From this specimen of the behaviour of part of the crew, it will not be difficult to frame some conjecture of the disorder and anarchy which took place when they at last got all on shore. For the men conceived that, by the loss of the { 140} ship, the authority of the officers was at an end, and they being now on a desolate coast, where scarcely any other provisions could be got except what should be saved out of the wreck, this was another unsurmountable source of discord, since the working upon the wreck, and the securing the provisions, so that they might be preserved for future exigences as much as possible, and the taking care that what was necessary for their present subsistance might be sparingly and equally distributed, were matters not to be brought about but by discipline and subordination; and the mutinous disposition of the people, stimulated by the impulses of immediate hunger, rendered every regulation made for this purpose ineffectual, so that there were continual concealments, frauds, and thefts, which animated each man against his fellow, and produced infinite feuds and contests. And hence there was a perverse and malevolent disposition constantly kept up amongst them, which rendered them utterly ungovernable.
Besides these heart-burnings occasioned by petulence and hunger, there was another important point which set the greatest part of the people at variance with the captain. This was their differing with him in opinion on the measures to be pursued in the present exigency: for the captain was determined, if possible, to fit up the boats in the best manner he could, and to proceed with them to the northward, since having with him above an hundred men in health, and having gotten some fire-arms and ammunition from the wreck, he did not doubt but they could master any Spanish vessel they should encounter with in those seas, and he thought he could not fail of meeting with one in the neighbourhood of Chiloe or Baldivia, in which, when he had taken her, he intended to proceed to the rendezvous at Juan Fernandes; and he farther insisted that should they light on no prize by the way, yet the boats alone would easily carry them thither. But this was a scheme that, however prudent, was no ways relished by the generality of his people; for, being quite jaded with the distresses and dangers they had already run through, they could not think of prosecuting an enterprise farther which had hitherto proved so disastrous. The common resolution therefore was to lengthen the long-boat, and with that and the rest of the boats to steer to the southward, to pass through the Streights of Magellan, { 141} and to range along the east side of South America till they should arrive at Brazil, where they doubted not to be well received, and to procure a passage to Great Britain. This project was at first sight infinitely more hazardous and tedious than what was proposed by the captain; but as it had the air of returning home, and flattered them with the hopes of bringing them once more to their native country, that circumstance alone rendered them inattentive to all its inconveniences, and made them adhere to it with insurmountable obstinacy; so that the captain himself, though he never changed his opinion, was yet obliged to give way to the torrent, and in appearance to acquiesce in this resolution, whilst he endeavoured underhand to give it all the obstruction he could, particularly in the lengthening the long-boat, which he contrived should be of such a size, that though it might serve to carry them to Juan Fernandes, would yet, he hoped, appear incapable of so long a navigation as that to the coast of Brazil.