus he ran on, out of breath,too, with action, and would not give us leave to speak a word. Atlast, raising my voice that I might silence him a little,"Barbarous dog!" said I, "what are you doing! I won't have onecreature touched more, upon pain of death; I charge you, upon yourlife, to stop your hands, and stand still here, or you are a deadman this minute." - "Why, sir," says he, "do you know what you do,or what they have done? If you want a reason for what we havedone, come hither;" and with that he showed me the poor fellowhanging, with his throat cut.I confess I was urged then myself, and at another time would havebeen forward enough; but I thought they had carried their rage toofar, and remembered Jacob's words to his sons Simeon and Levi:"Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for itwas cruel." But I had now a new task upon my hands; for when themen I had carried with me saw the sight, as I had done, I had asmuch to do to restrain them as I should have had with the others;nay, my nephew himself fell in with them, and told me, in theirhearing, that he was only concerned for fear of the men beingoverpowered; and as to the people, he thought not one of them oughtto live; for they had all glutted themselves with the murder of thepoor man, and that they ought to be used like murderers. Uponthese words, away ran eight of my men, with the boatswain and hiscrew, to complete their bloody work; and I, seeing it quite out ofmy power to restrain them, came away pensive and sad; for I couldnot bear the sight, much less the horrible noise and cries of thepoor wretches that fell into their hands.I got nobody to come back with me but the supercargo and two men,and with these walked back to the boat. It was a very great pieceof folly in me, I confess, to venture back, as it were, alone; foras it began now to be almost day, and the alarm had run over thecountry, there stood about forty men armed with lances and boughsat the little place where the twelve or thirteen houses stood,mentioned before: but by accident I missed the place, and camedirectly to the seaside, and by the time I got to the seaside itwas broad day: immediately I took the pinnace and went on board,and sent her back to assist the men in what might happen. Iobserved, about the time that I came to the boat-side, that thefire was pretty well out, and the noise abated; but in about half-an-hour after I got on board, I heard a volley of our men'sfirearms, and saw a great smoke. This, as I understood afterwards,was our men falling upon the men, who, as I said, stood at the fewhouses on the way, of whom they killed sixteen or seventeen, andset all the houses on fire, but did not meddle with the women orchildren.By the time the men got to the shore again with the pinnace our menbegan to appear; they came dropping in, not in two bodies as theywent, but straggling here and there in such a manner, that a smallforce of resolute men might have cut them all off. But the dreadof them was upon the whole country; and the men were surprised, andso frightened, that I believe a hundred of them would have fled atthe sight of but five of our men. Nor in all this terrible actionwas there a man that made any considerable defence: they were sosurprised between the terror of the fire and the sudden attack ofour men in the dark, that they knew not which way to turnthemselves; for if they fled one way they were met by one party, ifback again by another, so that they were everywhere knocked down;nor did any of our men receive the least hurt, except one thatsprained his foot, and another that had one of his hands burned.