ir of returning home, and flattered them with the hope of getting
once more to their native country, that circumstance rendered them
blind to all its inconveniences, and made them adhere to it with
insurmountable obstinacy. The captain was therefore obliged to give
way to the torrent, though he never changed his opinion, and had, in
appearance, to acquiesce in this resolution, though he gave it all
the obstruction he could, particularly in regard to lengthening the
long-boat, which he contrived should be of such a size, as, though
it might carry them to Juan Fernandez, he yet hoped might appear
incapable of so long a navigation as that to the coast of Brazil.
But the captain, by his steady opposition at first to this favourite
project, had much embittered the people against him, to which, also,
the following unhappy accident greatly contributed.

A midshipman, named Cozens, had appeared the foremost in all the
refractory proceedings of the crew, had involved himself in brawls
with most of the officers who had adhered to the authority of the
captain, and had even treated the captain himself with much insolence
and abuse. As his turbulence and brutality grew every day more and
more intolerable, it was not in the least doubted that some violent
measures were in agitation, in which Cozens was engaged as the
ringleader; for which reason the captain, and those about him,
constantly kept themselves on their guard. One day the purser having
stopped, by order of the captain, the allowance of a fellow who
would not work, Cozens, though the man had not complained to him,
intermeddled in the affair with great bitterness, and grossly insulted
the purser, who was then delivering out the provisions close by the
captain's tent, and was himself sufficiently violent. Enraged by his
scurrility, and perhaps piqued by former quarrels, the purser cried
out, _A mutiny_; adding, _the dog has pistols_, and then immediately
fired himself a pistol at Cozens, but missed him. On hearing this
outcry, and the report of the pistol, the captain rushed out from
his tent, and not doubting that it had been fired by Cozens as the
commencement of a mutiny, immediately shot him in the head without
farther enquiry. Though he did not die on the spot, the wound proved
mortal in about a fortnight.

Though this accident was sufficiently displeasing to the people, it
yet awed them for a considerable time to their duty, and rendered them
more submissive to the au