top the leaks, had got two
kettles just let down into the boat, one filled with boiling pitch, and
the other with rosin, tallow, and oil, and such stuff as the shipwrights
use for that work; and the man that attended the carpenter had a great
iron ladle in his hand, with which he supplied the men that were at work
with the hot stuff. Two of the enemy's men entered the boat just where
this fellow stood in the foresheets; he immediately saluted them with a
ladle full of the stuff, boiling hot which so burned and scalded them,
being half-naked that they roared out like bulls, and, enraged with the
fire, leaped both into the sea. The carpenter saw it, and cried out,
"Well done, Jack! give them some more of it!" and stepping forward
himself, takes one of the mops, and dipping it in the pitch-pot, he and
his man threw it among them so plentifully that, in short, of all the men
in the three boats, there was not one that escaped being scalded in a
most frightful manner, and made such a howling and crying that I never
heard a worse noise.

I was never better pleased with a victory in my life; not only as it was
a perfect surprise to me, and that our danger was imminent before, but as
we got this victory without any bloodshed, except of that man the seaman
killed with his naked hands, and which I was very much concerned at.
Although it maybe a just thing, because necessary (for there is no
necessary wickedness in nature), yet I thought it was a sad sort of life,
when we must be always obliged to be killing our fellow-creatures to
preserve ourselves; and, indeed, I think so still; and I would even now
suffer a great deal rather than I would take away the life even of the
worst person injuring me; and I believe all considering people, who know
the value of life, would be of my opinion, if they entered seriously into
the consideration of it.

All the while this was doing, my partner and I, who managed the rest of
the men on board, had with great dexterity brought the ship almost to
rights, and having got the guns into their places again, the gunner
called to me to bid our boat get out of the way, for he would let fly
among them. I called back again to him, and bid him not offer to fire,
for the carpenter would do the work without him; but bid him heat another
pitch-kettle, which our cook, who was on broad, took care of. However,
the enemy was so terrified with what they had met with in their first
attack, that they would not co