When we were got on board and out of danger, we had time to examine into the occasion of this fray; and indeed our supercargo, who had been often in those parts, put me upon it; for he said he was sure the inhabitants would not have touched us after we had made a truce, if we had not done something to provoke them to it. At length it came out, viz. that an old woman, who had come to sell us some milk, had brought it within our poles, with a young woman with her, who also brought some roots or herbs; and while the old woman (whether she was mother to the young woman or no they could not tell) was selling us the milk, one of our men offered some rudeness to the wench that was with her, at which the old woman made a great noise. However, the seaman would not quit his prize, but carried her out of the old woman's sight, among the trees, it being almost dark. The old woman went away without her, and, as we suppose, made an outcry among the people she came from; who, upon notice, raised this great army upon us in three or four hours; and it was great odds but we had been all destroyed.
One of our men was killed with a lance that was thrown at him, just at the beginning of the attack, as he sallied out of the tent we had made; the rest came off free, all but the fellow who was the occasion of all the mischief, who paid dear enough for his black mistress, for we could not hear what became of him a great while. We lay upon the shore two days after, though the wind presented, and made signals for him; made our boat sail up shore and down shore several leagues, but in vain; so we were obliged to give him over; and if he alone had suffered for it, the loss had been the less.
I could not satisfy myself, however, without venturing on shore once more, to try if I could learn any thing of him or them. It was the third night after the action that I had a great mind to learn, if I could by any means, what mischief he had done, and how the game stood on the Indian side. I was careful to do it in the dark, lest we should be attacked again; but I ought indeed to have been sure that the men I went with had been under my command before I engaged in a thing so hazardous and mischievous, as I was brought into it without my knowledge or desire.
We took twenty stout fellows with us as any in the ship, besides the supercargo and myself; and we landed two hours before midnight, at the same place where the Indians stood drawn up the evening before. I landed here, because my design, as I have said, was chiefly to see if they had quitted the field, and if they had left any marks behind them, or of the mischief we had done them; and I thought if we could surprise one or two of them, perhaps we might get our man again by way of exchange.
We landed without any noise, and divided our men into two companies, whereof the boatswain commanded one, and I the other. We neither could hear nor see any body stir when we landed; so we marched up, one body at a distance from the other, to the field of battle. At first we could see nothing, it being very dark; but by and by our boatswain, that led the first party, stumbled and fell over a dead body. This made them halt there awhile; for knowing by the circumstances that they were at the place where the Indians had stood, they waited for my coming up. Here we concluded to halt till the moon began to rise, which we knew would be in less than an hour, and then we could easily discern the havoc we had made among them. We told two-and-thirty bodies upon the ground, whereof two were not quite dead. Some had an arm, and some a leg, shot off, and one his head; those that were wounded we supposed they had carried away.
When we had made, as I thought, a full discovery of all we could come at the knowledge of, I was for going on board again; but the boatswain and his party often sent me word, that they were resolved to make a visit to the Indian town, where these dogs, as they called them, dwelt, and desired me to go along with them, and if they could find them, as they still fancied they should, they did not doubt, they said, getting a good booty, and it might be they might find Thomas Jeffrys there, that was the man's name we had lost.
Had they sent to ask my leave to go, I knew well enough what answer to have given them; for I would have commanded them instantly on board, knowing it was not a hazard fit for us to run who had a ship and a ship's loading in our charge, and a voyage to make, which depended very much upon the lives of the men; but as they sent me word they were resolved to go, and only asked me and my company to go along with them, I positively refused it, and rose up (for I was sitting on the ground) in order to go to the boat. One or two of the men began to importune me to go, and when I still refused positively, began to grumble, and say they were not under my command, and they would go. "Come, Jack," says one of the men, "will you go with me? I will go for one." Jack said he would; and another followed, and then another; and, in a word, they all left me but one, whom, with much difficulty too, I persuaded to stay; so the supercargo and I, with one man, went back to the boat, where, I told them, we would stay for them, and take care to take in as many of them as should be left; for I told them it was a mad thing they were going about, and supposed most of them would run the fate of Thomas Jeffrys.
They told me, like seamen, they would warrant it they would come off again, and they would take care, &c. So away they went. I entreated them to consider the ship and the voyage; that their lives were not their own; and that they were entrusted with the voyage in some measure; that if they miscarried, the ship might be lost for want of their help; and that they could not answer it to God and man. I said a great deal more to them on that head, but I might as well have talked to the main-mast of the ship; they were mad upon their journey; only they gave me good words, and begged I would not be angry; said they would be very cautious, and they did not doubt but they would be back again in about an hour at farthest; for the Indian town, they said, was not above half a mile off; though they found it above two miles before they got to it.
Well, they all went away as above; and though the attempt was desperate, and such as none but madmen would have gone about, yet, to give them their due, they went about it warily as well as boldly. They were gallantly armed, that is true; for they had every man a fusil or musket, a bayonet, and every man a pistol; some of them had broad cutlasses, some of them hangers, and the boatswain and two more had pole-axes; besides all which they had among them thirteen hand-grenadoes. Bolder fellows, and better provided, never went about any wicked work in the world.
When they went out their chief design was plunder, and they were in mighty hopes of finding gold there; but a circumstance, which none of them were aware of, set them on fire with revenge, and made devils of them all. When they came to the few Indian houses, which they thought had been the town, which were not above half a mile off, they were under a great disappointment; for there were not above twelve or thirteen houses; and where the town was, or how big, they knew not. They consulted therefore what to do, and were some time before they could resolve; for if they fell upon these they must cut all their throats, and it was ten to one but some of them might escape, it being in the night, though the moon was up; and if one escaped he would run away, and raise all the town, so they should have a whole army upon them. Again, on the other hand, if they went away, and left those untouched (for the people were all asleep), they could not tell which way to look for the town.
However, the last was the best advice; so they resolved to leave those houses, and look for the town as well as they could. They went on a little way, and found a cow tied to a tree: this they presently concluded would be a good guide to them; for they said the cow certainly belonged to the town before them or the town behind them, and if they untied her they should see which way she went: if she went back they had nothing to say to her, but if she went forward they had nothing to do but to follow her; so they cut the cord, which was made of twisted flags, and the cow went on before them. In a word, the cow led them directly to the town, which, as they reported, consisted of above two hundred houses or huts; and in some of these they found several families living together.
Here they found all silent; as profoundly secure as sleep and a country that had never seen an enemy of that kind could make them. Upon this they called another council to consider what they had to do, and in a word they resolved to divide themselves into three bodies, and to set three houses on fire in three parts of the town; and as the men came out, to seize them and bind them; if any resisted, they need not be asked what to do then, and so to search the rest of the houses for plunder; but resolved to march silently first through the town, and see what dimensions it was of, and consider if they might venture upon it or no.
They did so, and desperately resolved that they would venture upon them; but while they were animating one another to the work, three of them that were a little before the rest called out aloud, and told them they had found Thomas Jeffrys; they all ran up to the place; and so it was indeed, for there they found the poor fellow, hanged up naked by one arm, and his throat cut. There was an Indian house just by the tree, where they found sixteen or seventeen of the principal Indians who had been concerned in the fray with us before, and two or three of them wounded with our shot; and our men found they were awake, and talking one to another in that house, but knew not their number.
The sight of their poor mangled comrade so enraged them, as before, that they swore to one another they would be revenged, and that not an Indian who came into their hands should have quarter; and to work they went immediately, and yet not so madly as by the rage and fury they were in might be expected. Their first care was to get something that would soon take fire; but after a little search they found that would be to no purpose, for most of the houses were low, and thatched with flags or rushes, of which the country is full: so they presently made some wildfire, as we call it, by wetting a little powder in the palms of their hands; and in a quarter of an hour they set the town on fire in four or five places, and particularly that house where the Indians were not gone to bed. As soon as the fire began to blaze, the poor frighted creatures began to rush out to save their lives, but met with their fate in the attempt, and especially at the door, where they drove them back, the boatswain himself killing one or two with his pole-axe; the house being large, and many in it, he did not care to go in, but called for an hand-grenado, and threw it among them, which at first frighted them; but when it burst made such havoc among them, that they cried out in a hideous manner.
In short, most of the Indians who were in the open part of the house, were killed or hurt with the grenado, except two or three more, who pressed to the door, which the boatswain and two more kept with the bayonets in the muzzles of their pieces, and dispatched all who came that way. But there was another apartment in the house, where the prince, or king, or whatsoever he was, and several others, were; and they kept in till the house, which was by this time all of a light flame, fell in upon them, and they were smothered or burnt together.
All this while they fired not a gun, because they would not waken the people faster than they could master them; but the fire began to waken them fast enough, and our fellows were glad to keep a little together in bodies; for the fire grew so raging, all the houses being made of light combustible stuff, that they could hardly bear the street between them, and their business was to follow the fire for the surer execution. As fast as the fire either forced the people out of those houses which were burning, or frighted them out of others, our people were ready at their doors to knock them on the head, still calling and hallooing to one another to remember Thomas Jeffrys.
While this was doing I must confess I was very uneasy, and especially when I saw the flames of the town, which, it being night, seemed to be just by me.
My nephew the captain, who was roused by his men too, seeing such a fire, was very uneasy, not knowing what the matter was, or what danger I was in; especially hearing the guns too, for by this time they began to use their fire-arms. A thousand thoughts oppressed his mind concerning me and the supercargo, what should become of us; and at last, though he could ill spare any more men, yet, not knowing what exigence we might be in, he takes another boat, and with thirteen men and himself comes on shore to me.
He was surprised to see me and the supercargo in the boat with no more than two men, for one had been left to keep the boat; and though he was glad that we were well, yet he was in the same impatience with us to know what was doing, for the noise continued and the flame increased. I confess it was next to an impossibility for any men in the world to restrain their curiosity of knowing what had happened, or their concern for the safety of the men. In a word, the captain told me he would go and help his men, let what would come. I argued with him, as I did before with the men, the safety of the ship, and the danger of the voyage, the interest of the owners and merchants, &c. and told him I would go, and the two men, and only see if we could, at a distance, learn what was like to be the event, and come back and tell him.
It was all one to talk to my nephew, as it was to talk to the rest before; he would go, he said, and he only wished he had left but ten men in the ship, for he could not think of having his men lost for want of help; he had rather, he said, lose the ship, the voyage, and his life, and all: and so away went he.
Nor was I any more able to stay behind now than I was to persuade them not to go before; so, in short, the captain ordered two men to row back the pinnace, and fetch twelve men more from the ship, leaving the long-boat at an anchor; and that when they came back six men should keep the two boats, and six more come after us, so that he left only sixteen men in the ship; for the whole ship's company consisted of sixty-five men, whereof two were lost in the first quarrel which brought this mischief on.
Being now on the march, you may be sure we felt little of the ground we trod on, and being guided by the fire we kept no path, but went directly to the place of the flame. If the noise of the guns were surprising to us before, the cries of the poor people were now quite of another nature, and filled us with horror. I must confess I never was at the sacking of a city, or at the taking of a town by storm; I have heard of Oliver Cromwell taking Drogheda in Ireland, and killing man, woman, and child; and I had read of Count Tilly sacking the city of Magdebourg, and cutting the throats of 22,000 of both sexes; but I never had an idea of the thing itself before, nor is it possible to describe it, or the horror which was upon our minds at hearing it.
However, we went on, and at length came to the town, though there was no entering the streets of it for the fire. The first object we met with was the ruins of a hut or house, or rather the ashes of it, for the house was consumed; and just before it, plain now to be seen by the light of the fire, lay four men and three women killed; and, as we thought, one or two more lay in the heap among the fire. In short, these were such instances of a rage altogether barbarous, and of a fury something beyond what was human, that we thought it impossible our men could be guilty of it; or if they were the authors of it, we thought that every one of them ought to be put to the worst of deaths: but this was not all; we saw the fire increased forward, and the cry went on just as the fire went on, so that we were in the utmost confusion. We advanced a little way farther, and beheld to our astonishment three women naked, crying in a most dreadful manner, and flying as if they had indeed had wings, and after them sixteen or seventeen men, natives, in the same terror and consternation, with three of our English butchers (for I can call them no better) in the rear, who, when they could not overtake them, fired in among them, and one that was killed by their shot fell down in our sight: when the rest saw us, believing us to be their enemies; and that we would murder them as well as those that pursued them, they set up a most dreadful shriek, especially the women, and two of them fell down as if already dead with the fright.
My very soul shrunk within me, and my blood ran chill in my veins, when I saw this; and I believe had the three English sailors that pursued them come on, I had made our men kill them all. However, we took some ways to let the poor flying creatures know that we would not hurt them, and immediately they came up to us, and kneeling down, with their hands lifted up, made piteous lamentations to us to save them, which we let them know we would do; where upon they kept all together in a huddle close behind us for protection. I left my men drawn up together, and charged them to hurt nobody, but if possible to get at some of our people, and see what devil it was possessed them, and what they intended to do; and in a word to command them off, assuring them that if they staid till daylight they would have a hundred thousand men about their ears: I say, I left them and went among those flying people, taking only two of our men with me; and there was indeed a piteous spectacle among them: some of them had their feet terribly burnt with trampling and running through the fire, others their hands burnt; one of the women had fallen down in the fire, and was almost burnt to death before she could get out again; two or three of the men had cuts in their backs and thighs, from our men pursuing, and another was shot through the body, and died while I was there.
I would fain have learnt what the occasion of all this was, but I could not understand one word they said, though by signs I perceived that some of them knew not what was the occasion themselves. I was so terrified in my thoughts at this outrageous attempt, that I could not stay there, but went back to my own men: I told them my resolution, and commanded them to follow me, when in the very moment came four of our men, with the boatswain at their head, running over the heaps of bodies they had killed, all covered with blood and dust, as if they wanted more people to massacre, when our men hallooed to them as loud as they could halloo, and with much ado one of them made them hear, so that they knew who we were, and came up to us.
As soon as the boatswain saw us he set up a halloo, like a shout of triumph, for having, as he thought, more help come; and without bearing to hear me, "Captain," says he, "noble captain, I am glad you are come; we have not half done yet: villains! hell-hound dogs! I will kill as many of them as poor Tom has hairs upon his head. We have sworn to spare none of them; we will root out the very name of them from the earth." And thus he ran on, out of breath too with action, and would not give us leave to speak a word.
At last, raising my voice, that I might silence him a little, "Barbarous dog!" said I, "what are you doing? I won't have one creature touched more upon pain of death. I charge you upon your life to stop your hands, and stand still here, or you are a dead man this minute."
"Why, Sir," says he, "do you know what you do, or what they have done? If you want a reason for what we have done, come hither;" and with that he shewed me the poor fellow hanging upon a tree, with his throat cut.
I confess I was urged then myself, and at another time should have been forward enough; but I thought they had carried their rage too far, and thought of Jacob's words to his sons Simeon and Levi, "Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel." But I had now a new task upon my hands; for when the men I carried with me saw the sight as I had done, I had as much to do to restrain them, as I should have had with the others; nay, my nephew himself fell in with them, and told me in their hearing, that he was only concerned for fear of the men being overpowered; for, as to the people, he thought not one of them ought to live; for they had all glutted themselves with the murder of the poor man, and that they ought to be used like murderers. Upon these words away ran eight of my men with the boatswain and his crew to complete their bloody work; and I, seeing it quite out of my power to restrain them, came away pensive and sad, for I could not bear the sight, much less the horrible noise and cries of the poor wretches that fell into their hands.
I got nobody to come back with me but the supercargo and two men, and with these I walked back to the boats. It was a very great piece of folly in me, I confess, to venture back as it were alone; for as it began now to be almost day, and the alarm had run over the country, there stood about forty men armed with lances and bows at the little place where the twelve or thirteen houses stood mentioned before, but by accident I missed the place, and came directly to the sea-side; and by that time I got to the sea-side it was broad day: immediately I took the pinnace and went aboard, and sent her back to assist the men in what might happen.
I observed that about the time I came to the boat-side the fire was pretty well out, and the noise abated; but in about half an hour after I got on board I heard a volley of our men's fire-arms, and saw a great smoke; this, as I understood afterwards, was our men falling upon the forty men, who, as I said, stood at the few houses on the way; of whom they killed sixteen or seventeen, and set all those houses on fire, but did not meddle with the women or children.
By the time the men got to the shore again with the pinnace our men began to appear; they came dropping in some and some, not in two bodies, and in form, as they went out, but all in heaps, straggling here and there in such a manner that a small force of resolute men might have cut them all off.
But the dread of them was upon the whole country. The people were amazed and surprised, and so frighted that I believe a hundred of them would have fled at the sight of but five of our men. Nor in all this terrible action was there a man who made any considerable defence; they were so surprised between the terror of the fire, and the sudden attack of our men in the dark, that they knew not which way to turn themselves; for if they fled one way they were met by one party, if back again by another; so that they were every where knocked down. Nor did any of our men receive the least hurt, except one who strained his foot, and another had one of his hands very much burnt.
I was very angry with my nephew the captain, and indeed with all the men, in my mind, but with him in particular, as well for his acting so out of his duty, as commander of the ship, and having the charge of the voyage upon him, as in his prompting rather than cooling the rage of his men in so bloody and cruel an enterprise: my nephew answered me very respectfully, but told me that when he saw the body of the poor seaman whom they had murdered in such a cruel and barbarous manner, he was not master of himself, neither could he govern his passion; he owned he should not have done so, as he was commander of the ship, but as he was a man, and nature moved him, he could not bear it. As for the rest of the men, they were not subject to me at all, and they knew it well enough, so they took no notice of my dislike.
The next day we set sail, so we never heard any more of it. Our men differed in the account of the number they killed; some said one thing, some another; but according to the best of their accounts, put all together, they killed or destroyed about a hundred and fifty people, men, women, and children, and left not a house standing in the town.
As for the poor fellow, Thomas Jeffrys, as he was quite dead, for his throat was so cut that his head was half off, it would do him no service to bring him away; so they left him where they found him, only took him down from the tree where he was hanged by one hand.
However just our men thought this action to be, I was against them in it, and I always after that time told them God would blast the voyage; for I looked upon the blood they shed that night to be murder in them: for though it is true that they killed Thomas Jeffrys, yet it was as true that Jeffrys was the aggressor, had broken the truce, and had violated or debauched a young woman of theirs, who came to our camp innocently, and on the faith of their capitulation.
The boatswain defended this quarrel when we were afterwards on board. He said, it was true that we seemed to break the truce, but really had not, and that the war was begun the night before by the natives themselves, who had shot at us, and killed one of our men without any just provocation; so that as we were in a capacity to fight them, we might also be in a capacity to do ourselves justice upon them in an extraordinary manner; that though the poor man had taken liberty with a wench, he ought not to have been murdered, and that in such a villanous manner; and that they did nothing but what was just, and that the laws of God allowed to be done to murderers.
One would think this should have been enough to have warned us against going on shore among heathens and barbarians; but it is impossible to make mankind wise but at their own experience; and their experience seems to be always of most use to them when it is dearest bought.
We were now bound to the Gulf of Persia, and from thence to the coast of Coromandel, only to touch at Surat; but the chief of the supercargo's design lay at the Bay of Bengal, where if he missed of the business outward-bound he was to go up to China, and return to the coast as he came home.
The first disaster that befel us was in the Gulf of Persia, where five of our men venturing on shore on the Arabian side of the Gulf were surrounded by the Arabs, and either all killed or carried away into slavery; the rest of the boat's crew were not able to rescue them, and had but just time to get off their boat. I began to upbraid them with the just retribution of Heaven in this case; but the boatswain very warmly told me, he thought I went farther in my censures than I could show any warrant for in Scripture, and referred to the thirteenth of St. Luke, ver. 4, where our Saviour intimates that those men on whom the tower of Siloam fell, were not sinners above all the Galileans; but that which indeed put me to silence in this case was, that none of these five men who were now lost were of the number of those who went on shore to the massacre of Madagascar (so I always called it, though our men could not bear the word massacre with any patience:) and indeed this last circumstance, as I have said, put me to silence for the present.
But my frequent preaching to them on this subject had worse consequences than I expected; and the boatswain, who had been the head of the attempt, came up boldly to me one time, and told me he found that I continually brought that affair upon the stage, that I made unjust reflections upon it, and had used the men very ill on that account, and himself in particular; that as I was but a passenger, and had no command in the ship, or concern in the voyage, they were not obliged to bear it; that they did not know but I might have some ill design in my head, and perhaps call them to an account for it when they came to England; and that therefore, unless I would resolve to have done with it, and also not to concern myself farther with him, or any of his affairs, he would leave the ship; for he did not think it was safe to sail with me among them.
I heard him patiently enough till he had done, and then told him that I did confess I had all along opposed the massacre of Madagascar, for such I would always call it; and that I had on all occasions spoken my mind freely about it, though not more upon him than any of the rest; that as to my having no command in the ship, that was true, nor did I exercise any authority, only took the liberty of speaking my mind in things which publicly concerned us all: as to what concern I had in the voyage, that was none of his business; I was a considerable owner of the ship, and in that claim I conceived I had a right to speak, even farther than I had yet done, and would not be accountable to him or any one else; and began to be a little warm with him: he made but little reply to me at that time, and I thought that affair had been over. We were at this time in the road to Bengal; and being willing to see the place, I went on shore with the supercargo, in the ship's boat, to divert myself; and towards evening was preparing to go on board, when one of the men came to me, and told me he would not have me trouble myself to come down to the boat, for they had orders not to carry me on board. Any one may guess what a surprise I was in at so insolent a message; and I asked the man who bade him deliver that errand to me? He told me, the coxswain. I said no more to the fellow, but bid him let them know he had delivered his message, and that I had given him no answer to it.
I immediately went and round out the supercargo, and told him the story, adding, what I presently foresaw, viz. that there would certainly be a mutiny in the ship; and entreated him to go immediately on board the ship in an Indian boat, and acquaint the captain of it: but I might have spared this intelligence, for before I had spoken to him on shore the matter was effected on board: the boatswain, the gunner, the carpenter, and, in a word, all the inferior officers, as soon as I was gone off in the boat, came up to the quarter-deck, and desired to speak with the captain; and there the boatswain making a long harangue, (for the fellow talked very well) and repeating all he had said to me, told the captain in a few words, that as I was now gone peaceably on shore, they were loath to use any violence with me; which if I had not gone on shore, they would otherwise have done, to oblige me to have gone. They therefore thought fit to tell him, that as they shipped themselves to serve in the ship under his command, they would perform it faithfully; but if I would not quit the ship, or the captain oblige me to quit it, they would all leave the ship, and sail no farther with him; and at that word All, he turned his face about towards the main-mast, which was, it seems, the signal agreed on between them, at which all the seamen being got together, they cried out, "One and All, One and All!"