The next day was spent in removing their water and most valuable goods on
shore; and afterwards the captain in the skiff, and the master in the
shallop, endeavoured to return to the vessel, but found the sea run so
high that it was impossible to get on board. In this extremity the
carpenter threw himself out of the ship, and swam to them, in order to
inform them to what hardships those left in the vessel were reduced, and
they sent him back with orders for them to make rafts, by tying the
planks together, and endeavour on these to reach the shallop and skiff;
but before this could be done, the weather became so rough that the
captain was obliged to return, leaving, with the utmost grief, his
lieutenant and seventy men on the very point of perishing on board the
vessel. Those who were got on the little island were not in a much
better condition, for, upon taking an account of their water, they found
they had not above 40 gallons for 40 people, and on the larger island,
where there were 120, their stock was still less. Those on the little
island began to murmur, and to complain of their officers, because they
did not go in search of water, in the islands that were within sight of
them, and they represented the necessity of this to Captain Pelsart, who
agreed to their request, but insisted before he went to communicate his
design to the rest of the people; they consented to this, but not till
the captain had declared that, without the consent of the company on the
large is land, he would, rather than leave them, go and perish on board
the ship. When they were got pretty near the shore, he who commanded the
boat told the captain that if he had anything to say, he must cry out to
the people, for that they would not suffer him to go out of the boat. The
captain immediately attempted to throw himself overboard in order to swim
to the island. Those who were in the boat prevented him; and all that he
could obtain from them was, to throw on shore his table-book, in which
line wrote a line or two to inform them that he was gone in the skiff to