Our ship was about one hundred and twenty tons burden, carried 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 ten or twelve 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 came
to 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
Fernando 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 minutes
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 in 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 terror of the storm, one of our
men died of the calenture, and one man and a boy washed overboard. About
the twelfth day, the weather abating a little, the master made an
observation as well as he could, and found that he was in about 11
degrees north latitude, but that he was 22 degrees of longitude
difference, west from Cape St. Augustino; so that he found he was got
upon the coast of Guiana, or the north part of Brazil, beyond the river
Amazons, toward that of the river Oroonoque, commonly called the Great
River; and began to consult with me what course he should take, for the
ship was leaky and very much disabled, add he was going directly back to
the coast of Brazil.

I was positively against that; and looking over the charts of the
sea-coast of America with him, we