in
jeopardy, particularly after the warning of the last voyage, I know not.
I was perhaps vain of what I could do in the water. I knew my powers;
and in the hope of saving this unfortunate victim to the folly and
cruelty of the captain, I plunged after him into the sea, feeling, at
the same time, that I was almost committing an act of suicide. I caught
hold of him, and for a time supported him; and, had the commonest
diligence and seamanship been shown, I should have saved him. But the
captain, it appeared, when he found I was overboard, was resolved to get
rid of me, in order to save himself: he made use of every difficulty to
prevent the boat coming to me. The poor man was exhausted: I kept
myself disengaged from him, when swimming round him; supported him
occasionally whenever he was sinking; but, finding at last that he was
irrecoverably gone--for though I had a firm hold of him, he was going
lower and lower--and, looking up, perceiving I was so deep that the
water was dark over my head, I clapped my knees on his shoulders, and,
giving myself a little impetus from the resistance, rose to the surface.
So much was I exhausted, that I could not have floated half a minute
more, when the boat came and picked me up.

The delay in heaving the ship to, I attributed to the scene I had
witnessed the night before; and in this I was confirmed by the testimony
of the officers. Having lost two men by his unseamanlike conduct, he
would have added the deliberate murder of a third, to save himself from
the punishment which he knew awaited him. He continued the same
tyrannical conduct, and I had resolved, the moment we fell in with the
admiral, to write for a court-martial on this man, let the consequences
be what they might; I thought I should serve my country and the navy by
ridding it of such a monster.

Several of the officers were under arrest, and notwithstanding the heat
of their cabins in that warm climate, were kept constantly confined to
them with a sentinel at the door. In consequence of this cruel
treatment, one of the officers became deranged. We made Barbadoes, and
running round Needham's Point into Carlisle Bay, we saw to our
mortification that neither the admiral nor any ship of war was, there,
consequently our captain was commanding officer in the port. Upon this,
he became remarkably amiable, supposing, if the evil day was put off, it
would be dispensed with altogether; he treated me with particular
atte