686 SIGNS OF MUTINY,

the thing, but that he could do nothing in it until he had spoken
to me about it. Te used some arguments with them to show
them the unreasonableness and injustice of the thing: but it was
all in vain; they swore and shook hands round before his face
that they would go all 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 [Tinight take it. So he began to talk
eavalierly to them; told them that T was a very considerable
owner of the ship, and that in justice he could not put me out. of
my own house; that this was next door to serving me as the
famous pirate Kid had done, who made the mutiny in a ship, set
the captain on shore on an uninhabited islind, and ran away with
the ship; that let them go into what ship they would, if ever they
came to Bngland again, it would cost. them 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
meso much; so they might do as they pleased : however, he would
go on shore, and talk with me on shore; 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, neither on board nor on shore,
and if T came on board they would all goon 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 cock-
swain,

T was very glad to see my nephew, [ must confess; for T was
not without apprehensions that they would confine him by violence,
set sail, and run away with the ship, and then [ had been stripped
naked in a remote country, and nothing to help myself; in short,
T had been in a worse case than when I was all alone in the
island,

But they had not come that length, it seems, to my great satis-
faction ; and when my nephew told me what they had said to him,
and how they had sworn, and shook hands, that they would one