they had had in England were really facts, or
invented only to terrify those who were to undergo that punishment.

But while these unhappy persons were thus amusing themselves a new and
unlooked for misfortune fell upon them, for in the height of Bermuda
they were surprised by two pirate sloops, who though they found no
considerable booty on board, were very well satisfied by the great
addition they made to their force, from most of those felons joining
with them in their piratical undertakings. Meff, however, and eight
others, absolutely refused to sign the paper which contained the
pirate's engagement and articles for better pursuing their designs.
These nine were, according to the barbarous practice of those kind of
people, marooned, that is, set on shore on an uninhabited island.
According to the custom of the people in such distress, they were
obliged to rub two dry sticks together till they took fire, and with
great difficulty gathered as many other sticks as made a fire large
enough to yield them some relief from the inclemency of the weather.
They caught some fowls with springes made of an old horsehair wig,
which were very tough and of a fishy taste, but after three or four
days, they became acquainted with the springes and were never afterwards
to be taken by that means. Their next resource for food was an animal
which burrowed in the ground like our rabbits, but the flesh of these
proving unwholesome, threw them into such dangerous fluxes that five out
of the nine were scarce able to go. They were then forced to take up
with such fish as they were able to catch, and even these were not only
very rank and unpleasant, but very small also, and no great plenty of
them either.

At last, when they almost despaired of ever getting off that
inhospitable island, they espied early one morning an Indian canoe come
on shore with seven persons. They hid themselves behind the rocks as
carefully as they could, and the Indians being gone up into the heart of
the island, they went down and finding much salt provisions in the boat,
they trusted themselves to the mercy of the waves.

By the providence of God they were driven in two days into an English
settlement, where Meff, instead of betaking himself to any settled
course, resolved to turn sailor, and in that capacity made several
voyages, not only to Barbadoes, Jamaica, and the rest of the British
Islands, but also to New England, Virginia, South Carolina, and other
pla