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Updated: May 14, 2025
Of the remaining forty-two Drake selected eighteen of the best. A number were still ill abed, and these he left behind in the care of Ellis Hixom and his little band of shipkeepers. The dried meat and biscuit were then packed carefully into bundles. The eighteen took their weapons, with such necessaries as they thought they might require.
They quarrelled angrily whenever they came on deck together, and the party spirit ran so high that the company of shipkeepers, the anti-Sharp faction, "the abler and more experienced men," at last refused to cruise any longer under Sharp's command.
One of the men selected for shipkeepers that is, those not appointed to the boats, by this time relieved the Indian at the main-mast head. The sailors at the fore and mizzen had come down; the line tubs were fixed in their places; the cranes were thrust out; the mainyard was backed, and the three boats swung over the sea like three samphire baskets over high cliffs.
The crew of the coaster all Tagals were ashore having a jollification in the native village. The two shipkeepers left on board woke up suddenly and saw the devil. It had glittering eyes and leaped quick as lightning about the deck. They fell on their knees, paralysed with fear, crossing themselves and mumbling prayers.
Those who had fought at Arica would not allow Sharp to be deposed a second time, while those who had been shipkeepers on that occasion, were angry that he should have been re-elected. The two parties refused to be reconciled.
Her great guns were swung ashore, and buried, and the graves of them strewn with leaves and brushwood. He then armed his men with their calivers and their sacks of victual, "and so went with the Negroes," dragging with them two small guns, probably quick-firing guns, mounted on staves of wood or iron. Hawkins says that he left four or five men behind him as shipkeepers.
One of the men selected for shipkeepers that is, those not appointed to the boats, by this time relieved the Indian at the main-mast head. The sailors at the fore and mizzen had come down; the line tubs were fixed in their places; the cranes were thrust out; the mainyard was backed, and the three boats swung over the sea like three samphire baskets over high cliffs.
To Ellis Hixom and his gang of shipkeepers the raiders appeared "as men strangely changed," though Drake was less changed than the others, in spite of the wound he got at Venta Cruz.
The shipkeepers sounded "A loath to depart," and dipped their colours. The forty-eight adventurers then formed into order, and marched away into the forest on their perilous journey. Having such stalwart carriers, the English were able to march light, "not troubled with anything but our furniture."
Now, in the whale ship, it is not every one that goes in the boats. Some few hands are reserved called shipkeepers, whose province it is to work the vessel while the boats are pursuing the whale. As a general thing, these shipkeepers are as hardy fellows as the men comprising the boats' crews.
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