Page 282

An.1686

Occurrences during the Voyage.

nothing but an augmentation of their daily allow- ance would appease them. Captain Swan, though with much reluctance, gave way to a small en- largement of our commons, for now we had not above 10 spoonfuls of boil'd Maiz a man, once a day, whereas before we had 8 : I do believe that this short allowance did me a great deal of good, though others were weakened by it ; for I found that my strength increased, and my Dropsy wore off. Yet I drank 3 times every 24 hours ; but many of our men did not drink in 9 or 10 days time, and some not in 12 days ; one of our men did not drink in 17 days time, and said he was not adry when he did drink ; yet he made water every day more or less. One of our men in the midst of these hardships was found guilty of theft, and condemned for the same, to have 3 blows from each man in the Ship, with a 2 inch and a half rope on his bare back. Captain Swan began first, and struck with a good will, whose example was followed by all of us.

It was very strange that in all this Voyage we did not see one Fish, not so much as a Flying-fish, nor any sort of Fowl, but at one time, when we were by my account 4975 miles West from Cape Corrientes, then we saw a great number of Boobies, which we supposed came from some Rocks not far from us, which were mentioned in some of our Sea-carts, but we did not see them.

After we had run the 1900 leagues by our reck- oning which made the English account to Guam, the men began to murmur against Captain Swan, for perswading them to come this Voyage ; but he gave them fair words, and told them that the Spa- nish account might probably be the truest, and see- ing the gale was likely to continue, a short time longer would end our troubles.

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