PORTER’S JOURNAL. 
141 
Nooaheevah had many charms for a sailor, and had part of 
my crew felt disposed to remain there, I knew they would not 
absent themselves until the moment before my departure. This 
severity had the desired effect; whatever might have been their 
disposition, none thought proper to absent themselves except a 
lazy negro, whom I took on board through charity at Tumbez« 
and who from his insignificance, was not missed until after we had 
sailed. This affair had, however, like to have ended seriously; 
my crew did not see the same motives for restraint as myself, they 
had long been indulged, and they thought it now hard to be de¬ 
prived of their usual liberty: one kiss now 'was worth a thousand 
at any other time; they were restless, discontented, and unhappy. 
The girls lined the beach from morning until night, and every 
moment importuned me to take the taboos off the men, and laugh¬ 
ingly expressed their grief by dipping their fingers into the sea 
and touching their eyes, so as to let the salt water trickle down 
their cheeks. Others would seize a chip, and holding it in the 
manner of a sharks’ tooth, declared they would cut themseivds 
to pieces in despair; some threatened to beat their brains out with 
a spear of grass, some to drown themselves, and all were deter¬ 
mined to inflict on themselves some dreadful punishment if 1 did 
not permit their sweethearts to come on share. The men did not 
bear it with so much good humour: their situation, they said, was 
worse than slavery, and one Robert White declared on board the 
Essex Junior, that the crew of the Essex had come to a resolu¬ 
tion not to weigh her anchor, or if they should be compelled to 
get the ship under way, in tbrpe days time after leaving the port, 
to hoist their own flag. When this was reported to me it became 
necessary for me to notice it, and with such a variety of eharac^ 
ters as a ship of war’s crew is generally composed, in such cases 
none but energetic measures will answer. I was willing to let 
them ease their minds by a little grumbling, it was no more than 
what I expected, but a threat of this kind was carrying matters ra 
ther too far. I called all hands to muster on the larboard side of the 
quarter-deck, and after stating to them the necessity of getting the 
ship in readiness for sea with all possible despatch, and informing 
them that was the sole cause of their confinement, which was 
by m means intended as a punishment to them, as their conduct 
