Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Straits. It was a desperate stratagem and the men, to whom Caven-
dish must by now have become transparent, would have none of it:
they forthwith openly began to murmur and mutiny, affirming
plainly that . . . they would go home.
15
Cavendish called the company together and bludgeoned them
with his tongue. They should not, he ranted, give way to cowardice
and:
go about to undertake any base or disordered course but . . .
cheerfully go forward to attempt either to make themselves famous in
resolutely dying, or in living to performe that which [would] be to their
perpetual reputations.
16
This 'death or glory' speech did not impress Cavendish's ex-
hausted men:
. . . forthwith they all with one consent affirmed plainly they would
never go that way again, and that they would all rather stay ashore in
that desert island than in such case to go for the straits.
17
At that Cavendish lost his temper:
. . . one of the chiefest of their faction most proudly and stubbornly
uttered these words to my face in presence of all the rest, which I, see-
ing took this bold companion by the bosom and with my own hands put
a rope about his neck meaning resolutely to strangle him, for weapon
about me I had none.
18
It is not surprising that the
Roebuck's
crew took the first oppor-
tunity to desert.
Cavendish was now obsessed with thoughts of failure and
death. He told his men on one occasion that if they refused to sail for
the Straits, 'I was determined that ship and all should sink in the seas
ership. The mariners ignored his rantings. The ship steered a zig-zag
course across the Atlantic, missed a projected landfall on St Helena,
