ted for the question, answered in a
surly tone, and with a kind of disdain, _So as we eat, so shall we
work._ This he spoke aloud, so that he might be sure the captain heard
him and the rest of the men also, and it was evident that as he spoke in
plural numbers, _We_, so he spoke their minds as well as his own, and
words which they all agreed to before.

The captain, however, though he heard plain enough what he said, took
not the least notice of it, or gave him the least reason to believe he
had heard him, being not willing to begin a quarrel with the men and
knowing that if he took any notice at all of it, he must resent it and
punish it too.

Soon after this, the calm went off, and the land breeze sprang up, and
they immediately weighed and stood out to sea; but the captain having
had these two bustles with his men just at their putting to sea, was
very uneasy in his mind, as indeed he had reason to be; and the same
evening, soon after they were under sail, the mate being walking on the
quarter deck, he went, and taking two or three turns with him, told him
how he had been used by the men, particularly how they affronted him
before the merchants, and what an answer Peterson had given him on the
quarter deck, when he ordered him to furl the mizen top sail. The mate
was as surprised at these things as the captain, and after some other
discourse about it, in which it was their unhappiness not to be so
private as they ought to have been in a case of such importance, the
captain told him he thought it was absolutely necessary to have a
quantity of small arms brought immediately into the great cabin, not
only to defend themselves if there should be occasion, but also that he
might be in a posture to correct those fellows for their insolence,
especially should he meet with any more of it. The mate agreed that it
was necessary to be done, and had they said no more, or said this more
privately, all had been well, and the wicked design had been much more
difficult, if not the execution of it effectually prevented.

But two mistakes in this part was the ruin of them all. First, that the
captain spoke it without due caution, so that Winter and Peterson, the
two principal malcontents, who were expressly mentioned by the captain
to be corrected, overheard it, and knew by that means what they had to
expect if they did not immediately bestir themselves to prevent it. The
other mistake was that when the captain and mate agreed that