In two or three days after this, he sent for me. He said the Ruby would
leave King-road the next day, and that he was ready to do as he had
promised. Depositions were accordingly made out from his own words. I went
with him to the residence of George Daubeny, esquire, who was then chief
magistrate of the city, and they were sworn to in his presence, and
witnessed as the law requires.
On taking my leave of him, I asked him how he could go a third time in such
a barbarous employ. He said he had been distressed. In his voyage in the
Alexander he had made nothing; for he had been so ill-used, that he had
solicited his discharge in Grenada, where, being paid in currency, he had
but little to receive. When he arrived in Bristol from that island, he was
quite pennyless; and finding the Little Pearl going out, he was glad to get
on board her as her surgeon, which he then did entirely for the sake of
bread. He said, moreover, that she was but a small vessel, and that his
savings had been but small in her. This occasioned him to apply for the
Ruby, his present ship; but if he survived this voyage he would never go
another.
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