Chapter XI. Warned of Danger by a Countryman

by Daniel Defoe

　　A little while after this there came in a Dutch ship from Batavia;she was a coaster, not an European trader, of about two hundredtons burden; the men, as they pretended, having been so sickly thatthe captain had not hands enough to go to sea with, so he lay by atBengal; and having, it seems, got money enough, or being willing,for other reasons, to go for Europe, he gave public notice he wouldsell his ship. This came to my ears before my new partner heard ofit, and I had a great mind to buy it; so I went to him and told himof it. He considered a while, for he was no rash man neither; andat last replied, "She is a little too big - however, we will haveher." Accordingly, we bought the ship, and agreeing with themaster, we paid for her, and took possession. When we had done sowe resolved to engage the men, if we could, to join with those wehad, for the pursuing our business; but, on a sudden, they havingreceived not their wages, but their share of the money, as weafterwards learned, not one of them was to be found; we inquiredmuch about them, and at length were told that they were all gonetogether by land to Agra, the great city of the Mogul's residence,to proceed from thence to Surat, and then go by sea to the Gulf ofPersia.Nothing had so much troubled me a good while as that I should missthe opportunity of going with them; for such a ramble, I thought,and in such company as would both have guarded and diverted me,would have suited mightily with my great design; and I should haveboth seen the world and gone homeward too. But I was much bettersatisfied a few days after, when I came to know what sort offellows they were; for, in short, their history was, that this manthey called captain was the gunner only, not the commander; thatthey had been a trading voyage, in which they had been attacked onshore by some of the Malays, who had killed the captain and threeof his men; and that after the captain was killed, these men,eleven in number, having resolved to run away with the ship,brought her to Bengal, leaving the mate and five men more on shore.Well, let them get the ship how they would, we came honestly byher, as we thought, though we did not, I confess, examine intothings so exactly as we ought; for we never inquired anything ofthe seamen, who would certainly have faltered in their account, andcontradicted one another. Somehow or other we should have hadreason to have suspected, them; but the man showed us a bill ofsale for the ship, to one Emanuel Clostershoven, or some such name,for I suppose it was all a forgery, and called himself by thatname, and we could not contradict him: and withal, having nosuspicion of the thing, we went through with our bargain. Wepicked up some more English sailors here after this, and someDutch, and now we resolved on a second voyage to the south-east forcloves, &c. - that is to say, among the Philippine and Malaccaisles. In short, not to fill up this part of my story with trifleswhen what is to come is so remarkable, I spent, from first to last,six years in this country, trading from port to port, backward andforward, and with very good success, and was now the last year withmy new partner, going in the ship above mentioned, on a voyage toChina, but designing first to go to Siam to buy rice.In this voyage, being by contrary winds obliged to beat up and downa great while in the Straits of Malacca and among the islands, wewere no sooner got clear of those difficult seas than we found ourship had sprung a leak, but could not discover where it was. Thisforced us to make some port; and my partner, who knew the countrybetter than I did, directed the captain to put into the river ofCambodia; for I had made the English mate, one Mr. Thompson,captain, not being willing to take the charge of the ship uponmyself. This river lies on the north side of the great bay or gulfwhich goes up to Siam. While we were here, and going often onshore for refreshment, there comes to me one day an Englishman, agunner's mate on board an English East India ship, then riding inthe same river. "Sir," says he, addressing me, "you are a strangerto me, and I to you; but I have something to tell you that verynearly concerns you. I am moved by the imminent danger you are in,and, for aught I see, you have no knowledge of it." - "I know nodanger I am in," said I, "but that my ship is leaky, and I cannotfind it out; but I intend to lay her aground to-morrow, to see if Ican find it." - "But, sir," says he, "leaky or not leaky, you willbe wiser than to lay your ship on shore to-morrow when you hearwhat I have to say to you. Do you know, sir," said he, "the townof Cambodia lies about fifteen leagues up the river; and there aretwo large English ships about five leagues on this side, and threeDutch?" - "Well," said I, "and what is that to me?" - "Why, sir,"said be, "is it for a man that is upon such adventures as you areto come into a port, and not examine first what ships there arethere, and whether he is able to deal with them? I suppose you donot think you are a match for them?" I could not conceive what hemeant; and I turned short upon him, and said: "I wish you wouldexplain yourself; I cannot imagine what reason I have to be afraidof any of the company's ships, or Dutch ships. I am no interloper.What can they have to say to me?" - "Well, sir," says he, with asmile, "if you think yourself secure you must take your chance; buttake my advice, if you do not put to sea immediately, you will thevery next tide be attacked by five longboats full of men, andperhaps if you are taken you will be hanged for a pirate, and theparticulars be examined afterwards. I thought, sir," added he, "Ishould have met with a better reception than this for doing you apiece of service of such importance." - "I can never beungrateful," said I, "for any service, or to any man that offers meany kindness; but it is past my comprehension what they should havesuch a design upon me for: however, since you say there is no timeto be lost, and that there is some villainous design on handagainst me, I will go on board this minute, and put to seaimmediately, if my men can stop the leak; but, sir," said I, "shallI go away ignorant of the cause of all this? Can you give me nofurther light into it?""I can tell you but part of the story, sir," says he; "but I have aDutch seaman here with me, and I believe I could persuade him totell you the rest; but there is scarce time for it. But the shortof the story is this - the first part of which I suppose you knowwell enough - that you were with this ship at Sumatra; that thereyour captain was murdered by the Malays, with three of his men; andthat you, or some of those that were on board with you, ran awaywith the ship, and are since turned pirates. This is the sum ofthe story, and you will all be seized as pirates, I can assure you,and executed with very little ceremony; for you know merchant shipsshow but little law to pirates if they get them into their power."- "Now you speak plain English," said I, "and I thank you; andthough I know nothing that we have done like what you talk of, forI am sure we came honestly and fairly by the ship; yet seeing sucha work is doing, as you say, and that you seem to mean honestly, Iwill be upon my guard." - "Nay, sir," says he, "do not talk ofbeing upon your guard; the best defence is to be out of danger. Ifyou have any regard for your life and the lives of all your men,put to sea without fail at high-water; and as you have a whole tidebefore you, you will be gone too far out before they can come down;for they will come away at high-water, and as they have twentymiles to come, you will get near two hours of them by thedifference of the tide, not reckoning the length of the way:besides, as they are only boats, and not ships, they will notventure to follow you far out to sea, especially if it blows." -"Well," said I, "you have been very kind in this: what shall I doto make you amends?" - "Sir," says he, "you may not be willing tomake me any amends, because you may not be convinced of the truthof it. I will make an offer to you: I have nineteen months' paydue to me on board the ship -, which I came out of England in; andthe Dutchman that is with me has seven months' pay due to him. Ifyou will make good our pay to us we will go along with you; if youfind nothing more in it we will desire no more; but if we doconvince you that we have saved your lives, and the ship, and thelives of all the men in her, we will leave the rest to you."I consented to this readily, and went immediately on board, and thetwo men with me. As soon as I came to the ship's side, my partner,who was on board, came out on the quarter-deck, and called to me,with a great deal of joy, "We have stopped the leak - we havestopped the leak!" - "Say you so?" said I; "thank God; but weighanchor, then, immediately." - "Weigh!" says he; "what do you meanby that? What is the matter?" - "Ask no questions," said I; "butset all hands to work, and weigh without losing a minute." He wassurprised; however, he called the captain, and he immediatelyordered the anchor to be got up; and though the tide was not quitedown, yet a little land-breeze blowing, we stood out to sea. ThenI called him into the cabin, and told him the story; and we calledin the men, and they told us the rest of it; but as it took up agreat deal of time, before we had done a seaman comes to the cabindoor, and called out to us that the captain bade him tell us wewere chased by five sloops, or boats, full of men. "Very well,"said I, "then it is apparent there is something in it." I thenordered all our men to be called up, and told them there was adesign to seize the ship, and take us for pirates, and asked themif they would stand by us, and by one another; the men answeredcheerfully, one and all, that they would live and die with us.Then I asked the captain what way he thought best for us to managea fight with them; for resist them I was resolved we would, andthat to the last drop. He said readily, that the way was to keepthem off with our great shot as long as we could, and then to useour small arms, to keep them from boarding us; but when neither ofthese would do any longer, we would retire to our close quarters,for perhaps they had not materials to break open our bulkheads, orget in upon us.The gunner had in the meantime orders to bring two guns, to bearfore and aft, out of the steerage, to clear the deck, and load themwith musket-bullets, and small pieces of old iron, and what camenext to hand. Thus we made ready for fight; but all this while wekept out to sea, with wind enough, and could see the boats at adistance, being five large longboats, following us with all thesail they could make.Two of those boats (which by our glasses we could see were English)outsailed the rest, were near two leagues ahead of them, and gainedupon us considerably, so that we found they would come up with us;upon which we fired a gun without ball, to intimate that theyshould bring to: and we put out a flag of truce, as a signal forparley: but they came crowding after us till within shot, when wetook in our white flag, they having made no answer to it, and hungout a red flag, and fired at them with a shot. Notwithstandingthis, they came on till they were near enough to call to them witha speaking-trumpet, bidding them keep off at their peril.It was all one; they crowded after us, and endeavoured to comeunder our stern, so as to board us on our quarter; upon which,seeing they were resolute for mischief, and depended upon thestrength that followed them, I ordered to bring the ship to, sothat they lay upon our broadside; when immediately we fired fiveguns at them, one of which had been levelled so true as to carryaway the stern of the hindermost boat, and we then forced them totake down their sail, and to run all to the head of the boat, tokeep her from sinking; so she lay by, and had enough of it; butseeing the foremost boat crowd on after us, we made ready to fireat her in particular. While this was doing one of the three boatsthat followed made up to the boat which we had disabled, to relieveher, and we could see her take out the men. We then called againto the foremost boat, and offered a truce, to parley again, and toknow what her business was with us; but had no answer, only shecrowded close under our stern. Upon this, our gunner who was avery dexterous fellow ran out his two case-guns, and fired again ather, but the shot missing, the men in the boat shouted, waved theircaps, and came on. The gunner, getting quickly ready again, firedamong them a second time, one shot of which, though it missed theboat itself, yet fell in among the men, and we could easily see dida great deal of mischief among them. We now wore the ship again,and brought our quarter to bear upon them, and firing three gunsmore, we found the boat was almost split to pieces; in particular,her rudder and a piece of her stern were shot quite away; so theyhanded her sail immediately, and were in great disorder. Tocomplete their misfortune, our gunner let fly two guns at themagain; where he hit them we could not tell, but we found the boatwas sinking, and some of the men already in the water: upon this,I immediately manned out our pinnace, with orders to pick up someof the men if they could, and save them from drowning, andimmediately come on board ship with them, because we saw the restof the boats began to come up. Our men in the pinnace followedtheir orders, and took up three men, one of whom was just drowning,and it was a good while before we could recover him. As soon asthey were on board we crowded all the sail we could make, and stoodfarther out to the sea; and we found that when the other boats cameup to the first, they gave over their chase.Being thus delivered from a danger which, though I knew not thereason of it, yet seemed to be much greater than I apprehended, Iresolved that we should change our course, and not let any one knowwhither we were going; so we stood out to sea eastward, quite outof the course of all European ships, whether they were bound toChina or anywhere else, within the commerce of the Europeannations. When we were at sea we began to consult with the twoseamen, and inquire what the meaning of all this should be; and theDutchman confirmed the gunner's story about the false sale of theship and of the murder of the captain, and also how that he, thisDutchman, and four more got into the woods, where they wanderedabout a great while, till at length he made his escape, and swamoff to a Dutch ship, which was sailing near the shore in its wayfrom China.He then told us that he went to Batavia, where two of the seamenbelonging to the ship arrived, having deserted the rest in theirtravels, and gave an account that the fellow who had run away withthe ship, sold her at Bengal to a set of pirates, who were gone a-cruising in her, and that they had already taken an English shipand two Dutch ships very richly laden. This latter part we foundto concern us directly, though we knew it to be false; yet, as mypartner said, very justly, if we had fallen into their hands, andthey had had such a prepossession against us beforehand, it hadbeen in vain for us to have defended ourselves, or to hope for anygood quarter at their hands; especially considering that ouraccusers had been our judges, and that we could have expectednothing from them but what rage would have dictated, and anungoverned passion have executed. Therefore it was his opinion weshould go directly back to Bengal, from whence we came, withoutputting in at any port whatever - because where we could give agood account of ourselves, could prove where we were when the shipput in, of whom we bought her, and the like; and what was more thanall the rest, if we were put upon the necessity of bringing itbefore the proper judges, we should be sure to have some justice,and not to be hanged first and judged afterwards.I was some time of my partner's opinion; but after a little moreserious thinking, I told him I thought it was a very great hazardfor us to attempt returning to Bengal, for that we were on thewrong side of the Straits of Malacca, and that if the alarm wasgiven, we should be sure to be waylaid on every side - that if weshould be taken, as it were, running away, we should even condemnourselves, and there would want no more evidence to destroy us. Ialso asked the English sailor's opinion, who said he was of mymind, and that we certainly should be taken. This danger a littlestartled my partner and all the ship's company, and we immediatelyresolved to go away to the coast of Tonquin, and so on to the coastof China - and pursuing the first design as to trade, find some wayor other to dispose of the ship, and come back in some of thevessels of the country such as we could get. This was approved ofas the best method for our security, and accordingly we steeredaway NNE., keeping above fifty leagues off from the usual course tothe eastward. This, however, put us to some inconvenience: for,first, the winds, when we came that distance from the shore, seemedto be more steadily against us, blowing almost trade, as we callit, from the E. and ENE., so that we were a long while upon ourvoyage, and we were but ill provided with victuals for so long arun; and what was still worse, there was some danger that thoseEnglish and Dutch ships whose boats pursued us, whereof some werebound that way, might have got in before us, and if not, some othership bound to China might have information of us from them, andpursue us with the same vigour.I must confess I was now very uneasy, and thought myself, includingthe late escape from the longboats, to have been in the mostdangerous condition that ever I was in through my past life; forwhatever ill circumstances I had been in, I was never pursued for athief before; nor had I ever done anything that merited the name ofdishonest or fraudulent, much less thievish. I had chiefly been myown enemy, or, as I may rightly say, I had been nobody's enemy butmy own; but now I was woefully embarrassed: for though I wasperfectly innocent, I was in no condition to make that innocenceappear; and if I had been taken, it had been under a supposed guiltof the worst kind. This made me very anxious to make an escape,though which way to do it I knew not, or what port or place wecould go to. My partner endeavoured to encourage me by describingthe several ports of that coast, and told me he would put in on thecoast of Cochin China, or the bay of Tonquin, intending afterwardsto go to Macao, where a great many European families resided, andparticularly the missionary priests, who usually went thither inorder to their going forward to China.Hither then we resolved to go; and, accordingly, though after atedious course, and very much straitened for provisions, we camewithin sight of the coast very early in the morning; and uponreflection on the past circumstances of danger we were in, weresolved to put into a small river, which, however, had depthenough of water for us, and to see if we could, either overland orby the ship's pinnace, come to know what ships were in any portthereabouts. This happy step was, indeed, our deliverance: forthough we did not immediately see any European ships in the bay ofTonquin, yet the next morning there came into the bay two Dutchships; and a third without any colours spread out, but which webelieved to be a Dutchman, passed by at about two leagues'distance, steering for the coast of China; and in the afternoonwent by two English ships steering the same course; and thus wethought we saw ourselves beset with enemies both one way and theother. The place we were in was wild and barbarous, the peoplethieves by occupation; and though it is true we had not much toseek of them, and, except getting a few provisions, cared not howlittle we had to do with them, yet it was with much difficulty thatwe kept ourselves from being insulted by them several ways. Wewere in a small river of this country, within a few leagues of itsutmost limits northward; and by our boat we coasted north-east tothe point of land which opens the great bay of Tonquin; and it wasin this beating up along the shore that we discovered we weresurrounded with enemies. The people we were among were the mostbarbarous of all the inhabitants of the coast; and among othercustoms they have this one: that if any vessel has the misfortuneto be shipwrecked upon their coast, they make the men all prisonersor slaves; and it was not long before we found a spice of theirkindness this way, on the occasion following.I have observed above that our ship sprung a leak at sea, and thatwe could not find it out; and it happened that, as I have said, itwas stopped unexpectedly, on the eve of our being pursued by theDutch and English ships in the bay of Siam; yet, as we did not findthe ship so perfectly tight and sound as we desired, we resolvedwhile we were at this place to lay her on shore, and clean herbottom, and, if possible, to find out where the leaks were.Accordingly, having lightened the ship, and brought all our gunsand other movables to one side, we tried to bring her down, that wemight come at her bottom; but, on second thoughts, we did not careto lay her on dry ground, neither could we find out a proper placefor it.