sed to reflect on our
late sufferings, and on the failure of the expedition; but above all on
the thanks due to Almighty God who had given us power to support and bear
such heavy calamities and had enabled me at last to be the means of
saving eighteen lives.

In times of difficulty there will generally arise circumstances that bear
particularly hard on a commander. In our late situation it was not the
least of my distresses to be constantly assailed with the melancholy
demands of my people for an increase of allowance which it grieved me to
refuse. The necessity of observing the most rigid economy in the
distribution of our provisions was so evident that I resisted their
solicitations and never deviated from the agreement we made at setting
out. The consequence of this care was that at our arrival we had still
remaining sufficient for eleven days at our scanty allowance: and if we
had been so unfortunate as to have missed the Dutch settlement at Timor
we could have proceeded to Java where I was certain that every supply we
wanted could be procured.

Another disagreeable circumstance to which my situation exposed me was
the caprice of ignorant people. Had I been incapable of acting they would
have carried the boat on shore as soon as we made the island of Timor
without considering that landing among the natives at a distance from the
European settlement might have been as dangerous as among any other
Indians.

The quantity of provisions with which we left the ship was not more than
we should have consumed in five days had there been no necessity for
husbanding our stock. The mutineers must naturally have concluded that we
could have no other place of refuge than the Friendly Islands for it was
not likely they should imagine that, so poorly equipped as we were in
every respect, there could have been a possibility of our attempting to
return homewards: much less can they suspect that the account of their
villainy has already reached their native country.

When I reflect how providentially our lives were saved at Tofoa by the
Indians delaying their attack and that, with scarce anything to support
life, we crossed a sea of more than 1200 leagues, without shelter from
the inclemency of the weather; when I reflect that in an open boat with
so much stormy weather we escaped foundering, that not any of us were
taken off by disease, that we had the great good fortune to pass the
unfriendly natives of other countries without a