There were only three or four ships now left at Belize: two of them were about to sail singly to England; these were the Maria and the Margaret, and the two others were bound to New York and Boston.
I had heard most dreadful accounts of the piracies in the Gulf of Florida; but, appalling as they were, they did not seem much worse than the plan of going to Jamaica and waiting for a passage to England. My object was to get home with my Report, and I resolved, at all risks, to take my passage in one of the ships now lying in the road. With this view, I hired a pitpan to go on board them, but had not proceeded far before it became evident that our feeble bark could not stand the sea which we were about to encounter: I stated my apprehensions to the two boatmen, and with difficulty persuaded them to put back and provide a larger one, which they did: it was three times the burden of the former, and yet was nearly being upset in consequence of the swell occasioned by the bar of the
