We Were Also Well Filled For Such A Settlement, Having Among
Our Company All Manner Of Artificers, As Carpenters, Bricklayers,
Shoemakers, tailors, and the like, as also abundance of tools, arms,
cannon, and sufficient ammunition to begin with; and, notwithstanding
The great distance from England, we might easily have had supplies from
thence, providing ships set out the latter end of August, proceeding
round Cape Horn, and so directly across the Pacific for Mindanao, or
else coasting along the western shore of America as far as was
necessary, and then stretching across to have the advantage of the
trade-wind. By this way the voyage might be accomplished in six or seven
months, which would at least require eight or nine by the Cape of Good
Hope.
[Footnote 192: In Harris, this longitude is made 23 deg. 12' W. from the
Lizard by some strange error, being 235 deg. 25' W. from Greenwich. - E.]
[Footnote 193: It does not appear what islands these were, unless
perhaps the Silibabo islands, about half way between Mindanao and the
northern end of Gilolo, but considerably farther distant than is stated
in the text. - E.]
Rajah Laut invited Captain Swan ashore, and promised to furnish what
provisions we wanted, and desired him in the mean time to secure our
ship within the river, for fear of the approaching westerly monsoon,
which Captain Swan agreed to after some deliberation. The river being
narrow, and having not above eleven feet water on the bar in
spring-tides, we had much ado to get our ship a quarter of a mile above
its mouth, where we moored head and stern in a hole, so that she lay
always afloat.
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