bodies: a barbarous feast, indeed! but nothing more than, as I had
observed, was usual with them. I observed also that they had landed, not
where they had done when Friday made his escape, but nearer to my creek,
where the shore was low, and where a thick wood came almost close down to
the sea. This, with the abhorrence of the inhuman errand these wretches
came about, filled me with such indignation that I came down again to
Friday, and told him I was resolved to go down to them and kill them all;
and asked him if he would stand by me. He had now got over his fright,
and his spirits being a little raised with the dram I had given him, he
was very cheerful, and told me, as before, he would die when I bid die.

In this fit of fury I divided the arms which I had charged, as before,
between us; I gave Friday one pistol to stick in his girdle, and three
guns upon his shoulder, and I took one pistol and the other three guns
myself; and in this posture we marched out. I took a small bottle of rum
in my pocket, and gave Friday a large bag with more powder and bullets;
and as to orders, I charged him to keep close behind me, and not to stir,
or shoot, or do anything till I bid him, and in the meantime not to speak
a word. In this posture I fetched a compass to my right hand of near a
mile, as well to get over the creek as to get into the wood, so that I
could come within shot of them before I should be discovered, which I had
seen by my glass it was easy to do.

While I was making this march, my former thoughts returning, I began to
abate my resolution: I do not mean that I entertained any fear of their
number, for as they were naked, unarmed wretches, it is certain I was
superior to them--nay, though I had been alone. But it occurred to my
thoughts, what call, what occasion, much less what necessity I was in to
go and dip my hands in blood, to attack people who had neither done or
intended me any wrong? who, as to me, were innocent, and whose barbarous
customs were their own disaster, being in them a token, indeed, of God's
having left them, with the other nations of that part of the world, to
such stupidity, and to such inhuman courses, but did not call me to take
upon me to be a judge of their actions, much less an executioner of His
justice--that whenever He thought fit He would take the cause into His
own hands, and by national vengeance punish them as a people for national
crimes, but that, in the meantime, it was n