"These two and myself agreed to behave as ignorant and awkward as
possible, and what motions we learned one day we were to forget the
next. We pursued this conduct nearly a fortnight, and were beaten
every day by the drill-sergeant who exercised us, and when he found we
were determined, in our obstinacy, and that it was not possible for
him to learn us anything, we were all three sent into the pepper
gardens belonging to the East India Company; and continued picking
peppers from morning till night, and allowed but two scanty meals a
day. This, together with the amazing heat of the sun, the island lying
under the equator, was too much for an American constitution, unused
to a hot climate, and we expected that we should soon end our misery
and our lives; but Providence still preserved us for greater
hardships.
"The Americans died daily with heat and hard fare, which determined my
two comrades and myself in an endeavor to make our escape. We had been
in the pepper-gardens four months when an opportunity offered, and we
resolved upon trying our fortune. Folgier, Randall and myself sat out
with an intention of reaching Croy (a small harbor where the Dutch
often touched at to water, on the opposite side of the island).
Folgier had by some means got a bayonet, which he fixed in the end of
a stick. Randall and myself had nothing but staves, which were all the
weapons we carried with us.
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