leasing to the people, did yet for a
considerable time awe them to their duty, and rendered them more
submissive to the captain's authority. But at last, when towards the
middle of October the long-boat was nearly completed and they were
preparing to put to sea, the additional provocation he gave them by
covertly traversing their project of proceeding through the Straits of
Magellan, and their fears that he might at length engage a party
sufficient to overturn this favourite measure, made them resolve to make
use of the death of Cozens as a reason for depriving him of his command,
under pretence of carrying him a prisoner to England to be tried for
murder, and he was accordingly confined under a guard. But they never
intended to carry him with them, as they too well knew what they had to
apprehend on their return to England if their commander should be present
to confront them, and therefore, when they were just ready to put to sea,
they set him at liberty, leaving him and the few who chose to take their
fortunes with him no other embarkation but the yawl, to which the barge
was afterwards added by the people on board her being prevailed on to
return back.

CHAPTER 13.
THE WRECK OF THE WAGER (CONTINUED)--THE ADVENTURES OF THE CAPTAIN'S PARTY.

When the ship was wrecked there remained alive on board the Wager near a
hundred and thirty persons; of these, above thirty died during their stay
upon the place, and near eighty went off in the long-boat and the cutter
to the southward; so that there remained with the captain, after their
departure, no more than nineteen persons, which, however, was as many as
the barge and the yawl--the only embarkations left them--could well carry
off. It was on the 13th of October, five months after the shipwreck, that
the long-boat, converted into a schooner, weighed and stood to the
southward, giving the captain who, with Lieutenant Hamilton, of the land
forces, and the surgeon, was then on the beach, three cheers at their
departure. It was the 29th of January following before they arrived at
Rio Grande, on the coast of Brazil; and having by various accidents, left
about twenty of their people on shore at the different places they
touched at, and a greater number having perished by hunger during the
course of their navigation, there were no more than thirty of them left
when they arrived in that port. Indeed, the undertaking of itself was a
most extraordinary one, for, not to mention the