"Not all of you are willing to come with me," Dyck continued vigorously.
"Tell me, what is it you expect to get by staying here? You're famished
when you're not poisoned; you're badly clothed and badly fed; you're kept
together by flogging; you're treated worse than a convict in jail or a
victim in a plague hospital. You're not paid as well as your
grandfathers were, and you're punished worse. Here, on the Ariadne,
we're not skulkers. We don't fear our duty; we are loyal men. Many of
you, on past voyages, fighting the enemy, lived on burgoo and molasses
only, with rum and foul water to drink. On the other ships there have
been terrible cruelty and offence. Surgeons have neglected and ill-
treated sick men and embezzled provisions and drinks intended for the
invalids. Many a man has died because of the neglect of the ship's
surgeons; many have been kicked about the head and beaten, and haven't
dared to go on the sick list for fear of their officers. The Victualling
Board gets money to supply us with food and drink according to measure.
They get the money for a full pound and a full gallon, and we get
fourteen ounces of food and seven pints of liquor, or less. Well, what
do you say, friends, to being our own Victualling Board out in the open
sea, if we can get there?

"We may have to fight when we get out; but I'm for taking the Ariadne
into the great world battle when we can find it. This I want to ask--
isn't it worth while making a great fight in our own way, and showing
that British seamen can at once be mutineers and patriots? We have a
pilot who knows the river. We can go to the West Indian Islands, to the
British fleet there. It's doom and death to stay here; and it may be
doom and death to go. If we try to break free, and are fired on, the
Admiralty may approve of us, because we've broken away from the rest.
See now, isn't that the thing to do? I'm for getting out. Who's coming