…I grew weary of the sea, and intended to stay at home with my wife and family. I removed from the Old Jury to Fetter-Lane, and from thence to Wapping, hoping to get business among the sailors, but it would not turn to account. After three years expectation that things would mend, I accepted an advantageous offer from Captain William Pritchard, master of the Antelope, who was making a voyage to the South-Sea. We set sail from Bristol May 4, 1699, and our voyage at first was very prosperous.
It would not be proper, for some reasons, to trouble the readers with the particulars of our adventures in those seas: let it suffice to inform him, that in our passage from thence to the East-Indies, we were driven by a violent storm to the north-west of Van Diemen’s Land. By an observation, we found ourselves in the latitude of 30 degrees 2 minutes south. Twelve of our crew were dead by immoderate labour and ill food, the rest were in a very weak condition. On the fifth of November, which was the beginning of summer in those parts, the weather being very hazy, the seamen spied a rock, within half a cable’s length of the ship, but the wind was so strong, that we were driven directly upon it, and immediately split…
Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels
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