shore. The ravages of the scurvy were now universal, there not
being one individual among us that was free, and the winds and currents
being so hard against us, that we could neither get westing nor southing
to reach any place of refreshment; the mind participated in the
sufferings of the body, and a universal despondency was reflected from
one countenance to another, especially among those who were not able to
come upon the deck. In this deplorable situation we continued till the
10th, and it is not perhaps very easy for the most fertile imagination
to conceive by what our danger and distress could possibly be increased;
yet debilitated, sick, and dying as we were, in sight of land that we
could not reach, and exposed to tempests which we could not resist, we
had the additional misfortune to be attacked by a pirate: That this
unexpected mischief might lose none of its force, it happened at
midnight, when the darkness that might almost be felt, could not fail to
co-operate with whatever tended to produce confusion and terror. This
sudden attack, however, rather roused than depressed us, and though our
enemy attempted to board us, before we could have the least apprehension
that an enemy was near, we defeated his purpose: He then plied us with
what we supposed to be swivel guns, and small arms, very briskly; but
though he had the start of us, we soon returned his salute with such
effect, that shortly after he sunk, and all the unhappy, wretches on
board perished. It was a small vessel, but of what country, or how
manned, it was impossible for us to know. The lieutenant, and one of the
men, were wounded, though not dangerously; part of our running rigging
was cut, and we received some other slight damage. We knew this pirate
to be a vessel which we had seen in the dusk of the evening, and we
afterwards learned that she belonged to a freebooter, who had more than
thirty such vessels under his command. The smallness of our vessel
encouraged the attack, and her strength being so much more than in
proportion to her size, supposing her a merchantman, rendered it fatal.

On Saturday the 12th, we fell in with the dangerous shoals called the
Spera Mondes, and had the mortification to find that the westerly
monsoon was now set in, against which, and the current, it was
impossible for any ship to get as far westward as Batavia. As it was now
necessary to wait till the return of the eastern monsoon, and the
shifting of the current; a