The Weather Waxed Reasonable, And The Saturday We Set Sail, And Having
A Great Number Of Men And Little Victual, Our Hope Of Life Waxed Less
And Less.
Some desired to yield to the Spaniards, some rather desired
to obtain a place where they might give themselves
To the infidels; and
some had rather abide, with a little pittance, the mercy of God at sea.
So thus, with many sorrowful hearts, we wandered in an unknown sea by
the space of fourteen days, till hunger enforced us to seek the land;
for hides were thought very good meat; rats, cats, mice, and dogs, none
escaped that might be gotten; parrots and monkeys, that were had in
great prize, were thought there very profitable if they served the turn
of one dinner. Thus in the end, on the 8th day of October, we came to
the land in the bottom of the same bay of Mexico, in twenty-three
degrees and a half, where we hoped to have found habitations of the
Spaniards, relief of victuals, and place for the repair of our ship,
which was so sore beaten with shot from our enemies, and bruised with
shooting of our own ordnance, that our weary and weak arms were scarce
able to defend and keep out the water. But all things happened to the
contrary, for we found neither people, victual, nor haven of relief,
but a place where, having fair weather, with some peril we might land a
boat. Our people, being forced with hunger, desired to be set aland,
whereunto I concluded.
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