irons."

One would imagine, indeed, that the officers on this dreadful emergency would not be witness to such inhumanity, without remonstrating effectually against keeping those unfortunate men confined a moment beyond the period when it became evident that the ship must sink. It will be seen, however, presently, from Mr. Heywood's own statement, that they were so kept, and that the brutal and unfeeling conduct which has been imputed to Captain Edwards is but too true.

'It is an awful moment when a ship takes her last heel, just before going down. When the Pandora sunk, the surgeon says, "the crew had just time to leap overboard, accompanying it with a most dreadful yell. The cries of the men drowning in the water was at first awful in the extreme; but as they sunk and became faint, they died away by degrees. How accurately has Byron described the whole progress of a shipwreck to the final catastrophe! He might have been a spectator of the Pandora, at the moment of her foundering, when

'She gave a heel, and then a lurch to port,
And, going down head foremost-sunk.

Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell!

Then shriek'd the timid and stood still the brave;

Then some leap'd overboard with dreadful yell,
As eager to anticipate their grave;

And the sea yawn'd around her like a hell,

And down she suck'd with her the whirling wave,

Like one who grapples with his enemy,

And strives to strangle him before he die.

And first one universal shriek there rush'd
Louder than the loud ocean, like a crash
Of echoing thunder; and then all was hush'd,
Save the wild wind and the remorseless dash
Of billows; but at intervals there gush'd,
Accompanied with a convulsive splash,
A solitary shriek-the bubbling cry
Of some strong swimmer in his agony.'

The survivors being all assembled on a sandy key, only ninety yards long and sixty wide, it was found that thirty-nine men, including the above, had met with a watery grave. The only articles of provision saved from the wreck were three bags of biscuit, a small keg of wine, and several barracoes of water: the number of persons to subsist thereon was ninety-nine, and the distance they had to proceed in four open boats, before a fresh supply could be hoped for, at least 1100 miles. Thus circumstanced, the strictest economy became necessary, and orders were accordingly given that only two ounces of bread and one gill of wine, and the same quantity of water, should be served to each man, once in twenty-four hours. The weight of the bread was accurately ascertained by a musket-ball and a pair of wooden scales made for each boat.

The boats' sails were now converted into tents for the Pandora's crew, most of whom had landed in a very exhausted state, and required a little rest previous to their departure. The prisoners, however, were kept at a distance from them without the least covering to protect their naked bodies

from a vertical sun by day, and the chilling effect of heavy dews at night. A spare sail, which was lying useless in the key, being refused them by Captain Edwards, they tried the experiment of burying themselves neck deep in the sand, which caused the skin to blister and peel off from head to foot, as though they had been immersed in scalding water. The excruciating torture which they suffered from thirst, aggravated as it had been by involuntarily swallowing salt water, whilst swimming from the wreck, was, if possible, increased by the sight of rain and their total inability to catch any of it. Exposed in this manner to alternate heat and cold in the latitude of 11° S., some conception may be formed of their sufferings, but words will be found wanting to describe them.

The damages sustained by one of their boats having been repaired, and such other preparations made for the voyage as circumstances would admit, the whole party embarked on the 31st of August, and proceeded towards the island of Timor, which they saw on the 13th of the following month. In a miserable condition they arrived at the fort of Coupang on the night of the 15th of September. Whilst there, Mr. Heywood and the other thirteen prisoners were closely confined in the castle, but although for several days treated with great rigour by their Dutch gaolers, they do not at any time appear to have suffered so many privations at once, as when in the sole custody of a British captain.

Having remained here three weeks, they embarked on the 6th of October in the Rembaug, a Dutch Indiaman, and on the 30th anchored at Samarang. On the 7th of November they arrived at Batavia, after a very dangerous passage of thirty-three days, during which the ship was twice nearly driven on shore, and proved so leaky as to render it necessary for every person on board to work at the pumps,— a species of liberty which the prisoners were allowed to enjoy until their strength entirely failed them, when they were again placed in irons, and suffered to rest their weary limbs on an old sail, alternately soaked with rain, salt water, and the drainings of a pig-stye, under which it was spread.

At Batavia, Captain Edwards distributed the purchase-money of the schooner among his people, in order that they might furnish themselves with nankeen apparel: and the prisoners, having their hands at liberty, availed themselves of this opportunity to obtain some articles of clothing by making straw hats for sale, and acting as tailors for those who had become comparatively rich by the produce of their labour as shipwrights. It was in a suit thus purchased that Mr. Heywood arrived at Spithead, after an absence of four years and a half, all but four days.

At Batavia, Heywood availed himself of the first opportunity to write to his mother. The following letter was sent off by one of the Pandora's men, who was to sail in the first ship. It breathes a spirit

of manly fortitude and resignation, and shews that his mind had attained no common strength. The charges of ingratitude, mutiny, and desertion, under which he knew himself to be suffering, were sufficient of themselves to shake the strongest nerves; and the patience and fortitude evinced by him at that early period of life, excited the just admiration of his family and friends. But the uses of adversity, in a form, too, that would have crushed a weaker frame either of body or of mind, had been already sweet to him. His tender youth passed through these, and even more appalling scenes, not only unscathed, but rising superior to difficulties, as if the enmity of fate had no power to disturb an equanimity and rectitude of feeling which philosophy and religion aspire, too often in vain, to teach; or rather, as if a chastening but protecting Providence had addressed him with the words, My son, give me thine heart,' and had designed to shew in him how well that voice could be obeyed.

6

Batavia, November 20th, 1791.

'MY EVER-HONOURED AND Dearest Mother,

At length the time has arrived when you are once more to hear from your ill-fated son, whose conduct, at the capture of that ship in which it was my fortune to embark, has, I fear, from what has since happened to me, been grossly misrepresented to you by Lieutenant Bligh, who, by not knowing the real cause of my remaining on board, naturally