o' wounded, would not part from us all this while)
advised us not to let slip this advantage, but clapping between them and
their boats, deprive them of the capacity of ever returning to plague
the island: _I know_, said he, _there is but on objection you can make,
which is, that these creatures, living like beasts in the wood, may make
excursions, rifle the plantations, and destroy the tame goats; but then,
consider, we had better to do with an hundred men whom we can kill, or
make slaves of at leisure, than with an hundred nations, whom it is
impossible we should save ourselves from, much less subdue_. This
advice, and these arguments being approved of, we set fire to their
boats; and though they were so wet that we could not burn them entirely,
yet we made them incapable for swimming in the seas. As soon as the
Indians perceived what we were doing, many of them ran out of the woods,
in fight of us, and kneeling down, piteously cried out, _Oa, Oa!
Waramakoa_. Intimating, I suppose, that, if we would but spare their
canoes, they would never trouble us again.

"But all their complaints, submissions, and entreaties, were in vain;
for self-preservation obliging us to the contrary, we destroyed every
one of them that had escaped the fury of the ocean. When the Indians
perceived this, they raised a lamentable cry, and ran into the woods,
where they continued ranging about; making the woods ring with their
lamentation. Here we should have considered, that making these
creatures, thus desperate, we ought, at the same time to have set a
sufficient guard upon the plantations: for the savages, in their ranging
about, found out the bower, destroyed the fences, trod the corn down
under their feet, and tore up the vines and grapes. It is true, we were
always able to fight these creatures; but, as they were too swift for
us, and very numerous, we durst not go out single, for fear of them;
though that too was needless, they having no weapons, nor any materials
to make them; and, indeed, their extremity appeared in a little
time after.

[ILLUSTRATION: The Spaniard, &c. burning the Indian canoes. _Dr. & Eng.
by A. Carse, Edin._]

"Though the savages, as already mentioned, had destroyed our bower, and
all our corns, grapes, &c. yet we had still left our flock of cattle in
the valley, by the cave, with some little corn that grew there, and the
plantation of Will Atkins and his companions, one of whom being killed
by an arrow, they wer