Passage: Our ship was about 120 tons burden, carried four- teen men, besides the master, his boy and myself, we had on board no large cargo of goods. The same day I went on board we set sail, standing away to the North- ward upon our own coast, with design to stretch over for the African coast when we came about ten or twelve degrees of Northern latitude, which, it seems was the manner of their course in those days. We had very good weather, all the way upon our own coast, till we came to the height of Cape St. Augustino; from whence, keep- ing further off at sea, we lost sight of land. In this course we passed about twelve days' time, when a vio- lent tornado or hurricane, took us quite out of our knowledge. It blew in such a terrible manner, that for twelve days together we could do nothing but drive; nor did any in the ship expect to save their lives. In this distress we had, besides the terror of the storm, one of our men died of the calenture and a man and a boy washed overboard. About the twelfth day, the weather started abating a little, the master made an observation as well as he could and found that he was in about eleven degrees of longitude difference West from Cape St. Augustino; so that he found he was gotten upon the North part of Brazil. Now he began to consult with me what course he should take; for the ship was leaky and very much disabled and he was for going directly back to the coast of Brazil.

Q:

They decided to opt for the change of destination because 

• 1
  it was still stormy at sea
• 2
  they had lost their way
• 3
  the ship was not sea-worthy
• 4
  the new course was smooth sailing