them all to the bottom, none escaping but the three watermen
that were prepar'd to swim. {210}

"It was but poor satisfaction for the loss of so many lives, to
say the steersman was drown'd with them, who ought, indeed, to
have died at the gallows, or on the wheel, for he was certainly
the murtherer of all the rest.

"I have many times pass'd between London and Gravesend with
these fellows in their smaller boats, when I have seen them, in
spite of the shrieks and cries of the women and the persuasions
of the men passengers, and, indeed, as if they were the more
bold by how much the passengers were the more afraid; I say, I
have seen them run needless hazards, and go, as it were, within
an inch of death, when they have been under no necessity of it,
and, if not in contempt of the passengers, it has been in meer
laziness to avoid their rowing; and I have been sometimes
oblig'd, especially when there has been more men in the boat of
the same mind, so that we have been strong enough for them, to
threaten to cut their throats to make them hand their sails and
keep under shore, not to fright as well as hazard the passengers
when there was no need of it.

"One time, being in one of these boats all alone, coming from
London to Gravesend, the wind freshen'd and it begun to blow
very hard after I was come about three or four mile of the way;
and as I said above, that I always thought those fellows were
the more venturous when their passengers were the most fearful,
I resolved I would let this fellow alone to himself; so I lay
down in the boat as if I was asleep, as is usual.