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James Otis

The First Island

It is to be remembered that our fleet left London on the twentieth day of December, and, as I have since heard Captain Smith read from the pages which he wrote concerning the voyage, it was on the twenty-third of March that we were come to the island of Martinique, where for the first time Nathaniel Peacock and I saw living savages.

When we were come to anchor, they paddled out to our ships in frail boats called canoes, bringing many kinds of most delicious fruits, which we bought for such trumpery things as glass beads and ornaments of copper.


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It was while we lay off this island that we saw a whale attacked and killed by a thresher and a swordfish, which was a wondrous sight.