they could not be persuaded to prosecute an enterprize which had hitherto proved so disastrous.  The common resolution, therefore, was to lengthen the long-boat, and, with her and the other boats, to steer to the southwards, to pass through the Straits of Magellan, and to range along the eastern coast of South America, till they came to Brazil, where they had no doubt of being well received, and procuring a passage to Britain.

This project was evidently a vast deal more tedious, and infinitely more hazardous, than that proposed by the captain; but, as it had the air of returning home, and flattered them with the hope of getting once more to their native country, that circumstance rendered them blind to all its inconveniences, and made them adhere to it with insurmountable obstinacy.  The captain was therefore obliged to give way to the torrent, though he never changed his opinion, and had, in appearance, to acquiesce in this resolution, though he gave it all the obstruction he could, particularly in regard to lengthening the long-boat, which he contrived should be of such a size, as, though it might carry them to Juan Fernandez, he yet hoped might appear incapable of so long a navigation as that to the coast of Brazil.  But the captain, by his steady opposition at first to this favourite project, had much embittered the people against him, to which, also, the following unhappy accident greatly contributed.

A midshipman, named Cozens, had appeared the foremost in all the refractory proceedings of the crew, had involved himself in brawls with most of the officers who had adhered to the authority of the captain, and had even treated the captain himself with much insolence and abuse.  As his turbulence and brutality grew every day more and more intolerable, it was not in the least doubted that some violent measures were in agitation, in which Cozens was engaged as the ringleader; for which reason the captain, and those about him, constantly kept themselves on their guard.  One day the purser having stopped, by order of the captain, the allowance of a fellow who would not work, Cozens, though the man had not complained to him, intermeddled in the affair with great bitterness, and grossly insulted the purser, who was then delivering out the provisions close by the captain’s tent, and was himself sufficiently violent.  Enraged by his scurrility, and perhaps piqued by former quarrels, the purser cried out, A mutiny; adding, the dog has pistols, and then immediately fired himself a pistol at Cozens, but missed him.  On hearing this outcry, and the report of the pistol, the captain rushed out from his tent, and not doubting that it had been fired by Cozens as the commencement of a mutiny, immediately shot him in the head without farther enquiry.  Though he did not die on the spot, the wound proved mortal in about a fortnight.