e, to put on shore in my island; but we
found occasion to dispose otherwise of them.

We set out the 5th of February from Ireland, and had a very fair gale of
wind for some days; as I remember, it might be about the 20th of
February in the evening late, when the mate having the watch, came into
the round-house, and told us he saw a flash of fire, and heard a gun
fired; and while he was telling us of it, a boy came in, and told us the
boatswain heard another. This made us all run out upon the quarter-deck,
where for a while we heard nothing, but in a few minutes we saw a very
great light, and found that there was some very terrible fire at a
distance. Immediately we had recourse to our reckonings, in which we all
agreed that there could be no land that way in which the fire shewed
itself, no, not for five hundred leagues, for it appeared at W.N.W. Upon
this we concluded it must be some ship on fire at sea; and as by our
hearing the noise of guns just before, we concluded it could not be far
off, we stood directly towards it, and were presently satisfied we
should discover it, because the farther we sailed the greater the light
appeared, though the weather being hazy we could not perceive any thing
but the light for a while; in about half an hour's sailing, the wind
being fair for us, though not much of it, and the weather clearing up a
little, we could plainly discern that it was a great ship on fire in the
middle of the sea.

I was most sensibly touched with this disaster, though not at all
acquainted with the persons engaged in it; I presently recollected my
former circumstances, in what condition I was in when taken up by the
Portugal captain; and how much more deplorable the circumstances of the
poor creatures belonging to this ship must be if they had no other ship
in company with them: upon this I immediately ordered that five guns
should be fired, one soon after another, that, if possible, we might
give notice to them that there was help for them at hand, and that they
might endeavour to save themselves in their boat; for though we could
see the flame in the ship, yet they, it being night, could see
nothing of us.

We lay by some time upon this, only driving as the burning ship drove,
waiting for daylight; when on a sudden, to our great terror, though we
had reason to expect it, the ship blew up in the air, and immediately
sunk. This was terrible, and indeed an afflicting sight, for the sake of
the poor men, wh