st, and have made a judgment of what I ought to have done,
and not to have done, I had certainly never gone away from so prosperous
an undertaking, leaving all the probable views of a thriving
circumstance, and gone upon a voyage to sea, attended with all its
common hazards; to say nothing of the reasons I had to expect particular
misfortunes to myself.

But I was hurried on, and obeyed blindly the dictates of my fancy rather
than my reason: and accordingly the ship being fitted out, and the cargo
furnished, and all things done as by agreement, by my partners in the
voyage, I went on board in an evil hour, the 1st of September, 1650,
being the same day eight years that I went from my father and mother at
Hull, in order to act the rebel to their authority, and the fool to my
own interest.

Our ship was about one hundred and twenty ton burden, carrying six guns,
and fourteen men, besides the master, his boy, and myself; we had on
board no large cargo of goods, except of such toys as were fit for our
trade with the Negroes, such as beads, bits of glass, shells, and odd
trifles, especially little looking-glasses, knives, scissars, hatchets,
and the like.

The same day I went on board we set sail, standing away to the northward
upon our own coast, with design to stretch over for the African coast;
when they came about 10 or 12 degrees of northern latitude, which it
seems was the manner of their course in those days. We had very good
weather, only excessive hot, all the way upon our own coast, till we
made the height of Cape St. Augustino, from whence keeping farther off
at sea we lost sight of land, and steered as if we were bound for the
isle Fernand de Noronha, holding our course N.E. by N. and leaving those
isles on the east. In this course we passed the line in about twelve
days time, and were by our last observation in 7 degrees 22 min.
northern latitude, when a violent tornado or hurricane took us quite out
of our knowledge; it began from the south-east, came about to the
north-west, and then settled into the north-east, from whence it blew in
such a terrible manner, that for twelve days together we could do
nothing but drive; and scudding away before it, let it carry us whither
ever fate and the fury of the winds directed; and during these twelve
days, I need not say that I expected every day to be swallowed up, nor
indeed did any in the ship expect to save their lives.

In this distress, we had, besides the terro