Genealogical notes of Barnstable families - citizen hylbom blog

GENEALOGICAL NOTES OF BARNSTABLE FAMILIES. 307
served out. Starvation and death seemed inevitable if no change
could be effected, and the passengers, after consultation, resolved
to assume the command if a change could not' otherwise be made.
The two called "Methodists," having some knowledge of the
theory and practice of invigation, were appointed to watch night
and day all the movements of Capt. Rymer. One night soon
afterwards, they discovered that though the wind was fair, the
ship was sailing in an opposite direction from her true course.
They inquired of the helmsman why he so steered ; his reply was,
"that is the captain's order."
This fact was communicated to the other passengers. Several
had then died of starvation, and many had become so weak and
emaciated by want of food and nourishment that they could
scarcely stand. Though weak and feeble they- resolved to make
an effort to compel the captain to keep his ship on her true course,
both by night as well as by day. One of the passengers had a
brace of pistols. These Xvere loaded and put into the hands of
the "Methodists," and all the passengers who had sufficient
strength remaining followed them to the quarter deck.-f" With the
loaded pistols in their hands they charged the captain with
treachery, with protracting the voyage, with the design of keeping
the ship at sea till all the passengers
or famine, and then seize on their goods.
had perished of disease
He said in reply that
the voyage had been prolonged by head winds, and not by any
fault or connivance of himself or his offcers. They then charged
him with having kept his ship off her course in the night, thus
deceiving the passengers, who were mostly landsmen, and unable
in dark weather to judge whether or not the ship was on her true
course ; with issuing fuller rations to his crew than to the passeners
that he might be able to navigate his ship. Seeing the resolute
and determined manner of the passengers, he made fair promises ;
but he made them only that he might break them. J
The Capes of Virginia was the first land made, but no date is
given, from whence, according to the pretence of the captain, he
was driven by stress of weather to Cape Cod, making the land on
the 4th of October 1729.
This was only pretence,- and though his surviving passengers
earnestly persuaded him to land them, according to contract, at
Philadelphia, or at New York, or at any port he could make, he
refused to accede to their requests, and obstinately kept his vessel
at sea, though his passengers were daily perishing for want of
t Another account says this occurred in the cabin of the ship. Prudence required that it
should not occur in presence of the crew, and I am inclined to the opinion that the tradition
in our family is at fault in this particular.
X Wliether this uprising among the passengers was before or after land had been discovered
is not named in the narrative of Capt. Delap. " It probably occurred before. It is
refeiTed to in several notices of the voyage that I have seen.; but the date of its occurrence
is not given, nor the date of the first sight of land.