Title
A Voyage to the East Indies: Page 111
Description
necessarily keep very close in shore, where there are several Batteries mounting 32 Pounders, Howitzers etc. over their Heads, who would pour Destruction on a Ship, when no Ships Guns could reach them; And if she is once driven off it will take her several Days to work up again. But I should imagine it would never be worth an Enemy’s While to attempt taking it, since it could be with no other view than to secure the Indiamen as they come in, & which service would be more successfully perform’d by cruizing to windwd. They would meet with nothing but private property on the Island, which must be very inconsiderable; I think it would be a lucky Circumstance for the English E.I. Company, if this Island were taken from them, for every Body knows, the service it does the Company is very inadequate to the 30,000£ PAn.[?] it costs them … Let us place against this 30,000£, the Benefit that the homeward bound ships recieve. When we in Company with the Fox and the two other ships arriv’d we found the Pss.[?] royal, who had been there seven weeks, and notwithstanding she was return’d from the most unhealthy Part of India, they had not been able to procure one Bullock for their People. Upon our remonstrating, we were order’d six Bullocks each during our Stay, but when from the Length of Time it was found absolutely necessary to encrease the allowance, the Planters were reduced to the Necessity (and to them a cruel one) of killing their [end page 111]
