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The gunner had in the meantime orders to bring two guns, to bear fore andaft, out of the steerage, to clear the deck, and load them with musketbullets, and small pieces of old iron, and what came next to hand. Thuswe made ready for fight; but all this while we kept out to sea, with windenough, and could see the boats at a distance, being five largelongboats, following us with all the sail they could make. Two of those boats (which by our glasses we could see were English)outsailed the rest, were near two leagues ahead of them, and gained uponus considerably, so that we found they would come up with us; upon whichwe fired a gun without ball, to intimate that they should bring to: andwe put out a flag of truce, as a signal for parley: but they camecrowding after us till within shot, when we took in our white flag, theyhaving made no answer to it, and hung out a red flag, and fired at themwith a shot. Notwithstanding this, they came on till they were nearenough to call to them with a speakingtrumpet, bidding them keep off attheir peril. It was all one; they crowded after us, and endeavoured to come under ourstern, so as to board us on our quarter; upon which, seeing they wereresolute for mischief, and depended upon the strength that followed them, I ordered to bring the ship to, so that they lay upon our broadside; whenimmediately we fired five guns at them, one of which had been levelled sotrue as to carry away the stern of the hindermost boat, and we thenforced them to take down their sail, and to run all to the head of theboat, to keep her from sinking; so she lay by, and had enough of it; butseeing the foremost boat crowd on after us, we made ready to fire at herin particular. While this was doing one of the three boats that followedmade up to the boat which we had disabled, to relieve her, and we couldsee her take out the men. We then called again to the foremost boat, andoffered a truce, to parley again, and to know what her business was withus; but had no answer, only she crowded close under our stern. Uponthis, our gunner who was a very dexterous fellow ran out his two caseguns, and fired again at her, but the shot missing, the men in the boatshouted, waved their caps, and came on. The gunner, getting quicklyready again, fired among them a second time, one shot of which, though itmissed the boat itself, yet fell in among the men, and we could easilysee did a great deal of mischief among them. We now wore the ship again, and brought our quarter to bear upon them, and firing three guns more, wefound the boat was almost split to pieces; in particular, her rudder anda piece of her stern were shot quite away; so they handed her sailimmediately, and were in great disorder. To complete their misfortune, our gunner let fly two guns at them again; where he hit them we could nottell, but we found the boat was sinking, and some of the men already inthe water: upon this, I immediately manned out our pinnace, with ordersto pick up some of the men if they could, and save them from drowning, and immediately come on board ship with them, because we saw the rest ofthe boats began to come up. Our men in the pinnace followed theirorders, and took up three men, one of whom was just drowning, and it wasa good while before we could recover him. As soon as they were on boardwe crowded all the sail we could make, and stood farther out to the sea;and we found that when the other boats came up to the first, they gaveover their chase. Being thus delivered from a danger which, though I knew not the reason ofit, yet seemed to be much greater than I apprehended, I resolved that weshould change our course, and not let any one know whither we were going;so we stood out to sea eastward, quite out of the course of all Europeanships, whether they were bound to China or anywhere else, within thecommerce of the European nations. When we were at sea we began toconsult with the two seamen, and inquire what the meaning of all thisshould be; and the Dutchman confirmed the gunner's story about the falsesale of the ship and of the murder of the captain, and also how that he, this Dutchman, and four more got into the woods, where they wanderedabout a great while, till at length he made his escape, and swam off to aDutch ship, which was sailing near the shore in its way from China. He then told us that he went to Batavia, where two of the seamenbelonging to the ship arrived, having deserted the rest in their travels, and gave an account that the fellow who had run away with the ship, soldher at Bengal to a set of pirates, who were gone acruising in her, andthat they had already taken an English ship and two Dutch ships veryrichly laden. This latter part we found to concern us directly, thoughwe knew it to be false; yet, as my partner said, very justly, if we hadfallen into their hands, and they had had such a prepossession against usbeforehand, it had been in vain for us to have defended ourselves, or tohope for any good quarter at their hands; especially considering that ouraccusers had been our judges, and that we could have expected nothingfrom them but what rage would have dictated, and an ungoverned passionhave executed. Therefore it was his opinion we should go directly backto Bengal, from whence we came, without putting in at any portwhateverbecause where we could give a good account of ourselves, couldprove where we were when the ship put in, of whom we bought her, and thelike; and what was more than all the rest, if we were put upon thenecessity of bringing it before the proper judges, we should be sure tohave some justice, and not to be hanged first and judged afterwards. I was some time of my partner's opinion; but after a little more seriousthinking, I told him I thought it was a very great hazard for us toattempt returning to Bengal, for that we were on the wrong side of theStraits of Malacca, and that if the alarm was given, we should be sure tobe waylaid on every sidethat if we should be taken, as it were, runningaway, we should even condemn ourselves, and there would want no moreevidence to destroy us. I also asked the English sailor's opinion, whosaid he was of my mind, and that we certainly should be taken. Thisdanger a little startled my partner and all the ship's company, and weimmediately resolved to go away to the coast of Tonquin, and so on to thecoast of Chinaand pursuing the first design as to trade, find some wayor other to dispose of the ship, and come back in some of the vessels ofthe country such as we could get. This was approved of as the bestmethod for our security, and accordingly we steered away NNE. , keepingabove fifty leagues off from the usual course to the eastward. This, however, put us to some inconvenience: for, first, the winds, when wecame that distance from the shore, seemed to be more steadily against us, blowing almost trade, as we call it, from the E. And ENE. , so that wewere a long while upon our voyage, and we were but ill provided withvictuals for so long a run; and what was still worse, there was somedanger that those English and Dutch ships whose boats pursued us, whereofsome were bound that way, might have got in before us, and if not, someother ship bound to China might have information of us from them, andpursue us with the same vigour. I must confess I was now very uneasy, and thought myself, including thelate escape from the longboats, to have been in the most dangerouscondition that ever I was in through my past life; for whatever illcircumstances I had been in, I was never pursued for a thief before; norhad I ever done anything that merited the name of dishonest orfraudulent, much less thievish. I had chiefly been my own enemy, or, asI may rightly say, I had been nobody's enemy but my own; but now I waswoefully embarrassed: for though I was perfectly innocent, I was in nocondition to make that innocence appear; and if I had been taken, it hadbeen under a supposed guilt of the worst kind. This made me very anxiousto make an escape, though which way to do it I knew not, or what port orplace we could go to. My partner endeavoured to encourage me bydescribing the several ports of that coast, and told me he would put inon the coast of Cochin China, or the bay of Tonquin, intending afterwardsto go to Macao, where a great many European families resided, andparticularly the missionary priests, who usually went thither in order totheir going forward to China.