of captivity among the Malays. They were not only alive, every man of them, but not one was permanently broken in health.
The Dutch governor of the island and the officers of the garrison of the Dutch East India Company treated them with the most generous hospitality, providing clothes and money and refusing to listen to promises of recompense. They soon sailed for Batavia, where the four sailors, William Gideon, John Cole, Robert Gilbert, and George Williams signed articles in an American ship bound to Boston, and resumed the hard and hazardous toil of the sea to earn their bread. Their extraordinary experience was all in the day's work, and it is unlikely that they thought very much about it.
Woodard took a berth as chief mate in another American ship that was sailing for Calcutta and while in that port was offered command of a country ship engaged in the coastwise trade. During one of his voyages he was strolling ashore when he came face to face with Captain Hubbard of the Enterprise, which had vanished in the Straits of Macassar and left its unlucky boat adrift. The delighted captain explained that he had waited and cruised about for three days in a search for the missing boat and had given it up for lost.
He warmly urged Woodard to join him in his
