On Receipt Of This, The Governor
Expressed Great Satisfaction, And Seemed To Make No Difficulty In
Complying With My Request.
Our boats went therefore ashore every
morning, under a flag of truce, and we received for the first four days
eight small jars of water daily.
On the fifth day they reduced us to
five jars, and during the whole time only one small cow was sent us.
On this occasion a boat came off full of men, among whom were two
priests, who brought with them a paper in Spanish, which they called the
articles of peace; but so wretchedly written and blotted, that we should
have been puzzled to read it, had it even been in English. I therefore
desired the priests to translate it into Latin, which they promised to
do, and took the paper with them. They also told me, that the governor
meant to send for some Englishmen who lived at Guatimala, if I would
continue three days longer in the road; to which I answered, that he
might take his own time. Two days after, on our boat going ashore as
usual, the governor ordered her and her crew to be seized. I was all day
in suspence, not imagining the governor would make such a breach of the
law of nations; but in the evening two of the boat's crew came off in an
old leaky canoe, bringing a letter from the governor, and another from
Mr Brooks, my first lieutenant, who was one of the prisoners. The
governor required me to deliver up the Sacra Familia, and that we
should all surrender, otherwise he would declare us pirates; and Mr
Brooks told me he believed the governor meant to bully me. The governor
proposed two ways for conveying us from the Spanish dominions, one of
which was by Vera Cruz overland, and the other by sea to Lima. But I
liked neither of these, not chusing a journey of 1300 miles at least
through a country inhabited by a barbarous people, nor yet a voyage to
Lima under their guidance. My two men told me, that Frederick Mackenzie
had let the governor into the secret of our necessities, and of my
design of procuring water at the island of Tigers, in the gulf of
Amapala, which he said he would take care to prevent, and believed he
now had us safe enough, knowing our only boat remaining was a small
canoe. My two men who brought these letters offering their service, and
a third volunteering to accompany them, to bale out the water from their
wretched canoe, I sent a letter in French to the governor, offering, if
I could be assured of a safe conduct for ourselves and effects to
Panama, and thence by way of Portobello to one of the British colonies,
we would enter into a farther treaty, which he might signify, if he
meant to comply, by firing two guns, and by sending off my people with
the usual supply; otherwise necessity would compel us to sail that
night. Receiving no reply whatever, I weighed before day next morning,
and made sail, leaving the Jesu Maria behind, a much more valuable ship
than the one I took away.
On going to sea, we reduced ourselves to a pint of-water in the
twenty-four hours, and directed our course for the gulf of Amapala,
about thirty-five leagues S.S.E. [274] meaning to water there on the
island of Tigers. The loss of my officer and boat's crew sensibly
diminished the number of white faces among us, and so lessened our
strength, that we should never have been able to manage this great ship,
with her heavy cotton sails, but for our negro prisoners, who proved to
be very good sailors. The loss of our boat was a great inconvenience to
us; but as I meant only to provide water enough to serve us to Panama,
where we were determined to surrender ourselves, if it were really
peace, I thought we might contrive to get such a quantity of water as
might suffice, in two or three days, by means of our canoe. The winds
being favourable, we reached the gulf in ten days, but we could find no
water, after an anxious and hazardous search. Surrounded on all sides
with the most discouraging difficulties, we weighed anchor again on the
13th of April, when I brought our people to a resolution not to
surrender on any account, let the consequence be what it might. We had
not now forty gallons of water in the ship, and no other liquids, when
we came to an allowance of half a pint each for twenty-four hours, even
this being too large, considering we could get none nearer than the
island of Quibo, which was about 160 leagues from the gulf of Amapala,
and we were forty-three in number, including our negroes.
[Footnote 274: About forty-two marine leagues E.S.E.]
We accordingly steered for Quibo, having very uncertain winds and
variable weather, and were thirteen days on this short allowance. No one
who has not experienced it can conceive our sufferings in this sultry
climate, by the perpetual extremity of thirst, which would not permit us
to eat an ounce of victuals in a day. We even drank our urine, which
moistened our mouths indeed, but excited our thirst the more. Some even
drank large draughts of sea-water, which had like to have killed them.
[275] On the 25th April we came to the island of Cano, in lat. 8 deg. 47'
N. which, by the verdure, promised to yield us water, if our canoe could
get on shore. In this hope we came to anchor off the north-west side of
this island, when it was as much as we could do to hand our sails, stop
our cable, and execute the other necessary labours, so greatly were we
reduced. We imagined we could see a run of water, yet dreaded the
dangerous surf which broke all round those parts of the island we could
see.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 216 of 221
Words from 219514 to 220535
of 224764
