probably have been the occasion of their coming again in such
multitudes as not to be resisted; or, at least, to come so many and so
often, as would quite desolate the island and starve them. Will Atkins
therefore, who, notwithstanding his wound, kept always with them, proved
the best counsellor in this case. His advice was, to take the advantage
that offered, and clap in between them and their boats, and so deprive
them of the capacity of ever returning any more to plague the island.

They consulted long about this, and some were against it, for fear of
making the wretches fly into the woods, and live there desperate; and so
they should have them to hunt like wild beasts, be afraid to stir about
their business, and have their plantation continually rifled, all their
tame goats destroyed, and, in short, be reduced to a life of
continual distress.

Will Atkins told them they had better have to do with one hundred men
than with one hundred nations; that as they must destroy their boats, so
they must destroy the men, or be all of them destroyed themselves. In a
word, he shewed them the necessity of it so plainly, that they all came
into it; so they went to work immediately with the boats, and getting
some dry wood together from a dead tree, they tried to set some of them
on fire; but they were so wet that they would scarce burn. However, the
fire so burned the upper part, that it soon made them unfit for swimming
in the sea as boats. When the Indians saw what they were about, some of
them came running out of the woods, and coming as near as they could to
our men, kneeled down and cried, _Oa, Oa, Waramokoa_, and some other
words of their language, which none of the others understood any thing
of; but as they made pitiful gestures and strange noises, it was easy to
understand they begged to have their boats spared, and that they would
be gone, and never return thither again.

But our men were now satisfied, that they had no way to preserve
themselves or to save their colony, but effectually to prevent any of
these people from ever going home again; depending upon this, that if
ever so much as one of them got back into their country to tell the
story, the colony was undone; so that letting them know that they should
not have any mercy, they fell to work with their canoes, and destroyed
them, every one that the storm had not destroyed before; at the sight of
which the savages raised a hideous cry in the woods, which our peop