The 30th, Some Other Merchants Of Miaco Came To Look At Our Commodities, Who Offered Twelve Tayes The Fathom For Our Best Stammel, Or Red Cloth; But They Went Away Without Making Any Bargain.

At this time we had very heavy winds, both by day and night, so that we were in fear of another tuffoon, on which account all the fishers hauled their boats ashore, and every one endeavoured to secure the roofings of their houses.

A week before this, a bose, bonze or conjurer, had predicted to the king that this tempest was to come. About this time our surgeon, being in his cups, came into a house where a bose was conjuring for a woman who wanted to know if her husband or friends would return from sea. So when the bose was done, the surgeon gave him three-pence to conjure again, and to tell him when our general would return to Firando. In the end, the bose told him that the general would return within eighteen days, pretending that he heard a voice answer from behind a wall, both when he conjured for the woman, and now when he conjured for the surgeon.

On the 2d of October, the master sent me word that some of the men had run away with the skiff. These were John Bowles, John Saris, John Tottie, Christopher Evans, Clement Locke, Jasper Malconty, and James the Dutchman. While in the way to the king to get boats to send after them, our Dutch jurebasso came running after me, and told me our people were on the other side making merry at a tippling-house. On this information I returned to the English house to get a boat for the master to go and look them out, but they proved to be three others, William Marinell, Simeon Colphax, and John Dench, who had hired a boat and gone to another island, not being allowed to walk by night in Firando. By this mistake our deserters had the more time to get away. This night, about eleven, the old king's house, on the other side of the water, took fire, and was burnt to the ground in about an hour. I never saw a more vehement fire for the time it lasted, and it is thought his loss is very great. The old king is said to have set it on fire himself, by going about in the night with lighted canes, some sparks from which had fallen among the mats and set them on fire.

I went next day to visit the old king, giving him to understand, by means of his governor, that I was extremely sorry for the misfortune that had befallen him, and would have come in person to give all the assistance in my power, but was doubtful if my presence would have been acceptable, being a stranger; and begged leave to assure him, that he should find me ready at all times, even with the hazard of my life, to do him every service in my power.

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