Mistress _Dorothy_ being indifferently well recovered though a bad spectacle to look on by reason of the skin of her body all coming off with her nails, such was the malignity of the Venome; I say, speaking as well as she could, desired me to write some lines on her dearly beloved dead Comrade, knowing that my fancy did ever incline to measure lines, and so to please my self, more than to give her satisfaction, I composed these Verses.
On the death of his _Indian_ wife, and his old Wench.
_Start not my_ Muse, _what Paradox is this, That the same cause works both my Woe and Bliss? Here lies my bliss, a more than brutish Wife, By her own Butch’ring hands bereft of life. My Woe lies here, my murder’d Joy, Alas! What_ Wicked hand _durst bring this_ Ill _to pass_? Hells consistory _sate within that brest, Which sent my_ Love _to her Eternal rest. How happy had I been, had the_ Blest Powers, _Enlarg’d her_ Minutes, _and have made them_ Hours. _Turn’d these short hours into long days, that I Might dread_ Deaths _approach, when she should dye. But she is gone past all recal; and we Can only weep and sigh her Elegie. Though we don’t mourn she can no_ Mourners _lack, Each_ Nature _is at her sad death in_ Black, _Methinks they’re hoarse with crying, and their votes (Being sad, and doleful) do befit their_ Coats. _The_ Clouds _dropt tears; the_ Ayry-Quire _(which flies Over our heads) do sing her_ Obsequies. _Shall we be dumb, whilst Birds do use their Art? No let’s in Sorrow bear with them a part, When that y’ve done for_ Mall, _bereft of life, Rejoyce with me, dead, dead’s my wicked_ Wife.
_August_ the ninth, steering _Northerly_ forty two Leagues, we found _per observationem_ the Ship to run but thirty seven Leagues, which is five Leagues less by reason of the Current which sets us the _South-wards_ Latitude at 6 Degrees 24 Longitude 36 Degrees 58 _West_ from the _Salthil_. This afternoon we were in the Latitude of the _Changus_, to the _West-wards_ of them, not seeing any sign of danger, the variation is good help if heedfully observ’d, finding about 22 Degrees when you are in 7 or 8 Degrees of _Southerly_ Latitude, a _Northerly_ course will go clear of all danger. The twelfth of this moneth we crost _Æquator_, steering _North, North east_, Latitude 10 Degrees, Seconds 85 Digits _Southerly_ Longitude 36 Degrees 51 digits _West_, the wind at _South_ and by _West_, the variation 19 Degrees, Seconds 35 Digits _West_.