I Was At First Angry, But Came At Length To An Agreement With Him, To Give Him A Four-Pistole

Piece as soon as the stern and stern-posts were up, and 100 dollars when the bark was finished, and

The money to be committed to the keeping of any one he chose to name. This being settled, he went to work upon the keel, which was to be thirty feet long; the breadth of our bark, by the beam, sixteen feet, and her hold seven feet deep. In two months we made a tolerable shew, owing in a great measure to the ingenuity of Poppleston, our armourer, who never lost a minute in working with his hands, or contriving in his head. He made us a small double-headed maul, hammers, chisels, and a sort of gimblets or wimbles, which performed very well. He even made a bullet-mould, and an instrument to bore cartouch-boxes, which he made from the trucks of our gun-carriages, covering them with seal-skins, and contrived to make them not only convenient, but neat. He contrived to execute any iron-work wanted by the carpenter, and even finished a large serviceable boat, of which we stood much in need.

In the beginning of this great work the people behaved themselves very well, half of them working regularly one day, and the other half the next, seeming every day to grow easier under our misfortunes. They treated me with as much respect as I could wish, and even in a body thanked me for the prospect of their deliverance; while I never failed to encourage them by telling them stories of the great things that had been accomplished by the united efforts of men in similar distresses.

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