A New Voyage Round the World by a Course Never Sailed Before. Defoe Daniel

withdraw, except Captain Merlotte and the supercargo; and then, turning myself to the criminal, I told him, as he knew his circumstances, I need not repeat them, and the fact for which he was brought into that condition; that I had hitherto, from time to time, delayed his execution, contrary to the opinion of the rest of the chief officers, who in full council had unanimously condemned him; that a sudden thought had come into my mind, which, if he knew how to merit mercy, and to retrieve his circumstances by his future fidelity, might once again put it into his power, not only to save his life, but to be trusted in the ship again, if he inclined to be honest; that, however, if he had no inclination to merit by his service, I would put it to his choice, either to undertake with courage and fidelity what I had to propose to him, in which case he might expect to be very well treated, or, if not, I would pardon him as to the death he had reason to expect, and he with his two fellow-criminals should be set on shore to go whither they pleased.

      He waited, without offering to speak a word, till I made a full stop, and then asked me if I gave him leave to answer.

      I told him he might say whatever he thought proper.

      Then he asked if I gave him leave to speak freely, and would not take offence at what he might say? I replied, he should speak as freely as if he had never offended; and that, as I had given him his life, I now would give him my word, nothing he could say should revoke the grant; and that he should not only go freely on shore, (for I expected by his words that he had made that choice) but I would give him the lives of his two fellow-prisoners; and would give them arms and ammunition, and anything else that was reasonable for them to ask, or necessary to their subsisting on shore in such a country.

      He told me then, that had it been any other part of the world than at Madagascar, he would readily have chosen to have gone on shore; nay, though the place had been really desolate and uninhabited; that he did not object because my offer was not very generous and kind, and that it would be always with regret that he should look back upon the mercy he should have received, and how ill he had deserved it at my hands.

      But that as it was at this place that I mentioned setting him at liberty, he told me, that though he had been mutinous and disorderly, for which he had acknowledged he had deserved to die, yet he hoped I could not think so ill of him as to believe he could turn pirate; and begged that, rather than entertain such hard thoughts of him, I would execute the worst part of the sentence, and send him out of the world a penitent and an honest man, which he should esteem far better than to give him his life in a condition in which he could preserve it upon no other terms than those of being the worst of villains. He added, that if there was anything he could do to deserve so much mercy as I intended him, he begged me that I would give him room to behave himself as became him, and he would leave it wholly to me to use him as he should deserve, even to the recalling the pardon that I had granted him.

      I was extremely satisfied with what he said, and more particularly with the manner of his speaking it; I told him I was glad to see that he had a principle of so much honesty at the bottom of a part so unhappy as he had acted; and I would be very far from prompting him to turn pirate, and much more from forcing him to do so, and that I would, according to his desire, put an opportunity into his hands to show himself a new man, and, by his fidelity, to wipe out all that was past. And then, without any more ceremony, I told him my whole design, which was, to send him, and four or five more men with him, on shore among the pirates as spies, to see what condition they were in, and to see whether there were any apprehensions of violence from them, or whether they were in the mean circumstances that I had reason to believe they were in; and, lastly, whether they had any ship or vessel which might be bought of them, and whether men might be had to increase our company; that is to say, such men as, being penitent for their rogueries and tired with their miseries, would be glad of the opportunity of turning honest men before they were brought to it by distress and the gallows.

      He embraced the offer with the greatest readiness, and gave me all the assurances that I could desire of his fidelity. I then asked him whether he thought his two fellow-prisoners might be trusted upon the same conditions.

      In reply, he asked me if I would take it for a piece of sincerity, if, after a trial, he should tell me his mind, and would not be displeased if he declined speaking his thoughts till he had talked with them.

      I told him he should be at liberty to give his farther answer after he had proposed it to them; but I insisted upon his opinion first, because it was only his opinion that I asked now; whereas, if he reported it to them, then he had no more to do but to report their answer.

      He then asked me if I would please to grant him one thing, that, whatever his opinion should be, what he should say should be no prejudice to them in their present condition.

      I told him it was a reasonable caution in him, and I would assure him that, whatever he said should not do them any prejudice; and, to convince him of it, I gave him my word that I would not put them to death on any account whatsoever, merely for his sake.

      He bowed, and thanked me very heartily for that grant, which, he said, obliged him to be the plainer with me on that head; and as, he said, he would not deceive me in anything whatever, so he would not in this, especially; and therefore told me it was his opinion, they would not serve me faithfully; and he referred me to the experience I should find of it; and added, that he would be so just to me in the beginning, as that, while he begged to be merciful to them, yet for my own sake he would also beg me not to trust them.

      I took the hint, and said no more at that time, but ordered his irons to be taken off, with direction for him to have leave to go to his former cabin, and to have his chests and things restored to him; so that he was at full liberty in the ship, though not in any office, or appointed to any particular business.

      A day or two after this we made land, which appeared to be the north-west part of the island, in the latitude of 13° 30'; and now I thought it was time to put our design into execution; for I knew very well that it could not be a great way from this part of the island where the pirates were to be heard of: so I ordered the boat on shore, with about sixteen men, to make discoveries, and with them my new-restored man.

      I gave him no instruction for anything extraordinary at this time, our work now being only to find out where they were. The boat came on board again at night, (for we had now stood in within two leagues of the shore) and brought us an account, that there were no English or Europeans on that part of the island, but that they were to be heard of a great way farther; so we stood away to the north all the night, and the next day, the wind being fair and the sea smooth, and by our reckoning we went in that time about forty leagues.

      The next evening, the same company went on shore again, and were shown by some of the natives where the pirates inhabited; which, in short, was about five or six and twenty miles farther north still, in a river very commodious for shipping, where they had five or six European-built ships, and two or three sloops, but they were all laid up, except two sloops, with which they cruised sometimes a great distance off to the north, as far as the Arabian Gulf. The mate returned with this intelligence the same night; and by his direction we stood in as close under the shore as we could conveniently, about six leagues farther north; here we found a very good road under a little cape, which kept us perfectly undiscovered; and in the morning, before day, my man went on shore again with the boat, and keeping only four men with him, sent the boat on board again, agreeing on a signal for us to send the boat for him again when he should return.

      There was a pretty high ledge of hills to the north of the place where he landed, and which, running west, made the little cape, under the lee of which our ship rode at anchor.

      As soon as he came to the top of those hills, he plainly discovered the creek or harbour where the pirates' ships lay, and where they had formed their encampment on the shore. Our men took proper observations of the situation of the place they were in, upon the hill, that they might not fail to find their way back again, though it were in the night; and that, by agreeing in the account they should give of themselves, they might be all found in the same tale. They boldly went down the hill, and came to the edge of the creek, the pirates' camp being on the other shore.

      Here they fired a gun, to raise a kind of alarm among them, and then, hanging out a white cloth on the top of a pole, a signal of peace, they hailed them in English, and asked them if they would send a boat and fetch