JUDGED BY APPEARANCES, 651

This, however, put us to some inconveniences; for first the
winds, when we came to the distance from the shore, seemed to be
more steadily against us, blowing almost trade, as we call it, from
the east and east-north-east, so that we were a long while upon
our voyage, and we were but ill provided with victuals for so long
a voyage; and, which was still worse, there was some danger that
those English and Dutch ships, whose boats pursued us, whereof
some were bound that way, might be got in before us; and if not,
some other ship bound to China might have information of us from
them, and pursue us with the same vigour.

I must confess I was now very uneasy, and thought myself, in-
cluding the late escape from the longboats, to have been in the
most dangerous condition that ever I was in through all my past
life; for whatever ill circumstances I had been in, I was never pur-
sued for a thief before, nor had I ever done anything that merited
the name of dishonest or fraudulent, much less thievish. I had
chiefly been my own enemy; or, as I may rightly say, I had been
nobody’s enemy but my own. But now I was embarrassed in the
worst condition imaginable; for though I was perfectly innocent,
I was in no condition to make that innocence appear. And if I
had been taken, it had been under a supposed guilt of the worst
kind; at least, a crime esteemed so among the people I had to do
with. :

This made me very anxious to make an escape, though which
way to do it I knew not, or what port or place we should go to.
My partner seeing me thus dejected, though he was the most con-
cerned at first, began to encourage me; and describing to me the
several ports of that coast, told me he would put in on the coast of
Cochin China or the Bay of Tonquin, intending to go afterwards
to Macao, a town once in the possession of the Portuguese, and
where still a great many European families resided, and particularly
the missionary priests usually went thither, in order to their going
forward to China.

Hither, then, we resolved to go; and accordingly, though after a
tedious and irregular course, and very much straitened for pro-
visions, we came within sight of the coast very early in the morn-
ing. And upon reflection upon the past circumstances we were in