Thus Ended Our Attempt On The Biggest
Manilla Ship, Which I Have Heard Related In So Many Ways At Home, That I
Have Thought It Necessary To Give A Very Particular Account Of The
Action, As I Find It Set Down In My Journal.
Generally speaking, the
ships from Manilla are much richer than the prize we had taken; for she
had waited a long time for the Chinese junks to bring silks, which not
arriving, she came away with her cargo made out by means of abundance of
coarse goods.
Several of the prisoners assured me that a Manilla ship
was commonly worth ten millions of dollars; so that, if it had not been
for the accidental non-arrival of the junks from China that season, we
had gotten an extraordinarily rich prize. After my return to Europe, I
met a sailor in Holland who had been in the large ship when we engaged
her, and who communicated to me a reason why we could not have taken her
at all events. Her gunner kept constantly in the powder-room, and
declared that he had taken the sacrament to blow up the ship if we had
boarded her, which accordingly made the men exceedingly resolute in her
defence. I the more readily gave credit to what this man told me, as he
gave a regular and circumstantial account of the engagement, conformable
to what I have given from my journal.
It is hardly to be doubted that we might have set this great ship on
fire, by converting one of our ships into a fireship for that purpose:
But this was objected to by all our officers, because we had goods of
value on board all our ships.
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