tely
went on deck, and the night being very dark, I ordered lanterns and
candles to be got ready, supposing the boat might come from the shore
with some white gentlemen that lived there as free merchants. I ordered
also, by way of precaution, the first mate, Mr. Jones, to go into the
steerage to put things in order, and to send me twenty men on the
quarter-deck with firearms and cutlasses, which I thought he went about,
for I did not in the least suspect Mr. Jones would have proved such a
villain as he did afterwards.

As it was dark, I could not yet see the boat, but heard the noise of
the rowing very plain. Whereupon I ordered the second mate to hail the
boat, to which the people in it answered, 'They belonged to the "Two
Friends," Captain Elliot, of Barbadoes.' At this, one of the officers
who stood by me said he knew that captain very well. I replied, 'It
might be so, but I would not trust any boat in such a place,' and
ordered him to hasten the first mate, with the people and arms, on deck.
By this time our lanterns and candles were brought up, and I ordered the
boat to be hailed again; to which the people in it answered, 'They were
from America,' and at the same time fired a volley of small shot at us,
which showed the boldness of these villains. For there were in the boat
only twelve of them, as I understood afterwards, who knew nothing of the
strength of our ship, which was indeed considerable, we having sixteen
guns and forty-five men on board. But, as they told me after we were
taken, 'they depended on the same good-fortune as in the other ships
they had taken, having met with no resistance, for the people were
generally glad of an opportunity of entering with them.'

Which last was but too true.

When they first began to fire, I called aloud to the first mate to fire
at the boat out of the steerage portholes, which not being done, and the
people I had ordered upon deck with small arms not appearing, I was
extremely surprised, and the more when an officer came and told me 'The
people would not take arms.'

I went down into the steerage, where I saw a great many of them looking
at one another, little thinking that my first mate had prevented them
from taking arms. I asked them with some roughness why they had not
obeyed my orders, saying it would be the greatest reproach in the world
to us all to be taken by a boat.

Some of them answered that they would have taken arms, but the chest
they were kept in co