WRECKING
Full Member
In the latter end of the year 1748, Mr. Winslow, an eminent merchant of Boston, in New England, fitted out a vessel, the Howlet, for a trading voyage to the Gulf of Mexico on board of which a negro, belonging to his brother, General Winslow, went as cook. No account being received of the vessel for several years, it was naturally concluded that she must have been cast away, and that the whole crew had perished; nor was it until twelve years after, that the fate of the vessel was discovered, in the following manner. General Winslow being in London in the year 1760, had occasion to go on board a West India trader, lying in the river, when, to his great surprise, he found his old servant the negro. On enquiring the circumstances which had brought him there, the negro stated, that the Howlet was wrecked near Cape Florida when the crew were made prisoners by the Indians, who put them all to death except himself, who was saved on account of his colour. They sold him to a Spanish merchant of the Havannah, with whom he continued rather more than ten years, when observing a New England ship, as he supposed, nearly two miles from the shore, he stripped himself and swam to her, when he was taken on board, and in the capacity of cook, sailed in her to England.
