ever fate and the fury of the winds directed; and, during these twelve
days, I need not say that I expected every day to be swallowed up; nor,
indeed, did any in the ship expect to save their lives.

In this distress, we had, besides the terror of the storm, one of our
men died of the calenture, and one man and a boy washed overboard. About
the twelfth day, the weather abating a little, the master made an
observation as well as he could, and found that he was in about 11
degrees north latitude, but that he was 22 degrees of longitude
difference, west from Cape St. Augustino; so that he found he was got
upon the coast of Guiana, or the north part of Brazil, beyond the river
Amazons, toward that of the river Oroonoque, commonly called the Great
River; and began to consult with me what course he should take, for the
ship was leaky and very much disabled, add he was going directly back to
the coast of Brazil.

I was positively against that; and looking over the charts of the
sea-coast of America with him, we concluded there was no inhabited
country for us to have recourse to, till we came within the circle of
the Caribbee islands, and therefore resolved to stand away for
Barbadoes; which by keeping off to sea, to avoid the in-draft of the bay
or gulf of Mexico, we might easily perform, as we hoped, in about
fifteen days' sail; whereas we could not possibly make our voyage to the
coast of Africa without some assistance, both to our ship and ourselves.

With this design, we changed our course, and steered away N.W. by W. in
order to reach some of our English islands, where I hoped for relief:
but our voyage was otherwise determined; for being in the latitude of 12
degrees 18 minutes, a second storm came upon us, which carried us away
with the same impetuosity westward, and drove us so out of the very way