Page:The principal navigations, voyages, traffiques and discoveries of the English nation 16.djvu/91

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Sauages with certaine white skinnes; who as soone as they came on shore were presently killed by an 100. of the wilde people in the sight of 2. of our men, which rowed them on shoare, which two onely escaped backe againe to vs with the boat. After this traiterous slaughter of our men, we fell backe againe with our ship to the Northeastward of Port famine to a certaine road, where we refreshed our selues with muskles, and tooke in water and wood. At this time wee tooke in the Spaniard aforesaid, and so sailed forward againe into the Streight.

Wee passed 7. or 8. times 10. leagues Westward beyond Cape Froward, being still encountered with mightie Northwest winds. These winds and the current were so vehement against vs, that they forced vs backe asmuch in two houres, as we were getting vp in 8. houres.

Thus after wee had spent 6 weekes in the Streight striuing against the furie of the elements, and hauing at sundry times partly by casualtie, and partly by sicknes lost 38. of our best men, and 3. anckers, and nowe hauing but one ancker left vs, and small store of victuals, and, which was not the least mischiefe, diuers of our company raising dangerous mutinies: we consulted, though somewhat with the latest, for the safeguard of our liues to returne while there was some small hope remayning: and so set saile out of The Streight homeward about the 14. of Februarie 1590.

We returned backe againe by The riuer of Plate; and sailing neere the coast of Brasill we met with a Portugal ship of 80. tunnes, which rode at an ancker vpon the coast, who as soone as she descried vs to chase her, incontinently weyed, and ran her selfe on gronnd betweene the yland of S. Sebastian and the maine land. But we for want of a good boat, and by reason of the foule weather, were neither able to bord her, nor to goe on shore. Thence in extreeme misery we shaped our course, for the yles of Cape Verde, and so passing to the yles of the Açores, the Canaries being something out of our course; the land that wee mette withall in our Narrow sea was the yle of Alderney.

And hauing now but sixe men of all our company left aliue, the Master and his two mates and chiefe Mariners being dead, wee ran in with Monuille de Hage eight miles to the West of Cherbourg in Normandie. Where the next day after our comming to an ancker, hauing but one in all left, being the last of August