carpenter sent me word, if I did not pay him the money agreed upon at first, I should never see his face again; wherefore, although his terms had not been implemented, I was obliged to raise the money for him.  The most provoking part of this proposal about the boats was, that the fellows who chiefly promoted it were those who had never done an hour’s work since we were cast away.  Not gaining this point, they openly declared I should not be their captain, and that none but Brooks should command them, which was probably what that young man aspired to from the commencement of the mutiny; and had undoubtedly succeeded, had it not been for the people in the boatswain’s tent, who still refused their consent to my being left on the island, though fond of thinking themselves their own masters, and of refusing to submit to regular command.

To complete our confusion, there arose a third party, who resolved to have nothing to do with the rest, proposing to remain on the island.  There were twelve of these, who separated from the rest, and never made their appearance except at night, when they used to come about the tents to steal powder, lead, and axes, and any thing else they could lay their hands, on.  But in a little time I found means to manage them, and took from them all their arms, ammunition, axes, and other plunder, and threatened to have them treated as enemies, if they came within musket-shot of our tents.  These divisions so weakened the whole body, that they began to listen to me, so that I got most of them into a working humour.  Even Brooks came to me with a feigned submission, desiring to eat with me again, yet in the main did not lessen his esteem for Morphew.  His dissimulation, however, proved of infinite service in contributing to the finishing of our bark, which required the united efforts of all our heads and hands.  For, when we came to plank the bottom, we had very vexatious difficulties to encounter, as our only plank consisted in pieces from the deck of our wreck, which was so dry and stubborn that fire and water had hardly any effect in making it pliable, as it rent, split, and flew in pieces like glass; so that I now began to fear that all our labour was in vain, and we must quietly wait to be taken off by some Spanish ship, and be led quietly to prison after all our troubles.

By constant labour, and using a variety of contrivances, we at length finished our bark, but in such a manner that I may safely assert, a similar bottom never before swam on the sea.  Our boat also was launched on the 9th September; and our bark being now in a fair way of being completed, it remained to consider what provisions we could get to support us during our voyage, all our stock being one cask of beef, five or six bushels of farina de poa, or cassada flour, and four or five live hogs.  I made several experiments to preserve both fish and seal, but found that this could not be done without salt.  At length we fell upon a contrivance for curing conger eels, by splitting