Wherefore, After Being In Sight Of The Coast Four Days, And Several Times In Danger Of Getting On Shore, We Thought It Improper To Waste Time Any Longer, And Determined To Consult How We Might Best Promote The Advantage Of The Voyage.

The master therefore held a council of all the principal people in the ship, who were best conversant in

These affairs, when it was unanimously concluded to go for Acheen, being in hopes to meet there with some of the Guzerat people, to whom we might dispose of our English commodities.

We accordingly directed our course towards Acheen, where we arrived on the 27th July. Within seven days we had admittance to the king, to whom a present was made, which it was necessary to make somewhat large, because the Hollanders endeavoured to cross our trade, aspiring to engross the whole trade of India, to the exclusion of all others. Wherefore, after Mr Bradshaw had waited upon the king, he began to trade with the Guzerat merchants who were at Acheen, bartering our English cloth and lead for black and white baftas, which are Guzerat cloths in much request in those parts. We then went to Priaman, where in a short space we had trade to our full content; and though fortune had hitherto crossed us during all the voyage, we had now a fair opportunity to turn our voyage to sufficient profit. We staid here till we had fully loaded our ship with pepper, which might indeed have been done much sooner, had there not been a mutiny among the people, as the sailors would only do as they themselves pleased. At length they were pacified with fair words, and the business of the ship completed.

Griffin Maurice, the master, died here, and Mr Bradshaw sent Humphry Bidulph to Bantam, with Silvester Smith to bear him company, to carry such remainder of the goods as they could not find a market for at Priaman and Tecu. Mr Bidulph sailed for Bantam in a Chinese hulk, and Mr Bradshaw set sail with the Union, fully laden with pepper, for England.

Sec. 2. Return of the Union from Priaman towards England.[301]

Respecting the disastrous return of the Union from Priaman, instead of a narrative, Purchas gives us only two letters, which relate the miserable condition in which she arrived on the coast of France, and a short supplementary account, probably written by Purchas himself, which here follow.

[Footnote 301: Purch. Pilg. I. 234. Astl. I. 349.]

Laus Deo,[302] in Morlaix, the 1st of March, 1611.

Brother Hide,

This day has come to hand a letter from Odwen,[303] [Audierne,] written by one Bagget, an Irishman, resident at that place, giving us most lamentable news of the ship Union of London, which is ashore upon the coast about two leagues from Audierne: which, when the men of that town perceived, they sent two boats to her, and found she was a ship from the East Indies, richly laden with pepper and other goods, having only four men in her alive, one of whom is an Indian, other three lying dead in the ship, whose bodies the four living men had not been able to throw overboard, through extreme feebleness; indeed they were hardly able to speak.

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