against
us, blowing almost trade as we call it, from the E. and E.N.E.; so that
we were a long while upon our voyage, and we were but ill provided with
victuals for so long a run; and, which was still worse, there was some
danger that those English and Dutch ships, whose boats pursued us,
whereof some were bound that way, might be got in before us; and if not,
some other ship bound to China might have information of us from them,
and pursue us with the same vigour.

I must confess I was now very uneasy, and thought myself, including the
last escape from the long boats, to have been in the most dangerous
condition that ever I was in through all my past life; for whatever ill
circumstances I had been in, I was never pursued for a thief before; nor
had I ever done any thing that merited the name of dishonest or
fraudulent, much less thievish. I had chiefly been mine own enemy; or,
as I may rightly say, I had been nobody's enemy but my own. But now I
was embarrassed in the worst condition imaginable; for though I was
perfectly innocent, I was in no condition to make that innocence appear:
and if I had been taken, it had been under a supposed guilt of the worst
kind; at least a crime esteemed so among the people I had to do with.

This made me very anxious to make an escape, though which way to do it I
knew not; or what port or place we should go to. My partner, seeing me
thus dejected, though he was the most concerned at first, began to
encourage me; and describing to me the several ports of the coast, told
me, he would put in on the coast of Cochinchina, or the bay of Tonquin;
intending to go afterwards to Macao, a town once in the possession or
the Portuguese, and where still a great many European families resided,
and particularly the missionary priests usually went thither, in order
to their going forward to China.

Hither we then resolved to go; and accordingly, though alter a tedious
and irregular course, and very much straitened for provisions, we came
within sight of the coast very early in the morning; and upon reflection
upon the past circumstances we were in, and the danger, if we had not
escaped, we resolved to put into a small river, which, however, had
depth enough of water for us, and to see if we could, either overland or
by the ship's pinnace, come to know what ships were in any port
thereabouts. This happy step was, indeed, our deliverance; for though we
did not immediately see any European ships in the