I Made Them Come To Anchor, And On Examining Their Lading,
Found Nothing But Rice, And That Mostly Spoilt With Wet, For Their
Vessel Was Leaky Both In Her Bottom And Upper Works.
Questioning them, I
understood they were pirates, who had been making pillage on the coast
of China and Cambodia, and had lost their own ship on the shoals of
Borneo, as already related.
We rode by them at anchor under a small
island near the isle of Bintang for two days, giving them good usage,
and not taking any thing out of them, thinking to have gathered from
them the place and passage of certain ships from the coast of China, so
as to have made something of our voyage: But these rogues, being
desperate in minds and fortunes, and hopeless of ever being able to
return to their own country in that paltry junk, had resolved among
themselves either to gain my ship or lose their own lives.
During mutual courtesy and feastings, sometimes five or six and twenty
of the principal persons among them came aboard my ship, of whom I would
never allow more than six to have weapons; but there never was so many
of our men on board their junk at one time. I wished Captain John Davis,
in the morning, to possess himself of their weapons, putting the company
before the mast, and to leave a guard over their weapons, while they
searched among the rice; doubting that by searching, and perhaps finding
something that might displease them, they might suddenly set upon my men
and put them to the sword, as actually happened in the sequel.
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