"Don't think because I've spent four years in prison under the sternest
discipline the world offers, and have never been a seaman before, that
I'm not fitted to espouse your cause. By heaven, I am--I am--I am--
I know the wrongs you've suffered. I've smelled the water you drink.
I've tasted the rotten meat. I've seen the honest seaman who has been
for years upon the main--I've seen the scars upon his back got from a
brutal officer who gave him too big a job to do, and flogged him for not
doing it. I know of men who, fevered with bad food, have fallen, from
the mainmast-head, or have slipped overboard, glad to go, because of the
wrongs they'd suffered.
"I'll tell you what our fate will be, and then I'll put a question to
you. We must either give up our stock of provisions or run for it.
Parker and the other Delegates proclaim their comradeship; yet they have
hidden from us the king's proclamation and the friendly resolutions of
the London merchants. I say our only hope is to escape from the Thames.
I know that skill will be needed, but if we escape, what then? I say if
we escape, because, as we sail out, orders will be given for the other
mutiny ships to attack us. We shall be fired on; we shall risk our
lives. You've done that before, however, and will do it again.
"We have to work out our own problem and fight our own fight. Well,
what I want to know is this--are we to give in to the government, or do
we stand to be hammered by Sir Erasmus Gower? Remember what that means.
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