y them to France, if they could get
provisions to victual themselves with. When I say all the French went on
shore, I should remember that the young priest I spoke of, hearing we
were bound to the East Indies, desired to go the voyage with us, and to
be set on shore on the coast of Coromandel; which I readily agreed to,
for I wonderfully liked the man, and had very good reason, as will appear
afterwards; also four of the seamen entered themselves on our ship, and
proved very useful fellows.

From hence we directed our course for the West Indies, steering away S.
and S. by E. for about twenty days together, sometimes little or no wind
at all; when we met with another subject for our humanity to work upon,
almost as deplorable as that before.

CHAPTER II--INTERVENING HISTORY OF COLONY

It was in the latitude of 27 degrees 5 minutes N., on the 19th day of
March 1694-95, when we spied a sail, our course SE. and by S. We soon
perceived it was a large vessel, and that she bore up to us, but could
not at first know what to make of her, till, after coming a little
nearer, we found she had lost her main-topmast, fore-mast, and bowsprit;
and presently she fired a gun as a signal of distress. The weather was
pretty good, wind at NNW. a fresh gale, and we soon came to speak with
her. We found her a ship of Bristol, bound home from Barbadoes, but had
been blown out of the road at Barbadoes a few days before she was ready
to sail, by a terrible hurricane, while the captain and chief mate were
both gone on shore; so that, besides the terror of the storm, they were
in an indifferent case for good mariners to bring the ship home. They
had been already nine weeks at sea, and had met with another terrible
storm, after the hurricane was over, which had blown them quite out of
their knowledge to the westward, and in which they lost their masts. They
told us they expected to have seen the Bahama Islands, but were then
driven away again to the south-east, by a strong gale of wind at NNW.,
the same that blew now: and having no sails to work the ship with but a
main course, and a kind of square sail upon a jury fore-mast, which they
had set up, they could not lie near the wind, but were endeavouring to
stand away for the Canaries.

But that which was worst of all was, that they were almost starved for
want of provisions, besides the fatigues they had undergone; their bread
and flesh were quite gone--they had not one ounce left