JUNE.

June 1, 1654.

[SN:  Whitelocke embarks in the Amarantha, and sails.]

Having been part of yesterday and all the last night upon the water, this morning, about seven o’clock, Whitelocke and all his company came to the Dollars, and, without setting foot on shore, they went on board the ship ‘Amarantha,’ lying there to expect them.  And although this was not usual, but passengers generally stay some time at this place till their ships be ready, and to make provisions for their voyage, and spend some money at the cabaret here; yet Whitelocke seeing the wind fair, and having all his company together in the boats, was unwilling to let them be scattered by going on shore, which might be troublesome and retard his voyage by getting them all together again.  For these reasons he commanded all his people to go forthwith aboard the ship, as he himself did, at which Vice-Admiral Clerke wondered, and said he had not seen the same done before.

This ship, the ‘Amarantha,’ had never yet been at sea, and therefore the more dangerous to adventure in her first voyage; but she was well built, a fair ship, of a good burden, and had mounted in her forty pieces of brass cannon, two of them demy cannon, and she was well manned and of good force and strength for war; she was a good sailer, and would turn and tack about well; she held a hundred persons of Whitelocke’s followers and most of his baggage, besides her own mariners, about two hundred.  The cabins wherein Whitelocke was were of a handsome make; the breadth of the ship was the length of his bed-cabin, and it was six or seven paces broad, and high enough for the tallest man; it was hung with red cloth, the furniture of the bed was rich cloth of gold and silver; on the table was a rich carpet, and all over it a canopy with broad fringes of silk and gold and silver.  Within the bed-cabin was another room for him to retire into, with a table and benches covered with red cloth.  All the gentlemen had accommodations as the ship could afford.

Being all settled in the ship, they were fain to stay for the ship-boat which the captain had sent for water; and as soon as it was returned, about ten o’clock in the morning, they weighed anchor and put the ship under sail, recommending themselves to the mercy and protection of Him who rules upon the waters as well as on dry land, and of whose goodness they had so great experience.  They sailed by the place called the Scares, that is, the isles of rocks, which are there in the water and on both sides of the shore, of a strange cragginess, largeness, and number; those in the sea are full of danger, and often afford but a very strait passage for the ships to go between them, and no other course is to avoid them.  From hence the sea begins to widen herself towards the furthest point of land, which they call the Lands-Ort, answerable to our English point of land called the Land’s End in Cornwall.  The Lands-Ort is eight Swedish leagues from the Dollars, and hither they reached by the evening, the wind being east and south-east all this day.