issed the boat itself, yet fell in among the men, and we could easily
see did a great deal of mischief among them. We now wore the ship again,
and brought our quarter to bear upon them, and firing three guns more, we
found the boat was almost split to pieces; in particular, her rudder and
a piece of her stern were shot quite away; so they handed her sail
immediately, and were in great disorder. To complete their misfortune,
our gunner let fly two guns at them again; where he hit them we could not
tell, but we found the boat was sinking, and some of the men already in
the water: upon this, I immediately manned out our pinnace, with orders
to pick up some of the men if they could, and save them from drowning,
and immediately come on board ship with them, because we saw the rest of
the boats began to come up. Our men in the pinnace followed their
orders, and took up three men, one of whom was just drowning, and it was
a good while before we could recover him. As soon as they were on board
we crowded all the sail we could make, and stood farther out to the sea;
and we found that when the other boats came up to the first, they gave
over their chase.

Being thus delivered from a danger which, though I knew not the reason of
it, yet seemed to be much greater than I apprehended, I resolved that we
should change our course, and not let any one know whither we were going;
so we stood out to sea eastward, quite out of the course of all European
ships, whether they were bound to China or anywhere else, within the
commerce of the European nations. When we were at sea we began to
consult with the two seamen, and inquire what the meaning of all this
should be; and the Dutchman confirmed the gunner's story about the false
sale of the ship and of the murder of the captain, and also how that he,
this Dutchman, and four more got into the woods, where they wandered
about a great while, till at length he made his escape, and swam off to a
Dutch ship, which was sailing near the shore in its way from China.

He then told us that he went to Batavia, where two of the seamen
belonging to the ship arrived, having deserted the rest in their travels,
and gave an account that the fellow who had run away with the ship, sold
her at Bengal to a set of pirates, who were gone a-cruising in her, and
that they had already taken an English ship and two Dutch ships very
richly laden. This latter part we found to concern us directly, though
we knew it t