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I thought this was but a reasonable request on their part, and therefore I inclined to agree to it; for indeed I considered that to carry this whole company to the East Indies would not only be an intolerable severity upon the poor people, but would be ruining our whole voyage by devouring all our provisions; so I thought it no breach of charter-party, but what an unforeseen accident made absolutely necessary to us, and in which no one could say we were to blame; for the laws of God and nature would have forbid that we should refuse to take up two boats full of people in such a distressed condition; and the nature of the thing, as well respecting ourselves as the poor people, obliged us to set them on shore somewhere or other for their deliverance.
I had only said that I would sail round the world in the Spray, "dangers of the sea excepted," but I must have said it very much in earnest. The "charter-party" with myself seemed to bind me, and so I sailed on. Toward night I hauled the sloop to the wind, and baiting a hook, sounded for bottom-fish, in thirty fathoms of water, on the edge of Cashes Ledge.
We have not had any rain since the end of April, and on that account our difficulties have been far greater than if it had been an ordinary wet season. I intend despatching the Adur for Fremantle to-morrow. The charter-party has been carried out entirely to my satisfaction. With the assistance of the crew of the Adur I have repainted the Red and Black Beacons.
Our ship was on a trading voyage, and had a supercargo on board, who was to direct all her motions after she arrived at the Cape, only being limited to a certain number of days for stay, by charter-party, at the several ports she was to go to.
Burns, while still acting captain, had hastened to sign a charter-party which in an ideal world without guile would have been an excellent document. Directly I ran my eye over it I foresaw trouble ahead unless the people of the other part were quite exceptionally fair-minded and open to argument. Mr. Burns, to whom I imparted my fears, chose to take great umbrage at them.
"All hands" came from the forecastle, and Finland mates and Finland sailors, speaking both English and Russian, crowded to the rail to receive the paper canoe, which had first been described to them by English newspapers when the vessel lay in a British port, awaiting the charter-party which afterwards sent them to Bull River, South Carolina, for a load of phosphates.
They had apparently, therefore, little to hope for in the near future; certainly not enough to warrant expenditure and the risk of disgraceful exposure, in negotiations with a stranger an obscure ship-master to change his course and land his passengers in violation of the terms of his charter-party; negotiations, moreover, in which neither of the parties could well have had any guaranty of the other's good faith.
"That is to say, our duty is to know all about you. Produce your papers. Prove where you cleared from last, and what you are doing here, some thirty miles south of your course, if you are a genuine British trader." "Papers all in order, sir. First-chop wafers, as they puts on now, to save sealing-wax. Charter-party, and all the rest.
"And, talking about me, I might just mention how I stand. You'll have no trouble from me you've trouble enough of your own; and I'm friend enough, when a friend's in need, to shut my eyes and go right where he tells me. All the same, I'm rather queerly fixed. My owners'll have to rank with the rest on their charter-party.
She proved to be the barque Amanda, from Manilla to Queenstown for orders, the following being the particulars of her case: Ship under U.S. colours and register. Cargo, sugar and hemp. Charter-party to proceed to Europe or the United States. On the face of each of the three bills of lading appears the following certificate for the British Vice-consul at Manilla: "I hereby certify that Messrs.
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