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Updated: May 13, 2025
A number of vessels were lying in the roads, among which were several Americans loading with hemp. There was also a large English East Indiaman, manned by Lascars, whose noise rendered her more like a floating Bedlam than anything else to which I can liken it. The view of the city and country around Manila partakes both of a Spanish and an Oriental character.
The Indiaman was still in confusion. The squall had been sudden and strong. The sheets had been let go, the canvas was flapping in the wind, and the hands were aloft reducing sail. She was already some distance away from him. The sky was bright and clear, and Charlie, who was surprised at seeing no attempt to lower a boat, saw a signal run up to the masthead.
But in supposing thus we were mistaken; the fellow evidently at once hit off our respective characters to a T; he saw that the lugger under jury-masts and bearing other unmistakable signs of having been very recently in action was a prize; no doubt judged the Indiaman to be a recapture; and perhaps believing that, with these two prizes, the schooner would be very short-handed quickly made up his mind that either of the three would be more valuable than the cutter to him.
Almost every tide brought in or took out ships for foreign ports, and scarce a week passed that vessels did not arrive from, or sail for, all the different quarters of the world. An Indiaman, however, was our object; the voyage being longer, the ships better, and the achievement greater, than merely to cross the Atlantic and return.
The boat was soon alongside of the West Indiaman, which had been tiding it down Limehouse Reach under her topsails, there being but little wind, and that contrary; but now that she had arrived to Greenwich Reach she had braced up, with her head the right way. My box was handed up the side, and I made my appearance on the deck soon afterwards, with my telescope in my hand.
There is a serious responsibility on a captain of an Indiaman, who takes charge of perhaps a dozen young women, who are to be cooped up for months in the same ship with as many young men. Love, powerful every where, has on the waters even more potent sway, hereditary I presume, from his mother's nativity.
The day following three ships of war and an East Indiaman came into the bay and anchored. Dampier, with about thirty-five of his men, went on board the Anglesey, while the rest were disposed of between the other two men-of-war. The Anglesey was bound for Barbadoes, where she arrived on the 8th of May, 1701.
That little cabin is just large enough for two of us to turn around in, or we would take you. Just wait till Will has command of a big East Indiaman and you shall go all around the world with us. We are in our snuggery this evening, as usual. I think you must know it as well as I do by this time.
The Spanish frigate and Danish Indiaman both saluted us as we passed them, and I returned each salute with an equal number of guns. When we were clear of the bay the Danish ship steered for the East Indies, the Spanish frigate for Europe, and we and the Dutton for St Helena. Depending on the goodness of Mr Kendall's watch, I resolved to try to make the island by a direct course.
These gentlemen have two clubs in our quarter for the butlers at the "Indiaman," and for the gents in livery at the "Pocklington Arms" of either of which societies I should like to be a member. I am sure they could not be so dull as our club at the "Poluphloisboio," where one meets the same neat, clean, respectable old fogies every day.
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