This Happened On The Night Of St Lawrence, Or 10th Of August, When His Ship Struck Upon A Rock, And Soon After Sunk With Every Thing On Board, The Crew Only Being Saved.

This ship was of 300 tons burthen, and in it we lost the main power of all our hopes.

While all were plying about the sinking vessel, and using our endeavours to save her, I was ordered by the admiral to go in a boat to the island, to see if any good harbour could be found for the reception of our ships. He would not allow me, however, to use my own ship[7] on this service, which was manned by nine of my sailors, because it was required for aiding his own ship, so that I had to go in another boat with only four or five men, the admiral engaging to restore my own when I had found a harbour. I made the best of my way to the island, from which we were now only four leagues, and soon found an excellent harbour which could have contained our whole fleet. I remained here eight days, anxiously looking for the arrival of the admiral and our squadron, whose non-appearance gave me great uneasiness, and so greatly dismayed the people who were with me that they were reduced almost to despair. While in this forlorn condition, we espied on the eighth day a sail on the horizon, and went off immediately in our boat to meet them, hopeful that they would take us to a better port. On getting up with this vessel, we were informed that the admirals ship, which we had left in great danger, had gone to the bottom. This melancholy intelligence gave us vast uneasiness, as we were 1000 leagues from Lisbon. But putting our trust in Providence, we returned with the ship to the before-mentioned island, on purpose to take in wood and water for the voyage.

This island was wild and uninhabited, but had many pleasant rills of excellent water, with great abundance of trees, and prodigious numbers both of land and water-fowl, which were so tame, from being unaccustomed to man, that they allowed themselves to be caught by hand, so that we caught as many as filled one of our boats. The only quadrupeds were large rats, and lizards having forked tails, besides which there were several serpents. Having taken in such refreshments as the island afforded, we set sail on a S.S.W. course, the king having ordered us to follow the same direction we had pursued in our preceding voyage. We at length reached a port, to which we gave the name of the Bay of all Saints[8], which we reached in seventeen days sail, being favoured with a fair wind, although 300 leagues distance from the before-mentioned island[9]. Although we waited here two months and four days, we were not joined by any of the ships belonging to our squadron.

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