This Intelligence, Joined To What Had Befallen Themselves, So Terrified
Our People, Who Were Likewise Afraid That The Admiral, Being
At sea
without a boat, might never reach a place from whence he could send them
assistance, that they determined
To abandon the colony, and would
certainly have done so without orders, had not the mouth of the river been
rendered impassable by bad weather and a heavy surf in which no boat could
live, so that they could not even convey advice to the admiral of what had
occurred. The admiral was in no little danger and perplexity, riding in an
open road with no boat, and his complement much diminished. Those on
shore were in great confusion and dismay, seeing those who had been
killed in the boat, floating down the river, followed by the country crows,
and this they looked upon as an evil omen, dreading that the same fate
awaited themselves; and the more so as they perceived the Indians puffed
up by their late success, and gave them not a minutes respite by reason of
the ill chosen situation of the colony. There is no doubt that they would
all have been destroyed if they had not removed to an open strand to the
eastwards, where they constructed a defence of casks and other things,
planting their cannon in convenient situations to defend themselves, the
Indians not daring to come out of the wood because of the mischief that
the bullets did among them.
While things were in this situation, the admiral waited in the utmost
trouble and anxiety, suspecting what might have happened in consequence of
his boat not returning, and he could not send another to inquire till the
sea at the mouth of the river should become calmer.
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