midnight, Lieutenant Travers had no one near except Mr. Dunn, master’s-mate, with whom, and several blacks, collected on his way to the beach, he hastened off, and got alongside before discovered. A musket was snapped at his breast as he gained the deck, and a blow, aimed at his head, would most probably have proved a quietus, had not his upraised arm received it. The fellow immediately opposed to him he cut down; and one or two more having shared the same fate, the others, imagining that he was backed by a much larger party, were so much intimidated, that he succeeded in releasing those men who had refused to join them, and were consequently confined below; by whose assistance he recovered possession of El Serpanton, and secured every one of the mutineers and Spanish prisoners: two of the former were tried by court-martial, sentenced to death, and executed at Jamaica.
The man who attempted to shoot Lieutenant Travers, and then struck him with the butt-end of his musket, had shortly before deserted from a wooding party, at the island of Navaza, accompanied by another sailor. A day or two after their flight, the Surveillante captured a small schooner, and Lieutenant Travers suggested to Captain Bligh the probability of recovering them by stratagem. The schooner was placed at his disposal; he stood for the island, which was then out of sight, and, on closing with it, hoisted Spanish colours: – the bait took; both deserters came down to the seaside, waving their hats, and flourishing the tomahawks which they had decamped with, as signals for a boat: – the schooner hove-to, and Lieutenant Travers with one man (both bedaubed and well disguised as Spaniards) paddled towards the shore in a small canoe, which the culprits entered without recognizing by whom they were received ; nor did they discover their real situation until actually alongside the prize.
In the summer of 1806, the Surveillante sailed for England, accompanied by the Hercule, la Fortunée frigate, la Superieure schooner, and about 200 sail of merchantmen. When off the Havannah, a number of Spanish vessels were discovered, under the protection of a 74-gun ship and two
