I was very angry with my nephew, the captain, and indeed with all the men, but with him in particular, as well for his acting¹ so out of his duty as a commander of the ship, and having the charge of the voyage upon him, as in his prompting, rather than cooling, the rage of his blind men in so bloody² and cruel an enterprise.  My nephew answered me very respectfully, but told me that when he saw the body of the poor seaman³ whom they had murdered in so cruel and barbarous a 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 had killed; but according to the best of their accounts, put all together, they killed or destroyed about one hundred and fifty people, men, women, and children, and left not a house standing⁴ in the town.  As for the poor fellow Tom Jeffry, 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 only took him down from the tree, where he was hanging by one hand.  
However just our men thought this action, I was against them in it, and I always, after that time, told them God would blast the voyage; for I looked upon all the blood they shed that night to be murder in them.  For though it is true that they had killed Tom Jeffry, yet Jeffry was the aggressor, had broken the truce⁵, and had ill-used a young woman of theirs, who came down to them innocently, and on the faith of the public 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 provocation⁶; so that as we were in a capacity to fight them now, we might also be in a capacity to do ourselves justice upon them in an extraordinary manner; that though the poor man had taken a little liberty with the girl, he ought not to have been murdered, and that in such a villainous manner: and that they did nothing but what was just and what 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 amongst the heathens and barbarians⁷; but it is impossible to make mankind wise but at their own expense, and their experience seems to be always of most use to them when it is dearest bought.
 
We were now bound to the Gulf⁸ 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 his business outward-bound, he was to go out to China, and return to the coast as he came home.  The first disaster that befell 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 Arabians, 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 upbraid¹⁰ them with the just retribution of Heaven in this case; but the boatswain very warmly told me, he thought I went further in my censures¹¹ than I could show any warrant for in Scripture¹²; and referred to Luke xiii. 4, where our Saviour¹³ intimates that those men on whom the Tower of Siloam fell were not sinners above all the Galileans; but that which put me to silence in the case was, that not one of these five men who were now lost were of those who went on shore to the massacre¹⁴ of Madagascar, so I always called it, though our men could not bear to hear the word massacre with any patience.
 
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 brought that affair continually 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 to 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 any further with him, or any of his affairs, he would leave the ship; for he did not think it safe to sail with me among them.
 
I heard him patiently enough till he had done, and then told him that I confessed I had all along opposed the massacre of Madagascar, 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 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; and what concern I had in the voyage was none of his business; that I was a considerable owner in the ship.  In that claim I conceived I had a right to speak even further than I had 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 the affair had been over.  We were at this time in the road at 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 more.  Any one may guess what a surprise I was in at so insolent¹⁵ a message; and I asked the man who bade him deliver that message to me?  He told me the coxswain.
 
I immediately found out the supercargo, and told him the story, adding that I foresaw there would be a mutiny in the ship; and entreated¹⁶ him to go immediately on board 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 all the inferior officers, as soon as I was gone off in the boat, came up, and desired to speak with the captain; and then the boatswain, making a long harangue¹⁷, and repeating all he had said to me, told the captain that as I was now gone peaceably on shore, they were loath¹⁸ 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 well and 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 further with him; and at that word all he turned his face towards the main-mast, which was, it seems, a signal agreed on, when the seamen¹⁹, being got together there, cried out, “One and all! one and all!”
 
My nephew, the captain, was a man of spirit, and of great presence of mind; and though he was surprised, yet he told them calmly that he would consider of the matter, but that he could do nothing in it till he had spoken to me about it.  He used some arguments with them, to show them the unreasonableness²⁰ and injustice²¹ of the thing, but it was all in vain; they swore, and shook hands round before his face, that they would all go on shore unless he would engage to them not to suffer me to come any more on board the ship.
 
This was a hard article upon him, who knew his obligation to me, and did not know how I might take it.  So he began to talk smartly to them; told them that I was a very considerable owner of the ship, and that if ever they came to England again it would cost them very dear; that the ship was mine, and that he could not put me out of it; and that he would rather lose the ship, and the voyage too, than disoblige me so much: so they might do as they pleased.  However, he would go on shore and talk with me, and invited the boatswain to go with him, and perhaps they might accommodate the matter with me.  But they all rejected the proposal, and said they would have nothing to do with me any more; and if I came on board they would all go on shore.  “Well,” said the captain, “if you are all of this mind, let me go on shore and talk with him.”  So away he came to me with this account, a little after the message had been brought to me from the coxswain.
 
I was very glad to see my nephew, I must confess; for I was not without apprehensions²² that they would confine him by violence, set sail, and run away with the ship; and then I had been stripped naked in a remote country, having nothing to help myself; in short, I had been in a worse case than when I was alone in the island.  But they had not come to that length, it seems, to my satisfaction; and when my nephew told me what they had said to him, and how they had sworn and shook hands that they would, one and all, leave the ship if I was suffered to come on board, I told him he sh............