462 THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES

 

murdered in cold blood; for wherever they find the ship, they will
prove the guilt upon the men, by proving this was the ship; and so
innocent men may probably be overpowered and murdered.” —“ Why,”
said the old man, “I'll find out a way to prevent that also; for as I
know all those commanders you speak of very well, and shall see them
all as they pass by, I will be sure to set them to rights in the thing,
and let them know that they had been so much in the wrong; that
though the people who were on board at first might run away with the
ship, yet it was not true that they had turned pirates; and that in
particular those were not the men that first went off with the ship,
but innocently bought her for their trade; and I am persuaded they
will so far believe me, as, at least, to act more cautiously for the time
to come.” —“ Well,” said I, ‘and will you deliver one message to them
from me?”’—“ Yes, I will,” says he, “if you will give it under your
hand in writing, that I may be able to prove it came from you, and
not out of my own head.’”’ I answered, that I would readily give it
him under my hand. So I took a pen and ink, and paper, and wrote
at large the story of assaulting me with the long-boats, &c., the pre-
tended reason of it, and the unjust, cruel design of it; and concluded
to the commanders, that they had done what they not only should
have been ashamed of, but also, that if ever they came to England,
and I lived to see them there, they should all pay dearly for it, if the
laws of my country were not grown out of use before I arrived there.

My old pilot read this over and over again, and asked me several
times if I would stand to it. I answered, I would stand to it as long
as I had any thing left in the world; being sensible that I should, one
time or other, find an opportunity to put it home to them. But we
had no occasion ever to let the pilot carry this letter, for he never
went back again. While those things were passing between us, by way
of discourse, we went forward directly for Nanquin, and, in about
thirteen days’ sail, came to anchor at the south-west point of the great
Gulf of Nanquir, where, by the way, I came by accident to under-
stand, that the two Dutch ships were gone that length before me, and
that I should certainly fall into their hands. I consulted my partner
‘again in this exigency, and he was as much at a léss as I was, and
would very gladly have been safe on shore almost anywhere. How-
ever, I was not in such a perplexity neither, but I asked the old pilot
if there was no creek or harbour which I might put into, and pursue
my business with the Chinese privately, and be in no danger of the
enemy. He told me, if I would sail to the southward about two-and-
forty leagues, there was a little port called Quinchang, where the
fathers of the mission usually landed from Macao, on their progress to