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The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe

by Daniel Defoe · English · Gutenberg #561 · 549,834 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe

Author: Daniel Defoe


        
Release date: June 1, 1996 [eBook #561]
                Most recently updated: August 3, 2026

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/561

Credits: Transcribed from the 1919 Seeley, Sevice & Co edition by David Price


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF ROBINSON CRUSOE ***


Transcribed from the 1919 Seeley, Sevice & Co edition





THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF ROBINSON CRUSOE


CHAPTER I--REVISITS ISLAND


That homely proverb, used on so many occasions in England, viz. "That
what is bred in the bone will not go out of the flesh," was never more
verified than in the story of my Life.  Any one would think that after
thirty-five years' affliction, and a variety of unhappy circumstances,
which few men, if any, ever went through before, and after near seven
years of peace and enjoyment in the fulness of all things; grown old, and
when, if ever, it might be allowed me to have had experience of every
state of middle life, and to know which was most adapted to make a man
completely happy; I say, after all this, any one would have thought that
the native propensity to rambling which I gave an account of in my first
setting out in the world to have been so predominant in my thoughts,
should be worn out, and I might, at sixty one years of age, have been a
little inclined to stay at home, and have done venturing life and fortune
any more.

Nay, farther, the common motive of foreign adventures was taken away in
me, for I had no fortune to make; I had nothing to seek: if I had gained
ten thousand pounds I had been no richer; for I had already sufficient
for me, and for those I had to leave it to; and what I had was visibly
increasing; for, having no great family, I could not spend the income of
what I had unless I would set up for an expensive way of living, such as
a great family, servants, equipage, gaiety, and the like, which were
things I had no notion of, or inclination to; so that I had nothing,
indeed, to do but to sit still, and fully enjoy what I had got, and see
it increase daily upon my hands.  Yet all these things had no effect upon
me, or at least not enough to resist the strong inclination I had to go
abroad again, which hung about me like a chronic distemper.  In
particular, the desire of seeing my new plantation in the island, and the
colony I left there, ran in my head continually.  I dreamed of it all
night, and my imagination ran upon it all day: it was uppermost in all my
thoughts, and my fancy worked so steadily and strongly upon it that I
talked of it in my sleep; in short, nothing could remove it out of my
mind: it even broke so violently into all my discourses that it made my
conversation tiresome, for I could talk of nothing else; all my discourse
ran into it, even to impertinence; and I saw it myself.

I have often heard persons of good judgment say that all the stir that
people make in the world about ghosts and apparitions is owing to the
strength of imagination, and the powerful operation of fancy in their
minds; that there is no such thing as a spirit appearing, or a ghost
walking; that people's poring affectionately upon the past conversation
of their deceased friends so realises it to them that they are capable of
fancying, upon some extraordinary circumstances, that they see them, talk
to them, and are answered by them, when, in truth, there is nothing but
shadow and vapour in the thing, and they really know nothing of the
matter.

For my part, I know not to this hour whether there are any such things as
real apparitions, spectres, or walking of people after they are dead; or
whether there is anything in the stories they tell us of that kind more
than the product of vapours, sick minds, and wandering fancies: but this
I know, that my imagination worked up to such a height, and brought me
into such excess of vapours, or what else I may call it, that I actually
supposed myself often upon the spot, at my old castle, behind the trees;
saw my old Spaniard, Friday's father, and the reprobate sailors I left
upon the island; nay, I fancied I talked with them, and looked at them
steadily, though I was broad awake, as at persons just before me; and
this I did till I often frightened myself with the images my fancy
represented to me.  One time, in my sleep, I had the villainy of the
three pirate sailors so lively related to me by the first Spaniard, and
Friday's father, that it was surprising: they told me how they
barbarously attempted to murder all the Spaniards, and that they set fire
to the provisions they had laid up, on purpose to distress and starve
them; things that I had never heard of, and that, indeed, were never all
of them true in fact: but it was so warm in my imagination, and so
realised to me, that, to the hour I saw them, I could not be persuaded
but that it was or would be true; also how I resented it, when the
Spaniard complained to me; and how I brought them to justice, tried them,
and ordered them all three to be hanged.  What there was really in this
shall be seen in its place; for however I came to form such things in my
dream, and what secret converse of spirits injected it, yet there was, I
say, much of it true.  I own that this dream had nothing in it literally
and specifically true; but the general part was so true--the base;
villainous behaviour of these three hardened rogues was such, and had
been so much worse than all I can describe, that the dream had too much
similitude of the fact; and as I would afterwards have punished them
severely, so, if I had hanged them all, I had been much in the right, and
even should have been justified both by the laws of God and man.

But to return to my story.  In this kind of temper I lived some years; I
had no enjoyment of my life, no pleasant hours, no agreeable diversion
but what had something or other of this in it; so that my wife, who saw
my mind wholly bent upon it, told me very seriously one night that she
believed there was some secret, powerful impulse of Providence upon me,
which had determined me to go thither again; and that she found nothing
hindered me going but my being engaged to a wife and children.  She told
me that it was true she could not think of parting with me: but as she
was assured that if she was dead it would be the first thing I would do,
so, as it seemed to her that the thing was determined above, she would
not be the only obstruction; for, if I thought fit and resolved to
go--[Here she found me very intent upon her words, and that I looked very
earnestly at her, so that it a little disordered her, and she stopped.  I
asked her why she did not go on, and say out what she was going to say?
But I perceived that her heart was too full, and some tears stood in her
eyes.]  "Speak out, my dear," said I; "are you willing I should
go?"--"No," says she, very affectionately, "I am far from willing; but if
you are resolved to go," says she, "rather than I would be the only
hindrance, I will go with you: for though I think it a most preposterous
thing for one of your years, and in your condition, yet, if it must be,"
said she, again weeping, "I would not leave you; for if it be of Heaven
you must do it, there is no resisting it; and if Heaven make it your duty
to go, He will also make it mine to go with you, or otherwise dispose of
me, that I may not obstruct it."

This affectionate behaviour of my wife's brought me a little out of the
vapours, and I began to consider what I was doing; I corrected my
wandering fancy, and began to argue with myself sedately what business I
had after threescore years, and after such a life of tedious sufferings
and disasters, and closed in so happy and easy a manner; I, say, what
business had I to rush into new hazards, and put myself upon adventures
fit only for youth and poverty to run into?

With those thoughts I considered my new engagement; that I had a wife,
one child born, and my wife then great with child of another; that I had
all the world could give me, and had no need to seek hazard for gain;
that I was declining in years, and ought to think rather of leaving what
I had gained than of seeking to increase it; that as to what my wife had
said of its being an impulse from Heaven, and that it should be my duty
to go, I had no notion of that; so, after many of these cogitations, I
struggled with the power of my imagination, reasoned myself out of it, as
I believe people may always do in like cases if they will: in a word, I
conquered it, composed myself with such arguments as occurred to my
thoughts, and which my present condition furnished me plentifully with;
and particularly, as the most effectual method, I resolved to divert
myself with other things, and to engage in some business that might
effectually tie me up from any more excursions of this kind; for I found
that thing return upon me chiefly when I was idle, and had nothing to do,
nor anything of moment immediately before me.  To this purpose, I bought
a little farm in the county of Bedford, and resolved to remove myself
thither.  I had a little convenient house upon it, and the land about it,
I found, was capable of great improvement; and it was many ways suited to
my inclination, which delighted in cultivating, managing, planting, and
improving of land; and particularly, being an inland country, I was
removed from conversing among sailors and things relating to the remote
parts of the world.  I went down to my farm, settled my family, bought
ploughs, harrows, a cart, waggon-horses, cows, and sheep, and, setting
seriously to work, became in one half-year a mere country gentleman.  My
thoughts were entirely taken up in managing my servants, cultivating the
ground, enclosing, planting, &c.; and I lived, as I thought, the most
agreeable life that nature was capable of directing, or that a man always
bred to misfortunes was capable of retreating to.

I farmed upon my own land; I had no rent to pay, was limited by no
articles; I could pull up or cut down as I pleased; what I planted was
for myself, and what I improved was for my family; and having thus left
off the thoughts of wandering, I had not the least discomfort in any part
of life as to this world.  Now I thought, indeed, that I enjoyed the
middle state of life which my father so earnestly recommended to me, and
lived a kind of heavenly life, something like what is described by the
poet, upon the subject of a country life:--

   "Free from vices, free from care,
   Age has no pain, and youth no snare."

But in the middle of all this felicity, one blow from unseen Providence
unhinged me at once; and not only made a breach upon me inevitable and
incurable, but drove me, by its consequences, into a deep relapse of the
wandering disposition, which, as I may say, being born in my very blood,
soon recovered its hold of me; and, like the returns of a violent
distemper, came on with an irresistible force upon me.  This blow was the
loss of my wife.  It is not my business here to write an elegy upon my
wife, give a character of her particular virtues, and make my court to
the sex by the flattery of a funeral sermon.  She was, in a few words,
the stay of all my affairs; the centre of all my enterprises; the engine
that, by her prudence, reduced me to that happy compass I was in, from
the most extravagant and ruinous project that filled my head, and did
more to guide my rambling genius than a mother's tears, a father's
instructions, a friend's counsel, or all my own reasoning powers could
do.  I was happy in listening to her, and in being moved by her
entreaties; and to the last degree desolate and dislocated in the world
by the loss of her.

When she was gone, the world looked awkwardly round me.  I was as much a
stranger in it, in my thoughts, as I was in the Brazils, when I first
went on shore there; and as much alone, except for the assistance of
servants, as I was in my island.  I knew neither what to think nor what
to do.  I saw the world busy around me: one part labouring for bread,
another part squandering in vile excesses or empty pleasures, but equally
miserable because the end they proposed still fled from them; for the men
of pleasure every day surfeited of their vice, and heaped up work for
sorrow and repentance; and the men of labour spent their strength in
daily struggling for bread to maintain the vital strength they laboured
with: so living in a daily circulation of sorrow, living but to work, and
working but to live, as if daily bread were the only end of wearisome
life, and a wearisome life the only occasion of daily bread.

This put me in mind of the life I lived in my kingdom, the island; where
I suffered no more corn to grow, because I did not want it; and bred no
more goats, because I had no more use for them; where the money lay in
the drawer till it grew mouldy, and had scarce the favour to be looked
upon in twenty years.  All these things, had I improved them as I ought
to have done, and as reason and religion had dictated to me, would have
taught me to search farther than human enjoyments for a full felicity;
and that there was something which certainly was the reason and end of
life superior to all these things, and which was either to be possessed,
or at least hoped for, on this side of the grave.

But my sage counsellor was gone; I was like a ship without a pilot, that
could only run afore the wind.  My thoughts ran all away again into the
old affair; my head was quite turned with the whimsies of foreign
adventures; and all the pleasant, innocent amusements of my farm, my
garden, my cattle, and my family, which before entirely possessed me,
were nothing to me, had no relish, and were like music to one that has no
ear, or food to one that has no taste.  In a word, I resolved to leave
off housekeeping, let my farm, and return to London; and in a few months
after I did so.

When I came to London, I was still as uneasy as I was before; I had no
relish for the place, no employment in it, nothing to do but to saunter
about like an idle person, of whom it may be said he is perfectly useless
in God's creation, and it is not one farthing's matter to the rest of his
kind whether he be dead or alive.  This also was the thing which, of all
circumstances of life, was the most my aversion, who had been all my days
used to an active life; and I would often say to myself, "A state of
idleness is the very dregs of life;" and, indeed, I thought I was much
more suitably employed when I was twenty-six days making a deal board.

It was now the beginning of the year 1693, when my nephew, whom, as I
have observed before, I had brought up to the sea, and had made him
commander of a ship, was come home from a short voyage to Bilbao, being
the first he had made.  He came to me, and told me that some merchants of
his acquaintance had been proposing to him to go a voyage for them to the
East Indies, and to China, as private traders.  "And now, uncle," says
he, "if you will go to sea with me, I will engage to land you upon your
old habitation in the island; for we are to touch at the Brazils."

Nothing can be a greater demonstration of a future state, and of the
existence of an invisible world, than the concurrence of second causes
with the idea of things which we form in our minds, perfectly reserved,
and not communicated to any in the world.

My nephew knew nothing how far my distemper of wandering was returned
upon me, and I knew nothing of what he had in his thought to say, when
that very morning, before he came to me, I had, in a great deal of
confusion of thought, and revolving every part of my circumstances in my
mind, come to this resolution, that I would go to Lisbon, and consult
with my old sea-captain; and if it was rational and practicable, I would
go and see the island again, and what was become of my people there.  I
had pleased myself with the thoughts of peopling the place, and carrying
inhabitants from hence, getting a patent for the possession and I know
not what; when, in the middle of all this, in comes my nephew, as I have
said, with his project of carrying me thither in his way to the East
Indies.

I paused a while at his words, and looking steadily at him, "What devil,"
said I, "sent you on this unlucky errand?"  My nephew stared as if he had
been frightened at first; but perceiving that I was not much displeased
at the proposal, he recovered himself.  "I hope it may not be an unlucky
proposal, sir," says he.  "I daresay you would be pleased to see your new
colony there, where you once reigned with more felicity than most of your
brother monarchs in the world."  In a word, the scheme hit so exactly
with my temper, that is to say, the prepossession I was under, and of
which I have said so much, that I told him, in a few words, if he agreed
with the merchants, I would go with him; but I told him I would not
promise to go any further than my own island.  "Why, sir," says he, "you
don't want to be left there again, I hope?"  "But," said I, "can you not
take me up again on your return?"  He told me it would not be possible to
do so; that the merchants would never allow him to come that way with a
laden ship of such value, it being a month's sail out of his way, and
might be three or four.  "Besides, sir, if I should miscarry," said he,
"and not return at all, then you would be just reduced to the condition
you were in before."

This was very rational; but we both found out a remedy for it, which was
to carry a framed sloop on board the ship, which, being taken in pieces,
might, by the help of some carpenters, whom we agreed to carry with us,
be set up again in the island, and finished fit to go to sea in a few
days.  I was not long resolving, for indeed the importunities of my
nephew joined so effectually with my inclination that nothing could
oppose me; on the other hand, my wife being dead, none concerned
themselves so much for me as to persuade me one way or the other, except
my ancient good friend the widow, who earnestly struggled with me to
consider my years, my easy circumstances, and the needless hazards of a
long voyage; and above all, my young children.  But it was all to no
purpose, I had an irresistible desire for the voyage; and I told her I
thought there was something so uncommon in the impressions I had upon my
mind, that it would be a kind of resisting Providence if I should attempt
to stay at home; after which she ceased her expostulations, and joined
with me, not only in making provision for my voyage, but also in settling
my family affairs for my absence, and providing for the education of my
children.  In order to do this, I made my will, and settled the estate I
had in such a manner for my children, and placed in such hands, that I
was perfectly easy and satisfied they would have justice done them,
whatever might befall me; and for their education, I left it wholly to
the widow, with a sufficient maintenance to herself for her care: all
which she richly deserved; for no mother could have taken more care in
their education, or understood it better; and as she lived till I came
home, I also lived to thank her for it.

My nephew was ready to sail about the beginning of January 1694-5; and I,
with my man Friday, went on board, in the Downs, the 8th; having, besides
that sloop which I mentioned above, a very considerable cargo of all
kinds of necessary things for my colony, which, if I did not find in good
condition, I resolved to leave so.

First, I carried with me some servants whom I purposed to place there as
inhabitants, or at least to set on work there upon my account while I
stayed, and either to leave them there or carry them forward, as they
should appear willing; particularly, I carried two carpenters, a smith,
and a very handy, ingenious fellow, who was a cooper by trade, and was
also a general mechanic; for he was dexterous at making wheels and hand-
mills to grind corn, was a good turner and a good pot-maker; he also made
anything that was proper to make of earth or of wood: in a word, we
called him our Jack-of-all-trades.  With these I carried a tailor, who
had offered himself to go a passenger to the East Indies with my nephew,
but afterwards consented to stay on our new plantation, and who proved a
most necessary handy fellow as could be desired in many other businesses
besides that of his trade; for, as I observed formerly, necessity arms us
for all employments.

My cargo, as near as I can recollect, for I have not kept account of the
particulars, consisted of a sufficient quantity of linen, and some
English thin stuffs, for clothing the Spaniards that I expected to find
there; and enough of them, as by my calculation might comfortably supply
them for seven years; if I remember right, the materials I carried for
clothing them, with gloves, hats, shoes, stockings, and all such things
as they could want for wearing, amounted to about two hundred pounds,
including some beds, bedding, and household stuff, particularly kitchen
utensils, with pots, kettles, pewter, brass, &c.; and near a hundred
pounds more in ironwork, nails, tools of every kind, staples, hooks,
hinges, and every necessary thing I could think of.

I carried also a hundred spare arms, muskets, and fusees; besides some
pistols, a considerable quantity of shot of all sizes, three or four tons
of lead, and two pieces of brass cannon; and, because I knew not what
time and what extremities I was providing for, I carried a hundred
barrels of powder, besides swords, cutlasses, and the iron part of some
pikes and halberds.  In short, we had a large magazine of all sorts of
store; and I made my nephew carry two small quarter-deck guns more than
he wanted for his ship, to leave behind if there was occasion; so that
when we came there we might build a fort and man it against all sorts of
enemies.  Indeed, I at first thought there would be need enough for all,
and much more, if we hoped to maintain our possession of the island, as
shall be seen in the course of that story.

I had not such bad luck in this voyage as I had been used to meet with,
and therefore shall have the less occasion to interrupt the reader, who
perhaps may be impatient to hear how matters went with my colony; yet
some odd accidents, cross winds and bad weather happened on this first
setting out, which made the voyage longer than I expected it at first;
and I, who had never made but one voyage, my first voyage to Guinea, in
which I might be said to come back again, as the voyage was at first
designed, began to think the same ill fate attended me, and that I was
born to be never contented with being on shore, and yet to be always
unfortunate at sea.  Contrary winds first put us to the northward, and we
were obliged to put in at Galway, in Ireland, where we lay wind-bound two-
and-twenty days; but we had this satisfaction with the disaster, that
provisions were here exceeding cheap, and in the utmost plenty; so that
while we lay here we never touched the ship's stores, but rather added to
them.  Here, also, I took in several live hogs, and two cows with their
calves, which I resolved, if I had a good passage, to put on shore in my
island; but we found occasion to dispose otherwise of them.

We set out on the 5th of February from Ireland, and had a very fair gale
of wind for some days.  As I remember, it might be about the 20th of
February in the evening late, when the mate, having the watch, came into
the round-house and told us he saw a flash of fire, and heard a gun
fired; and while he was telling us of it, a boy came in and told us the
boatswain heard another.  This made us all run out upon the quarter-deck,
where for a while we heard nothing; but in a few minutes we saw a very
great light, and found that there was some very terrible fire at a
distance; immediately we had recourse to our reckonings, in which we all
agreed that there could be no land that way in which the fire showed
itself, no, not for five hundred leagues, for it appeared at WNW.  Upon
this, we concluded it must be some ship on fire at sea; and as, by our
hearing the noise of guns just before, we concluded that it could not be
far off, we stood directly towards it, and were presently satisfied we
should discover it, because the further we sailed, the greater the light
appeared; though, the weather being hazy, we could not perceive anything
but the light for a while.  In about half-an-hour's sailing, the wind
being fair for us, though not much of it, and the weather clearing up a
little, we could plainly discern that it was a great ship on fire in the
middle of the sea.

I was most sensibly touched with this disaster, though not at all
acquainted with the persons engaged in it; I presently recollected my
former circumstances, and what condition I was in when taken up by the
Portuguese captain; and how much more deplorable the circumstances of the
poor creatures belonging to that ship must be, if they had no other ship
in company with them.  Upon this I immediately ordered that five guns
should be fired, one soon after another, that, if possible, we might give
notice to them that there was help for them at hand and that they might
endeavour to save themselves in their boat; for though we could see the
flames of the ship, yet they, it being night, could see nothing of us.

We lay by some time upon this, only driving as the burning ship drove,
waiting for daylight; when, on a sudden, to our great terror, though we
had reason to expect it, the ship blew up in the air; and in a few
minutes all the fire was out, that is to say, the rest of the ship sunk.
This was a terrible, and indeed an afflicting sight, for the sake of the
poor men, who, I concluded, must be either all destroyed in the ship, or
be in the utmost distress in their boat, in the middle of the ocean;
which, at present, as it was dark, I could not see.  However, to direct
them as well as I could, I caused lights to be hung out in all parts of
the ship where we could, and which we had lanterns for, and kept firing
guns all the night long, letting them know by this that there was a ship
not far off.

About eight o'clock in the morning we discovered the ship's boats by the
help of our perspective glasses, and found there were two of them, both
thronged with people, and deep in the water.  We perceived they rowed,
the wind being against them; that they saw our ship, and did their utmost
to make us see them.  We immediately spread our ancient, to let them know
we saw them, and hung a waft out, as a signal for them to come on board,
and then made more sail, standing directly to them.  In little more than
half-an-hour we came up with them; and took them all in, being no less
than sixty-four men, women, and children; for there were a great many
passengers.

Upon inquiry we found it was a French merchant ship of three-hundred
tons, home-bound from Quebec.  The master gave us a long account of the
distress of his ship; how the fire began in the steerage by the
negligence of the steersman, which, on his crying out for help, was, as
everybody thought, entirely put out; but they soon found that some sparks
of the first fire had got into some part of the ship so difficult to come
at that they could not effectually quench it; and afterwards getting in
between the timbers, and within the ceiling of the ship, it proceeded
into the hold, and mastered all the skill and all the application they
were able to exert.

They had no more to do then but to get into their boats, which, to their
great comfort, were pretty large; being their long-boat, and a great
shallop, besides a small skiff, which was of no great service to them,
other than to get some fresh water and provisions into her, after they
had secured their lives from the fire.  They had, indeed, small hopes of
their lives by getting into these boats at that distance from any land;
only, as they said, that they thus escaped from the fire, and there was a
possibility that some ship might happen to be at sea, and might take them
in.  They had sails, oars, and a compass; and had as much provision and
water as, with sparing it so as to be next door to starving, might
support them about twelve days, in which, if they had no bad weather and
no contrary winds, the captain said he hoped he might get to the banks of
Newfoundland, and might perhaps take some fish, to sustain them till they
might go on shore.  But there were so many chances against them in all
these cases, such as storms, to overset and founder them; rains and cold,
to benumb and perish their limbs; contrary winds, to keep them out and
starve them; that it must have been next to miraculous if they had
escaped.

In the midst of their consternation, every one being hopeless and ready
to despair, the captain, with tears in his eyes, told me they were on a
sudden surprised with the joy of hearing a gun fire, and after that four
more: these were the five guns which I caused to be fired at first seeing
the light.  This revived their hearts, and gave them the notice, which,
as above, I desired it should, that there was a ship at hand for their
help.  It was upon the hearing of these guns that they took down their
masts and sails: the sound coming from the windward, they resolved to lie
by till morning.  Some time after this, hearing no more guns, they fired
three muskets, one a considerable while after another; but these, the
wind being contrary, we never heard.  Some time after that again they
were still more agreeably surprised with seeing our lights, and hearing
the guns, which, as I have said, I caused to be fired all the rest of the
night.  This set them to work with their oars, to keep their boats ahead,
at least that we might the sooner come up with them; and at last, to
their inexpressible joy, they found we saw them.

It is impossible for me to express the several gestures, the strange
ecstasies, the variety of postures which these poor delivered people ran
into, to express the joy of their souls at so unexpected a deliverance.
Grief and fear are easily described: sighs, tears, groans, and a very few
motions of the head and hands, make up the sum of its variety; but an
excess of joy, a surprise of joy, has a thousand extravagances in it.
There were some in tears; some raging and tearing themselves, as if they
had been in the greatest agonies of sorrow; some stark raving and
downright lunatic; some ran about the ship stamping with their feet,
others wringing their hands; some were dancing, some singing, some
laughing, more crying, many quite dumb, not able to speak a word; others
sick and vomiting; several swooning and ready to faint; and a few were
crossing themselves and giving God thanks.

I would not wrong them either; there might be many that were thankful
afterwards; but the passion was too strong for them at first, and they
were not able to master it: then were thrown into ecstasies, and a kind
of frenzy, and it was but a very few that were composed and serious in
their joy.  Perhaps also, the case may have some addition to it from the
particular circumstance of that nation they belonged to: I mean the
French, whose temper is allowed to be more volatile, more passionate, and
more sprightly, and their spirits more fluid than in other nations.  I am
not philosopher enough to determine the cause; but nothing I had ever
seen before came up to it.  The ecstasies poor Friday, my trusty savage,
was in when he found his father in the boat came the nearest to it; and
the surprise of the master and his two companions, whom I delivered from
the villains that set them on shore in the island, came a little way
towards it; but nothing was to compare to this, either that I saw in
Friday, or anywhere else in my life.

It is further observable, that these extravagances did not show
themselves in that different manner I have mentioned, in different
persons only; but all the variety would appear, in a short succession of
moments, in one and the same person.  A man that we saw this minute dumb,
and, as it were, stupid and confounded, would the next minute be dancing
and hallooing like an antic; and the next moment be tearing his hair, or
pulling his clothes to pieces, and stamping them under his feet like a
madman; in a few moments after that we would have him all in tears, then
sick, swooning, and, had not immediate help been had, he would in a few
moments have been dead.  Thus it was, not with one or two, or ten or
twenty, but with the greatest part of them; and, if I remember right, our
surgeon was obliged to let blood of about thirty persons.

There were two priests among them: one an old man, and the other a young
man; and that which was strangest was, the oldest man was the worst.  As
soon as he set his foot on board our ship, and saw himself safe, he
dropped down stone dead to all appearance.  Not the least sign of life
could be perceived in him; our surgeon immediately applied proper
remedies to recover him, and was the only man in the ship that believed
he was not dead.  At length he opened a vein in his arm, having first
chafed and rubbed the part, so as to warm it as much as possible.  Upon
this the blood, which only dropped at first, flowing freely, in three
minutes after the man opened his eyes; a quarter of an hour after that he
spoke, grew better, and after the blood was stopped, he walked about,
told us he was perfectly well, and took a dram of cordial which the
surgeon gave him.  About a quarter of an hour after this they came
running into the cabin to the surgeon, who was bleeding a Frenchwoman
that had fainted, and told him the priest was gone stark mad.  It seems
he had begun to revolve the change of his circumstances in his mind, and
again this put him into an ecstasy of joy.  His spirits whirled about
faster than the vessels could convey them, the blood grew hot and
feverish, and the man was as fit for Bedlam as any creature that ever was
in it.  The surgeon would not bleed him again in that condition, but gave
him something to doze and put him to sleep; which, after some time,
operated upon him, and he awoke next morning perfectly composed and well.
The younger priest behaved with great command of his passions, and was
really an example of a serious, well-governed mind.  At his first coming
on board the ship he threw himself flat on his face, prostrating himself
in thankfulness for his deliverance, in which I unhappily and
unseasonably disturbed him, really thinking he had been in a swoon; but
he spoke calmly, thanked me, told me he was giving God thanks for his
deliverance, begged me to leave him a few moments, and that, next to his
Maker, he would give me thanks also.  I was heartily sorry that I
disturbed him, and not only left him, but kept others from interrupting
him also.  He continued in that posture about three minutes, or little
more, after I left him, then came to me, as he had said he would, and
with a great deal of seriousness and affection, but with tears in his
eyes, thanked me, that had, under God, given him and so many miserable
creatures their lives.  I told him I had no need to tell him to thank God
for it, rather than me, for I had seen that he had done that already; but
I added that it was nothing but what reason and humanity dictated to all
men, and that we had as much reason as he to give thanks to God, who had
blessed us so far as to make us the instruments of His mercy to so many
of His creatures.  After this the young priest applied himself to his
countrymen, and laboured to compose them: he persuaded, entreated,
argued, reasoned with them, and did his utmost to keep them within the
exercise of their reason; and with some he had success, though others
were for a time out of all government of themselves.

I cannot help committing this to writing, as perhaps it may be useful to
those into whose hands it may fall, for guiding themselves in the
extravagances of their passions; for if an excess of joy can carry men
out to such a length beyond the reach of their reason, what will not the
extravagances of anger, rage, and a provoked mind carry us to?  And,
indeed, here I saw reason for keeping an exceeding watch over our
passions of every kind, as well those of joy and satisfaction as those of
sorrow and anger.

We were somewhat disordered by these extravagances among our new guests
for the first day; but after they had retired to lodgings provided for
them as well as our ship would allow, and had slept heartily--as most of
them did, being fatigued and frightened--they were quite another sort of
people the next day.  Nothing of good manners, or civil acknowledgments
for the kindness shown them, was wanting; the French, it is known, are
naturally apt enough to exceed that way.  The captain and one of the
priests came to me the next day, and desired to speak with me and my
nephew; the commander began to consult with us what should be done with
them; and first, they told us we had saved their lives, so all they had
was little enough for a return to us for that kindness received.  The
captain said they had saved some money and some things of value in their
boats, caught hastily out of the flames, and if we would accept it they
were ordered to make an offer of it all to us; they only desired to be
set on shore somewhere in our way, where, if possible, they might get a
passage to France.  My nephew wished to accept their money at first word,
and to consider what to do with them afterwards; but I overruled him in
that part, for I knew what it was to be set on shore in a strange
country; and if the Portuguese captain that took me up at sea had served
me so, and taken all I had for my deliverance, I must have been starved,
or have been as much a slave at the Brazils as I had been at Barbary, the
mere being sold to a Mahometan excepted; and perhaps a Portuguese is not
a much better master than a Turk, if not in some cases much worse.

I therefore told the French captain that we had taken them up in their
distress, it was true, but that it was our duty to do so, as we were
fellow-creatures; and we would desire to be so delivered if we were in
the like or any other extremity; that we had done nothing for them but
what we believed they would have done for us if we had been in their case
and they in ours; but that we took them up to save them, not to plunder
them; and it would be a most barbarous thing to take that little from
them which they had saved out of the fire, and then set them on shore and
leave them; that this would be first to save them from death, and then
kill them ourselves: save them from drowning, and abandon them to
starving; and therefore I would not let the least thing be taken from
them.  As to setting them on shore, I told them indeed that was an
exceeding difficulty to us, for that the ship was bound to the East
Indies; and though we were driven out of our course to the westward a
very great way, and perhaps were directed by Heaven on purpose for their
deliverance, yet it was impossible for us wilfully to change our voyage
on their particular account; nor could my nephew, the captain, answer it
to the freighters, with whom he was under charter to pursue his voyage by
way of Brazil; and all I knew we could do for them was to put ourselves
in the way of meeting with other ships homeward bound from the West
Indies, and get them a passage, if possible, to England or France.

The first part of the proposal was so generous and kind they could not
but be very thankful for it; but they were in very great consternation,
especially the passengers, at the notion of being carried away to the
East Indies; they then entreated me that as I was driven so far to the
westward before I met with them, I would at least keep on the same course
to the banks of Newfoundland, where it was probable I might meet with
some ship or sloop that they might hire to carry them back to Canada.

I thought this was but a reasonable request on their part, and therefore
I inclined to agree to it; for indeed I considered that to carry this
whole company to the East Indies would not only be an intolerable
severity upon the poor people, but would be ruining our whole voyage by
devouring all our provisions; so I thought it no breach of charter-party,
but what an unforeseen accident made absolutely necessary to us, and in
which no one could say we were to blame; for the laws of God and nature
would have forbid that we should refuse to take up two boats full of
people in such a distressed condition; and the nature of the thing, as
well respecting ourselves as the poor people, obliged us to set them on
shore somewhere or other for their deliverance.  So I consented that we
would carry them to Newfoundland, if wind and weather would permit: and
if not, I would carry them to Martinico, in the West Indies.

The wind continued fresh easterly, but the weather pretty good; and as
the winds had continued in the points between NE. and SE. a long time, we
missed several opportunities of sending them to France; for we met
several ships bound to Europe, whereof two were French, from St.
Christopher's, but they had been so long beating up against the wind that
they durst take in no passengers, for fear of wanting provisions for the
voyage, as well for themselves as for those they should take in; so we
were obliged to go on.  It was about a week after this that we made the
banks of Newfoundland; where, to shorten my story, we put all our French
people on board a bark, which they hired at sea there, to put them on
shore, and afterwards to carry them to France, if they could get
provisions to victual themselves with.  When I say all the French went on
shore, I should remember that the young priest I spoke of, hearing we
were bound to the East Indies, desired to go the voyage with us, and to
be set on shore on the coast of Coromandel; which I readily agreed to,
for I wonderfully liked the man, and had very good reason, as will appear
afterwards; also four of the seamen entered themselves on our ship, and
proved very useful fellows.

From hence we directed our course for the West Indies, steering away S.
and S. by E. for about twenty days together, sometimes little or no wind
at all; when we met with another subject for our humanity to work upon,
almost as deplorable as that before.




CHAPTER II--INTERVENING HISTORY OF COLONY


It was in the latitude of 27 degrees 5 minutes N., on the 19th day of
March 1694-95, when we spied a sail, our course SE. and by S.  We soon
perceived it was a large vessel, and that she bore up to us, but could
not at first know what to make of her, till, after coming a little
nearer, we found she had lost her main-topmast, fore-mast, and bowsprit;
and presently she fired a gun as a signal of distress.  The weather was
pretty good, wind at NNW. a fresh gale, and we soon came to speak with
her.  We found her a ship of Bristol, bound home from Barbadoes, but had
been blown out of the road at Barbadoes a few days before she was ready
to sail, by a terrible hurricane, while the captain and chief mate were
both gone on shore; so that, besides the terror of the storm, they were
in an indifferent case for good mariners to bring the ship home.  They
had been already nine weeks at sea, and had met with another terrible
storm, after the hurricane was over, which had blown them quite out of
their knowledge to the westward, and in which they lost their masts.  They
told us they expected to have seen the Bahama Islands, but were then
driven away again to the south-east, by a strong gale of wind at NNW.,
the same that blew now: and having no sails to work the ship with but a
main course, and a kind of square sail upon a jury fore-mast, which they
had set up, they could not lie near the wind, but were endeavouring to
stand away for the Canaries.

But that which was worst of all was, that they were almost starved for
want of provisions, besides the fatigues they had undergone; their bread
and flesh were quite gone--they had not one ounce left in the ship, and
had had none for eleven days.  The only relief they had was, their water
was not all spent, and they had about half a barrel of flour left; they
had sugar enough; some succades, or sweetmeats, they had at first, but
these were all devoured; and they had seven casks of rum.  There was a
youth and his mother and a maid-servant on board, who were passengers,
and thinking the ship was ready to sail, unhappily came on board the
evening before the hurricane began; and having no provisions of their own
left, they were in a more deplorable condition than the rest: for the
seamen being reduced to such an extreme necessity themselves, had no
compassion, we may be sure, for the poor passengers; and they were,
indeed, in such a condition that their misery is very hard to describe.

I had perhaps not known this part, if my curiosity had not led me, the
weather being fair and the wind abated, to go on board the ship.  The
second mate, who upon this occasion commanded the ship, had been on board
our ship, and he told me they had three passengers in the great cabin
that were in a deplorable condition.  "Nay," says he, "I believe they are
dead, for I have heard nothing of them for above two days; and I was
afraid to inquire after them," said he, "for I had nothing to relieve
them with."  We immediately applied ourselves to give them what relief we
could spare; and indeed I had so far overruled things with my nephew,
that I would have victualled them though we had gone away to Virginia, or
any other part of the coast of America, to have supplied ourselves; but
there was no necessity for that.

But now they were in a new danger; for they were afraid of eating too
much, even of that little we gave them.  The mate, or commander, brought
six men with him in his boat; but these poor wretches looked like
skeletons, and were so weak that they could hardly sit to their oars.  The
mate himself was very ill, and half starved; for he declared he had
reserved nothing from the men, and went share and share alike with them
in every bit they ate.  I cautioned him to eat sparingly, and set meat
before him immediately, but he had not eaten three mouthfuls before he
began to be sick and out of order; so he stopped a while, and our surgeon
mixed him up something with some broth, which he said would be to him
both food and physic; and after he had taken it he grew better.  In the
meantime I forgot not the men.  I ordered victuals to be given them, and
the poor creatures rather devoured than ate it: they were so exceedingly
hungry that they were in a manner ravenous, and had no command of
themselves; and two of them ate with so much greediness that they were in
danger of their lives the next morning.  The sight of these people's
distress was very moving to me, and brought to mind what I had a terrible
prospect of at my first coming on shore in my island, where I had not the
least mouthful of food, or any prospect of procuring any; besides the
hourly apprehensions I had of being made the food of other creatures.  But
all the while the mate was thus relating to me the miserable condition of
the ship's company, I could not put out of my thought the story he had
told me of the three poor creatures in the great cabin, viz. the mother,
her son, and the maid-servant, whom he had heard nothing of for two or
three days, and whom, he seemed to confess, they had wholly neglected,
their own extremities being so great; by which I understood that they had
really given them no food at all, and that therefore they must be
perished, and be all lying dead, perhaps, on the floor or deck of the
cabin.

As I therefore kept the mate, whom we then called captain, on board with
his men, to refresh them, so I also forgot not the starving crew that
were left on board, but ordered my own boat to go on board the ship, and,
with my mate and twelve men, to carry them a sack of bread, and four or
five pieces of beef to boil.  Our surgeon charged the men to cause the
meat to be boiled while they stayed, and to keep guard in the cook-room,
to prevent the men taking it to eat raw, or taking it out of the pot
before it was well boiled, and then to give every man but a very little
at a time: and by this caution he preserved the men, who would otherwise
have killed themselves with that very food that was given them on purpose
to save their lives.

At the same time I ordered the mate to go into the great cabin, and see
what condition the poor passengers were in; and if they were alive, to
comfort them, and give them what refreshment was proper: and the surgeon
gave him a large pitcher, with some of the prepared broth which he had
given the mate that was on board, and which he did not question would
restore them gradually.  I was not satisfied with this; but, as I said
above, having a great mind to see the scene of misery which I knew the
ship itself would present me with, in a more lively manner than I could
have it by report, I took the captain of the ship, as we now called him,
with me, and went myself, a little after, in their boat.

I found the poor men on board almost in a tumult to get the victuals out
of the boiler before it was ready; but my mate observed his orders, and
kept a good guard at the cook-room door, and the man he placed there,
after using all possible persuasion to have patience, kept them off by
force; however, he caused some biscuit-cakes to be dipped in the pot, and
softened with the liquor of the meat, which they called brewis, and gave
them every one some to stay their stomachs, and told them it was for
their own safety that he was obliged to give them but little at a time.
But it was all in vain; and had I not come on board, and their own
commander and officers with me, and with good words, and some threats
also of giving them no more, I believe they would have broken into the
cook-room by force, and torn the meat out of the furnace--for words are
indeed of very small force to a hungry belly; however, we pacified them,
and fed them gradually and cautiously at first, and the next time gave
them more, and at last filled their bellies, and the men did well enough.

But the misery of the poor passengers in the cabin was of another nature,
and far beyond the rest; for as, first, the ship's company had so little
for themselves, it was but too true that they had at first kept them very
low, and at last totally neglected them: so that for six or seven days it
might be said they had really no food at all, and for several days before
very little.  The poor mother, who, as the men reported, was a woman of
sense and good breeding, had spared all she could so affectionately for
her son, that at last she entirely sank under it; and when the mate of
our ship went in, she sat upon the floor on deck, with her back up
against the sides, between two chairs, which were lashed fast, and her
head sunk between her shoulders like a corpse, though not quite dead.  My
mate said all he could to revive and encourage her, and with a spoon put
some broth into her mouth.  She opened her lips, and lifted up one hand,
but could not speak: yet she understood what he said, and made signs to
him, intimating, that it was too late for her, but pointed to her child,
as if she would have said they should take care of him.  However, the
mate, who was exceedingly moved at the sight, endeavoured to get some of
the broth into her mouth, and, as he said, got two or three spoonfuls
down--though I question whether he could be sure of it or not; but it was
too late, and she died the same night.

The youth, who was preserved at the price of his most affectionate
mother's life, was not so far gone; yet he lay in a cabin bed, as one
stretched out, with hardly any life left in him.  He had a piece of an
old glove in his mouth, having eaten up the rest of it; however, being
young, and having more strength than his mother, the mate got something
down his throat, and he began sensibly to revive; though by giving him,
some time after, but two or three spoonfuls extraordinary, he was very
sick, and brought it up again.

But the next care was the poor maid: she lay all along upon the deck,
hard by her mistress, and just like one that had fallen down in a fit of
apoplexy, and struggled for life.  Her limbs were distorted; one of her
hands was clasped round the frame of the chair, and she gripped it so
hard that we could not easily make her let it go; her other arm lay over
her head, and her feet lay both together, set fast against the frame of
the cabin table: in short, she lay just like one in the agonies of death,
and yet she was alive too.  The poor creature was not only starved with
hunger, and terrified with the thoughts of death, but, as the men told us
afterwards, was broken-hearted for her mistress, whom she saw dying for
two or three days before, and whom she loved most tenderly.  We knew not
what to do with this poor girl; for when our surgeon, who was a man of
very great knowledge and experience, had, with great application,
recovered her as to life, he had her upon his hands still; for she was
little less than distracted for a considerable time after.

Whoever shall read these memorandums must be desired to consider that
visits at sea are not like a journey into the country, where sometimes
people stay a week or a fortnight at a place.  Our business was to
relieve this distressed ship's crew, but not lie by for them; and though
they were willing to steer the same course with us for some days, yet we
could carry no sail to keep pace with a ship that had no masts.  However,
as their captain begged of us to help him to set up a main-topmast, and a
kind of a topmast to his jury fore-mast, we did, as it were, lie by him
for three or four days; and then, having given him five barrels of beef,
a barrel of pork, two hogsheads of biscuit, and a proportion of peas,
flour, and what other things we could spare; and taking three casks of
sugar, some rum, and some pieces of eight from them for satisfaction, we
left them, taking on board with us, at their own earnest request, the
youth and the maid, and all their goods.

The young lad was about seventeen years of age, a pretty, well-bred,
modest, and sensible youth, greatly dejected with the loss of his mother,
and also at having lost his father but a few months before, at Barbadoes.
He begged of the surgeon to speak to me to take him out of the ship; for
he said the cruel fellows had murdered his mother: and indeed so they
had, that is to say, passively; for they might have spared a small
sustenance to the poor helpless widow, though it had been but just enough
to keep her alive; but hunger knows no friend, no relation, no justice,
no right, and therefore is remorseless, and capable of no compassion.

The surgeon told him how far we were going, and that it would carry him
away from all his friends, and put him, perhaps, in as bad circumstances
almost as those we found him in, that is to say, starving in the world.
He said it mattered not whither he went, if he was but delivered from the
terrible crew that he was among; that the captain (by which he meant me,
for he could know nothing of my nephew) had saved his life, and he was
sure would not hurt him; and as for the maid, he was sure, if she came to
herself, she would be very thankful for it, let us carry them where we
would.  The surgeon represented the case so affectionately to me that I
yielded, and we took them both on board, with all their goods, except
eleven hogsheads of sugar, which could not be removed or come at; and as
the youth had a bill of lading for them, I made his commander sign a
writing, obliging himself to go, as soon as he came to Bristol, to one
Mr. Rogers, a merchant there, to whom the youth said he was related, and
to deliver a letter which I wrote to him, and all the goods he had
belonging to the deceased widow; which, I suppose, was not done, for I
could never learn that the ship came to Bristol, but was, as is most
probable, lost at sea, being in so disabled a condition, and so far from
any land, that I am of opinion the first storm she met with afterwards
she might founder, for she was leaky, and had damage in her hold when we
met with her.

I was now in the latitude of 19 degrees 32 minutes, and had hitherto a
tolerable voyage as to weather, though at first the winds had been
contrary.  I shall trouble nobody with the little incidents of wind,
weather, currents, &c., on the rest of our voyage; but to shorten my
story, shall observe that I came to my old habitation, the island, on the
10th of April 1695.  It was with no small difficulty that I found the
place; for as I came to it and went to it before on the south and east
side of the island, coming from the Brazils, so now, coming in between
the main and the island, and having no chart for the coast, nor any
landmark, I did not know it when I saw it, or, know whether I saw it or
not.  We beat about a great while, and went on shore on several islands
in the mouth of the great river Orinoco, but none for my purpose; only
this I learned by my coasting the shore, that I was under one great
mistake before, viz. that the continent which I thought I saw from the
island I lived in was really no continent, but a long island, or rather a
ridge of islands, reaching from one to the other side of the extended
mouth of that great river; and that the savages who came to my island
were not properly those which we call Caribbees, but islanders, and other
barbarians of the same kind, who inhabited nearer to our side than the
rest.

In short, I visited several of these islands to no purpose; some I found
were inhabited, and some were not; on one of them I found some Spaniards,
and thought they had lived there; but speaking with them, found they had
a sloop lying in a small creek hard by, and came thither to make salt,
and to catch some pearl-mussels if they could; but that they belonged to
the Isle de Trinidad, which lay farther north, in the latitude of 10 and
11 degrees.

Thus coasting from one island to another, sometimes with the ship,
sometimes with the Frenchman's shallop, which we had found a convenient
boat, and therefore kept her with their very good will, at length I came
fair on the south side of my island, and presently knew the very
countenance of the place: so I brought the ship safe to an anchor,
broadside with the little creek where my old habitation was.  As soon as
I saw the place I called for Friday, and asked him if he knew where he
was?  He looked about a little, and presently clapping his hands, cried,
"Oh yes, Oh there, Oh yes, Oh there!" pointing to our old habitation, and
fell dancing and capering like a mad fellow; and I had much ado to keep
him from jumping into the sea to swim ashore to the place.

"Well, Friday," says I, "do you think we shall find anybody here or no?
and do you think we shall see your father?"  The fellow stood mute as a
stock a good while; but when I named his father, the poor affectionate
creature looked dejected, and I could see the tears run down his face
very plentifully.  "What is the matter, Friday? are you troubled because
you may see your father?"  "No, no," says he, shaking his head, "no see
him more: no, never more see him again."  "Why so, Friday? how do you
know that?"  "Oh no, Oh no," says Friday, "he long ago die, long ago; he
much old man."  "Well, well, Friday, you don't know; but shall we see any
one else, then?"  The fellow, it seems, had better eyes than I, and he
points to the hill just above my old house; and though we lay half a
league off, he cries out, "We see! we see! yes, we see much man there,
and there, and there."  I looked, but I saw nobody, no, not with a
perspective glass, which was, I suppose, because I could not hit the
place: for the fellow was right, as I found upon inquiry the next day;
and there were five or six men all together, who stood to look at the
ship, not knowing what to think of us.

As soon as Friday told me he saw people, I caused the English ancient to
be spread, and fired three guns, to give them notice we were friends; and
in about a quarter of an hour after we perceived a smoke arise from the
side of the creek; so I immediately ordered the boat out, taking Friday
with me, and hanging out a white flag, I went directly on shore, taking
with me the young friar I mentioned, to whom I had told the story of my
living there, and the manner of it, and every particular both of myself
and those I left there, and who was on that account extremely desirous to
go with me.  We had, besides, about sixteen men well armed, if we had
found any new guests there which we did not know of; but we had no need
of weapons.

As we went on shore upon the tide of flood, near high water, we rowed
directly into the creek; and the first man I fixed my eye upon was the
Spaniard whose life I had saved, and whom I knew by his face perfectly
well: as to his habit, I shall describe it afterwards.  I ordered nobody
to go on shore at first but myself; but there was no keeping Friday in
the boat, for the affectionate creature had spied his father at a
distance, a good way off the Spaniards, where, indeed, I saw nothing of
him; and if they had not let him go ashore, he would have jumped into the
sea.  He was no sooner on shore, but he flew away to his father like an
arrow out of a bow.  It would have made any man shed tears, in spite of
the firmest resolution, to have seen the first transports of this poor
fellow's joy when he came to his father: how he embraced him, kissed him,
stroked his face, took him up in his arms, set him down upon a tree, and
lay down by him; then stood and looked at him, as any one would look at a
strange picture, for a quarter of an hour together; then lay down on the
ground, and stroked his legs, and kissed them, and then got up again and
stared at him; one would have thought the fellow bewitched.  But it would
have made a dog laugh the next day to see how his passion ran out another
way: in the morning he walked along the shore with his father several
hours, always leading him by the hand, as if he had been a lady; and
every now and then he would come to the boat to fetch something or other
for him, either a lump of sugar, a dram, a biscuit, or something or other
that was good.  In the afternoon his frolics ran another way; for then he
would set the old man down upon the ground, and dance about him, and make
a thousand antic gestures; and all the while he did this he would be
talking to him, and telling him one story or another of his travels, and
of what had happened to him abroad to divert him.  In short, if the same
filial affection was to be found in Christians to their parents in our
part of the world, one would be tempted to say there would hardly have
been any need of the fifth commandment.

But this is a digression: I return to my landing.  It would be needless
to take notice of all the ceremonies and civilities that the Spaniards
received me with.  The first Spaniard, whom, as I said, I knew very well,
was he whose life I had saved.  He came towards the boat, attended by one
more, carrying a flag of truce also; and he not only did not know me at
first, but he had no thoughts, no notion of its being me that was come,
till I spoke to him.  "Seignior," said I, in Portuguese, "do you not know
me?"  At which he spoke not a word, but giving his musket to the man that
was with him, threw his arms abroad, saying something in Spanish that I
did not perfectly hear, came forward and embraced me, telling me he was
inexcusable not to know that face again that he had once seen, as of an
angel from heaven sent to save his life; he said abundance of very
handsome things, as a well-bred Spaniard always knows how, and then,
beckoning to the person that attended him, bade him go and call out his
comrades.  He then asked me if I would walk to my old habitation, where
he would give me possession of my own house again, and where I should see
they had made but mean improvements.  I walked along with him, but, alas!
I could no more find the place than if I had never been there; for they
had planted so many trees, and placed them in such a position, so thick
and close to one another, and in ten years' time they were grown so big,
that the place was inaccessible, except by such windings and blind ways
as they themselves only, who made them, could find.

I asked them what put them upon all these fortifications; he told me I
would say there was need enough of it when they had given me an account
how they had passed their time since their arriving in the island,
especially after they had the misfortune to find that I was gone.  He
told me he could not but have some pleasure in my good fortune, when he
heard that I was gone in a good ship, and to my satisfaction; and that he
had oftentimes a strong persuasion that one time or other he should see
me again, but nothing that ever befell him in his life, he said, was so
surprising and afflicting to him at first as the disappointment he was
under when he came back to the island and found I was not there.

As to the three barbarians (so he called them) that were left behind, and
of whom, he said, he had a long story to tell me, the Spaniards all
thought themselves much better among the savages, only that their number
was so small: "And," says he, "had they been strong enough, we had been
all long ago in purgatory;" and with that he crossed himself on the
breast.  "But, sir," says he, "I hope you will not be displeased when I
shall tell you how, forced by necessity, we were obliged for our own
preservation to disarm them, and make them our subjects, as they would
not be content with being moderately our masters, but would be our
murderers."  I answered I was afraid of it when I left them there, and
nothing troubled me at my parting from the island but that they were not
come back, that I might have put them in possession of everything first,
and left the others in a state of subjection, as they deserved; but if
they had reduced them to it I was very glad, and should be very far from
finding any fault with it; for I knew they were a parcel of refractory,
ungoverned villains, and were fit for any manner of mischief.

While I was saying this, the man came whom he had sent back, and with him
eleven more.  In the dress they were in it was impossible to guess what
nation they were of; but he made all clear, both to them and to me.
First, he turned to me, and pointing to them, said, "These, sir, are some
of the gentlemen who owe their lives to you;" and then turning to them,
and pointing to me, he let them know who I was; upon which they all came
up, one by one, not as if they had been sailors, and ordinary fellows,
and the like, but really as if they had been ambassadors or noblemen, and
I a monarch or great conqueror: their behaviour was, to the last degree,
obliging and courteous, and yet mixed with a manly, majestic gravity,
which very well became them; and, in short, they had so much more manners
than I, that I scarce knew how to receive their civilities, much less how
to return them in kind.

The history of their coming to, and conduct in, the island after my going
away is so very remarkable, and has so many incidents which the former
part of my relation will help to understand, and which will in most of
the particulars, refer to the account I have already given, that I cannot
but commit them, with great delight, to the reading of those that come
after me.

In order to do this as intelligibly as I can, I must go back to the
circumstances in which I left the island, and the persons on it, of whom
I am to speak.  And first, it is necessary to repeat that I had sent away
Friday's father and the Spaniard (the two whose lives I had rescued from
the savages) in a large canoe to the main, as I then thought it, to fetch
over the Spaniard's companions that he left behind him, in order to save
them from the like calamity that he had been in, and in order to succour
them for the present; and that, if possible, we might together find some
way for our deliverance afterwards.  When I sent them away I had no
visible appearance of, or the least room to hope for, my own deliverance,
any more than I had twenty years before--much less had I any
foreknowledge of what afterwards happened, I mean, of an English ship
coming on shore there to fetch me off; and it could not be but a very
great surprise to them, when they came back, not only to find that I was
gone, but to find three strangers left on the spot, possessed of all that
I had left behind me, which would otherwise have been their own.

The first thing, however, which I inquired into, that I might begin where
I left off, was of their own part; and I desired the Spaniard would give
me a particular account of his voyage back to his countrymen with the
boat, when I sent him to fetch them over.  He told me there was little
variety in that part, for nothing remarkable happened to them on the way,
having had very calm weather and a smooth sea.  As for his countrymen, it
could not be doubted, he said, but that they were overjoyed to see him
(it seems he was the principal man among them, the captain of the vessel
they had been shipwrecked in having been dead some time): they were, he
said, the more surprised to see him, because they knew that he was fallen
into the hands of the savages, who, they were satisfied, would devour him
as they did all the rest of their prisoners; that when he told them the
story of his deliverance, and in what manner he was furnished for
carrying them away, it was like a dream to them, and their astonishment,
he said, was somewhat like that of Joseph's brethren when he told them
who he was, and the story of his exaltation in Pharaoh's court; but when
he showed them the arms, the powder, the ball, the provisions that he
brought them for their journey or voyage, they were restored to
themselves, took a just share of the joy of their deliverance, and
immediately prepared to come away with him.

Their first business was to get canoes; and in this they were obliged not
to stick so much upon the honesty of it, but to trespass upon their
friendly savages, and to borrow two large canoes, or periaguas, on
pretence of going out a-fishing, or for pleasure.  In these they came
away the next morning.  It seems they wanted no time to get themselves
ready; for they had neither clothes nor provisions, nor anything in the
world but what they had on them, and a few roots to eat, of which they
used to make their bread.  They were in all three weeks absent; and in
that time, unluckily for them, I had the occasion offered for my escape,
as I mentioned in the other part, and to get off from the island, leaving
three of the most impudent, hardened, ungoverned, disagreeable villains
behind me that any man could desire to meet with--to the poor Spaniards'
great grief and disappointment.

The only just thing the rogues did was, that when the Spaniards came
ashore, they gave my letter to them, and gave them provisions, and other
relief, as I had ordered them to do; also they gave them the long paper
of directions which I had left with them, containing the particular
methods which I took for managing every part of my life there; the way I
baked my bread, bred up tame goats, and planted my corn; how I cured my
grapes, made my pots, and, in a word, everything I did.  All this being
written down, they gave to the Spaniards (two of them understood English
well enough): nor did they refuse to accommodate the Spaniards with
anything else, for they agreed very well for some time.  They gave them
an equal admission into the house or cave, and they began to live very
sociably; and the head Spaniard, who had seen pretty much of my methods,
together with Friday's father, managed all their affairs; but as for the
Englishmen, they did nothing but ramble about the island, shoot parrots,
and catch tortoises; and when they came home at night, the Spaniards
provided their suppers for them.

The Spaniards would have been satisfied with this had the others but let
them alone, which, however, they could not find in their hearts to do
long: but, like the dog in the manger, they would not eat themselves,
neither would they let the others eat.  The differences, nevertheless,
were at first but trivial, and such as are not worth relating, but at
last it broke out into open war: and it began with all the rudeness and
insolence that can be imagined--without reason, without provocation,
contrary to nature, and indeed to common sense; and though, it is true,
the first relation of it came from the Spaniards themselves, whom I may
call the accusers, yet when I came to examine the fellows they could not
deny a word of it.

But before I come to the particulars of this part, I must supply a defect
in my former relation; and this was, I forgot to set down among the rest,
that just as we were weighing the anchor to set sail, there happened a
little quarrel on board of our ship, which I was once afraid would have
turned to a second mutiny; nor was it appeased till the captain, rousing
up his courage, and taking us all to his assistance, parted them by
force, and making two of the most refractory fellows prisoners, he laid
them in irons: and as they had been active in the former disorders, and
let fall some ugly, dangerous words the second time, he threatened to
carry them in irons to England, and have them hanged there for mutiny and
running away with the ship.  This, it seems, though the captain did not
intend to do it, frightened some other men in the ship; and some of them
had put it into the head of the rest that the captain only gave them good
words for the present, till they should come to same English port, and
that then they should be all put into gaol, and tried for their lives.
The mate got intelligence of this, and acquainted us with it, upon which
it was desired that I, who still passed for a great man among them,
should go down with the mate and satisfy the men, and tell them that they
might be assured, if they behaved well the rest of the voyage, all they
had done for the time past should be pardoned.  So I went, and after
passing my honour's word to them they appeared easy, and the more so when
I caused the two men that were in irons to be released and forgiven.

But this mutiny had brought us to an anchor for that night; the wind also
falling calm next morning, we found that our two men who had been laid in
irons had stolen each of them a musket and some other weapons (what
powder or shot they had we knew not), and had taken the ship's pinnace,
which was not yet hauled up, and run away with her to their companions in
roguery on shore.  As soon as we found this, I ordered the long-boat on
shore, with twelve men and the mate, and away they went to seek the
rogues; but they could neither find them nor any of the rest, for they
all fled into the woods when they saw the boat coming on shore.  The mate
was once resolved, in justice to their roguery, to have destroyed their
plantations, burned all their household stuff and furniture, and left
them to shift without it; but having no orders, he let it all alone, left
everything as he found it, and bringing the pinnace way, came on board
without them.  These two men made their number five; but the other three
villains were so much more wicked than they, that after they had been two
or three days together they turned the two newcomers out of doors to
shift for themselves, and would have nothing to do with them; nor could
they for a good while be persuaded to give them any food: as for the
Spaniards, they were not yet come.

When the Spaniards came first on shore, the business began to go forward:
the Spaniards would have persuaded the three English brutes to have taken
in their countrymen again, that, as they said, they might be all one
family; but they would not hear of it, so the two poor fellows lived by
themselves; and finding nothing but industry and application would make
them live comfortably, they pitched their tents on the north shore of the
island, but a little more to the west, to be out of danger of the
savages, who always landed on the east parts of the island.  Here they
built them two huts, one to lodge in, and the other to lay up their
magazines and stores in; and the Spaniards having given them some corn
for seed, and some of the peas which I had left them, they dug, planted,
and enclosed, after the pattern I had set for them all, and began to live
pretty well.  Their first crop of corn was on the ground; and though it
was but a little bit of land which they had dug up at first, having had
but a little time, yet it was enough to relieve them, and find them with
bread and other eatables; and one of the fellows being the cook's mate of
the ship, was very ready at making soup, puddings, and such other
preparations as the rice and the milk, and such little flesh as they got,
furnished him to do.

They were going on in this little thriving position when the three
unnatural rogues, their own countrymen too, in mere humour, and to insult
them, came and bullied them, and told them the island was theirs: that
the governor, meaning me, had given them the possession of it, and nobody
else had any right to it; and that they should build no houses upon their
ground unless they would pay rent for them.  The two men, thinking they
were jesting at first, asked them to come in and sit down, and see what
fine houses they were that they had built, and to tell them what rent
they demanded; and one of them merrily said if they were the
ground-landlords, he hoped if they built tenements upon their land, and
made improvements, they would, according to the custom of landlords,
grant a long lease: and desired they would get a scrivener to draw the
writings.  One of the three, cursing and raging, told them they should
see they were not in jest; and going to a little place at a distance,
where the honest men had made a fire to dress their victuals, he takes a
firebrand, and claps it to the outside of their hut, and set it on fire:
indeed, it would have been all burned down in a few minutes if one of the
two had not run to the fellow, thrust him away, and trod the fire out
with his feet, and that not without some difficulty too.

The fellow was in such a rage at the honest man's thrusting him away,
that he returned upon him, with a pole he had in his hand, and had not
the man avoided the blow very nimbly, and run into the hut, he had ended
his days at once.  His comrade, seeing the danger they were both in, ran
after him, and immediately they came both out with their muskets, and the
man that was first struck at with the pole knocked the fellow down that
began the quarrel with the stock of his musket, and that before the other
two could come to help him; and then, seeing the rest come at them, they
stood together, and presenting the other ends of their pieces to them,
bade them stand off.

The others had firearms with them too; but one of the two honest men,
bolder than his comrade, and made desperate by his danger, told them if
they offered to move hand or foot they were dead men, and boldly
commanded them to lay down their arms.  They did not, indeed, lay down
their arms, but seeing him so resolute, it brought them to a parley, and
they consented to take their wounded man with them and be gone: and,
indeed, it seems the fellow was wounded sufficiently with the blow.
However, they were much in the wrong, since they had the advantage, that
they did not disarm them effectually, as they might have done, and have
gone immediately to the Spaniards, and given them an account how the
rogues had treated them; for the three villains studied nothing but
revenge, and every day gave them some intimation that they did so.




CHAPTER III--FIGHT WITH CANNIBALS


But not to crowd this part with an account of the lesser part of the
rogueries with which they plagued them continually, night and day, it
forced the two men to such a desperation that they resolved to fight them
all three, the first time they had a fair opportunity.  In order to do
this they resolved to go to the castle (as they called my old dwelling),
where the three rogues and the Spaniards all lived together at that time,
intending to have a fair battle, and the Spaniards should stand by to see
fair play: so they got up in the morning before day, and came to the
place, and called the Englishmen by their names telling a Spaniard that
answered that they wanted to speak with them.

It happened that the day before two of the Spaniards, having been in the
woods, had seen one of the two Englishmen, whom, for distinction, I
called the honest men, and he had made a sad complaint to the Spaniards
of the barbarous usage they had met with from their three countrymen, and
how they had ruined their plantation, and destroyed their corn, that they
had laboured so hard to bring forward, and killed the milch-goat and
their three kids, which was all they had provided for their sustenance,
and that if he and his friends, meaning the Spaniards, did not assist
them again, they should be starved.  When the Spaniards came home at
night, and they were all at supper, one of them took the freedom to
reprove the three Englishmen, though in very gentle and mannerly terms,
and asked them how they could be so cruel, they being harmless,
inoffensive fellows: that they were putting themselves in a way to
subsist by their labour, and that it had cost them a great deal of pains
to bring things to such perfection as they were then in.

One of the Englishmen returned very briskly, "What had they to do there?
that they came on shore without leave; and that they should not plant or
build upon the island; it was none of their ground."  "Why," says the
Spaniard, very calmly, "Seignior Inglese, they must not starve."  The
Englishman replied, like a rough tarpaulin, "They might starve; they
should not plant nor build in that place."  "But what must they do then,
seignior?" said the Spaniard.  Another of the brutes returned, "Do? they
should be servants, and work for them."  "But how can you expect that of
them?" says the Spaniard; "they are not bought with your money; you have
no right to make them servants."  The Englishman answered, "The island
was theirs; the governor had given it to them, and no man had anything to
do there but themselves;" and with that he swore that he would go and
burn all their new huts; they should build none upon their land.  "Why,
seignior," says the Spaniard, "by the same rule, we must be your
servants, too."  "Ay," returned the bold dog, "and so you shall, too,
before we have done with you;" mixing two or three oaths in the proper
intervals of his speech.  The Spaniard only smiled at that, and made him
no answer.  However, this little discourse had heated them; and starting
up, one says to the other.  (I think it was he they called Will Atkins),
"Come, Jack, let's go and have t'other brush with them; we'll demolish
their castle, I'll warrant you; they shall plant no colony in our
dominions."

Upon this they were all trooping away, with every man a gun, a pistol,
and a sword, and muttered some insolent things among themselves of what
they would do to the Spaniards, too, when opportunity offered; but the
Spaniards, it seems, did not so perfectly understand them as to know all
the particulars, only that in general they threatened them hard for
taking the two Englishmen's part.  Whither they went, or how they
bestowed their time that evening, the Spaniards said they did not know;
but it seems they wandered about the country part of the night, and them
lying down in the place which I used to call my bower, they were weary
and overslept themselves.  The case was this: they had resolved to stay
till midnight, and so take the two poor men when they were asleep, and as
they acknowledged afterwards, intended to set fire to their huts while
they were in them, and either burn them there or murder them as they came
out.  As malice seldom sleeps very sound, it was very strange they should
not have been kept awake.  However, as the two men had also a design upon
them, as I have said, though a much fairer one than that of burning and
murdering, it happened, and very luckily for them all, that they were up
and gone abroad before the bloody-minded rogues came to their huts.

When they came there, and found the men gone, Atkins, who it seems was
the forwardest man, called out to his comrade, "Ha, Jack, here's the
nest, but the birds are flown."  They mused a while, to think what should
be the occasion of their being gone abroad so soon, and suggested
presently that the Spaniards had given them notice of it; and with that
they shook hands, and swore to one another that they would be revenged of
the Spaniards.  As soon as they had made this bloody bargain they fell to
work with the poor men's habitation; they did not set fire, indeed, to
anything, but they pulled down both their houses, and left not the least
stick standing, or scarce any sign on the ground where they stood; they
tore all their household stuff in pieces, and threw everything about in
such a manner, that the poor men afterwards found some of their things a
mile off.  When they had done this, they pulled up all the young trees
which the poor men had planted; broke down an enclosure they had made to
secure their cattle and their corn; and, in a word, sacked and plundered
everything as completely as a horde of Tartars would have done.

The two men were at this juncture gone to find them out, and had resolved
to fight them wherever they had been, though they were but two to three;
so that, had they met, there certainly would have been blood shed among
them, for they were all very stout, resolute fellows, to give them their
due.

But Providence took more care to keep them asunder than they themselves
could do to meet; for, as if they had dogged one another, when the three
were gone thither, the two were here; and afterwards, when the two went
back to find them, the three were come to the old habitation again: we
shall see their different conduct presently.  When the three came back
like furious creatures, flushed with the rage which the work they had
been about had put them into, they came up to the Spaniards, and told
them what they had done, by way of scoff and bravado; and one of them
stepping up to one of the Spaniards, as if they had been a couple of boys
at play, takes hold of his hat as it was upon his head, and giving it a
twirl about, fleering in his face, says to him, "And you, Seignior Jack
Spaniard, shall have the same sauce if you do not mend your manners."  The
Spaniard, who, though a quiet civil man, was as brave a man as could be,
and withal a strong, well-made man, looked at him for a good while, and
then, having no weapon in his hand, stepped gravely up to him, and, with
one blow of his fist, knocked him down, as an ox is felled with a pole-
axe; at which one of the rogues, as insolent as the first, fired his
pistol at the Spaniard immediately; he missed his body, indeed, for the
bullets went through his hair, but one of them touched the tip of his
ear, and he bled pretty much.  The blood made the Spaniard believe he was
more hurt than he really was, and that put him into some heat, for before
he acted all in a perfect calm; but now resolving to go through with his
work, he stooped, and taking the fellow's musket whom he had knocked
down, was just going to shoot the man who had fired at him, when the rest
of the Spaniards, being in the cave, came out, and calling to him not to
shoot, they stepped in, secured the other two, and took their arms from
them.

When they were thus disarmed, and found they had made all the Spaniards
their enemies, as well as their own countrymen, they began to cool, and
giving the Spaniards better words, would have their arms again; but the
Spaniards, considering the feud that was between them and the other two
Englishmen, and that it would be the best method they could take to keep
them from killing one another, told them they would do them no harm, and
if they would live peaceably, they would be very willing to assist and
associate with them as they did before; but that they could not think of
giving them their arms again, while they appeared so resolved to do
mischief with them to their own countrymen, and had even threatened them
all to make them their servants.

The rogues were now quite deaf to all reason, and being refused their
arms, they raved away like madmen, threatening what they would do, though
they had no firearms.  But the Spaniards, despising their threatening,
told them they should take care how they offered any injury to their
plantation or cattle; for if they did they would shoot them as they would
ravenous beasts, wherever they found them; and if they fell into their
hands alive, they should certainly be hanged.  However, this was far from
cooling them, but away they went, raging and swearing like furies.  As
soon as they were gone, the two men came back, in passion and rage enough
also, though of another kind; for having been at their plantation, and
finding it all demolished and destroyed, as above mentioned, it will
easily be supposed they had provocation enough.  They could scarce have
room to tell their tale, the Spaniards were so eager to tell them theirs:
and it was strange enough to find that three men should thus bully
nineteen, and receive no punishment at all.

The Spaniards, indeed, despised them, and especially, having thus
disarmed them, made light of their threatenings; but the two Englishmen
resolved to have their remedy against them, what pains soever it cost to
find them out.  But the Spaniards interposed here too, and told them that
as they had disarmed them, they could not consent that they (the two)
should pursue them with firearms, and perhaps kill them.  "But," said the
grave Spaniard, who was their governor, "we will endeavour to make them
do you justice, if you will leave it to us: for there is no doubt but
they will come to us again, when their passion is over, being not able to
subsist without our assistance.  We promise you to make no peace with
them without having full satisfaction for you; and upon this condition we
hope you will promise to use no violence with them, other than in your
own defence."  The two Englishmen yielded to this very awkwardly, and
with great reluctance; but the Spaniards protested that they did it only
to keep them from bloodshed, and to make them all easy at last.  "For,"
said they, "we are not so many of us; here is room enough for us all, and
it is a great pity that we should not be all good friends."  At length
they did consent, and waited for the issue of the thing, living for some
days with the Spaniards; for their own habitation was destroyed.

In about five days' time the vagrants, tired with wandering, and almost
starved with hunger, having chiefly lived on turtles' eggs all that
while, came back to the grove; and finding my Spaniard, who, as I have
said, was the governor, and two more with him, walking by the side of the
creek, they came up in a very submissive, humble manner, and begged to be
received again into the society.  The Spaniards used them civilly, but
told them they had acted so unnaturally to their countrymen, and so very
grossly to themselves, that they could not come to any conclusion without
consulting the two Englishmen and the rest; but, however, they would go
to them and discourse about it, and they should know in half-an-hour.  It
may be guessed that they were very hard put to it; for, as they were to
wait this half-hour for an answer, they begged they would send them out
some bread in the meantime, which they did, sending at the same time a
large piece of goat's flesh and a boiled parrot, which they ate very
eagerly.

After half-an-hour's consultation they were called in, and a long debate
ensued, their two countrymen charging them with the ruin of all their
labour, and a design to murder them; all which they owned before, and
therefore could not deny now.  Upon the whole, the Spaniards acted the
moderators between them; and as they had obliged the two Englishmen not
to hurt the three while they were naked and unarmed, so they now obliged
the three to go and rebuild their fellows' two huts, one to be of the
same and the other of larger dimensions than they were before; to fence
their ground again, plant trees in the room of those pulled up, dig up
the land again for planting corn, and, in a word, to restore everything
to the same state as they found it, that is, as near as they could.

Well, they submitted to all this; and as they had plenty of provisions
given them all the while, they grew very orderly, and the whole society
began to live pleasantly and agreeably together again; only that these
three fellows could never be persuaded to work--I mean for
themselves--except now and then a little, just as they pleased.  However,
the Spaniards told them plainly that if they would but live sociably and
friendly together, and study the good of the whole plantation, they would
be content to work for them, and let them walk about and be as idle as
they pleased; and thus, having lived pretty well together for a month or
two, the Spaniards let them have arms again, and gave them liberty to go
abroad with them as before.

It was not above a week after they had these arms, and went abroad,
before the ungrateful creatures began to be as insolent and troublesome
as ever.  However, an accident happened presently upon this, which
endangered the safety of them all, and they were obliged to lay by all
private resentments, and look to the preservation of their lives.

It happened one night that the governor, the Spaniard whose life I had
saved, who was now the governor of the rest, found himself very uneasy in
the night, and could by no means get any sleep: he was perfectly well in
body, only found his thoughts tumultuous; his mind ran upon men fighting
and killing one another; but he was broad awake, and could not by any
means get any sleep; in short, he lay a great while, but growing more and
more uneasy, he resolved to rise.  As they lay, being so many of them, on
goat-skins laid thick upon such couches and pads as they made for
themselves, so they had little to do, when they were willing to rise, but
to get upon their feet, and perhaps put on a coat, such as it was, and
their pumps, and they were ready for going any way that their thoughts
guided them.  Being thus got up, he looked out; but being dark, he could
see little or nothing, and besides, the trees which I had planted, and
which were now grown tall, intercepted his sight, so that he could only
look up, and see that it was a starlight night, and hearing no noise, he
returned and lay down again; but to no purpose; he could not compose
himself to anything like rest; but his thoughts were to the last degree
uneasy, and he knew not for what.  Having made some noise with rising and
walking about, going out and coming in, another of them waked, and asked
who it was that was up.  The governor told him how it had been with him.
"Say you so?" says the other Spaniard; "such things are not to be
slighted, I assure you; there is certainly some mischief working near
us;" and presently he asked him, "Where are the Englishmen?"  "They are
all in their huts," says he, "safe enough."  It seems the Spaniards had
kept possession of the main apartment, and had made a place for the three
Englishmen, who, since their last mutiny, were always quartered by
themselves, and could not come at the rest.  "Well," says the Spaniard,
"there is something in it, I am persuaded, from my own experience.  I am
satisfied that our spirits embodied have a converse with and receive
intelligence from the spirits unembodied, and inhabiting the invisible
world; and this friendly notice is given for our advantage, if we knew
how to make use of it.  Come, let us go and look abroad; and if we find
nothing at all in it to justify the trouble, I'll tell you a story to the
purpose, that shall convince you of the justice of my proposing it."

They went out presently to go up to the top of the hill, where I used to
go; but they being strong, and a good company, nor alone, as I was, used
none of my cautions to go up by the ladder, and pulling it up after them,
to go up a second stage to the top, but were going round through the
grove unwarily, when they were surprised with seeing a light as of fire,
a very little way from them, and hearing the voices of men, not of one or
two, but of a great number.

Among the precautions I used to take on the savages landing on the
island, it was my constant care to prevent them making the least
discovery of there being any inhabitant upon the place: and when by any
occasion they came to know it, they felt it so effectually that they that
got away were scarce able to give any account of it; for we disappeared
as soon as possible, nor did ever any that had seen me escape to tell any
one else, except it was the three savages in our last encounter who
jumped into the boat; of whom, I mentioned, I was afraid they should go
home and bring more help.  Whether it was the consequence of the escape
of those men that so great a number came now together, or whether they
came ignorantly, and by accident, on their usual bloody errand, the
Spaniards could not understand; but whatever it was, it was their
business either to have concealed themselves or not to have seen them at
all, much less to have let the savages have seen there were any
inhabitants in the place; or to have fallen upon them so effectually as
not a man of them should have escaped, which could only have been by
getting in between them and their boats; but this presence of mind was
wanting to them, which was the ruin of their tranquillity for a great
while.

We need not doubt but that the governor and the man with him, surprised
with this sight, ran back immediately and raised their fellows, giving
them an account of the imminent danger they were all in, and they again
as readily took the alarm; but it was impossible to persuade them to stay
close within where they were, but they must all run out to see how things
stood.  While it was dark, indeed, they were safe, and they had
opportunity enough for some hours to view the savages by the light of
three fires they had made at a distance from one another; what they were
doing they knew not, neither did they know what to do themselves.  For,
first, the enemy were too many; and secondly, they did not keep together,
but were divided into several parties, and were on shore in several
places.

The Spaniards were in no small consternation at this sight; and, as they
found that the fellows went straggling all over the shore, they made no
doubt but, first or last, some of them would chop in upon their
habitation, or upon some other place where they would see the token of
inhabitants; and they were in great perplexity also for fear of their
flock of goats, which, if they should be destroyed, would have been
little less than starving them.  So the first thing they resolved upon
was to despatch three men away before it was light, two Spaniards and one
Englishman, to drive away all the goats to the great valley where the
cave was, and, if need were, to drive them into the very cave itself.
Could they have seen the savages all together in one body, and at a
distance from their canoes, they were resolved, if there had been a
hundred of them, to attack them; but that could not be done, for they
were some of them two miles off from the other, and, as it appeared
afterwards, were of two different nations.

After having mused a great while on the course they should take, they
resolved at last, while it was still dark, to send the old savage,
Friday's father, out as a spy, to learn, if possible, something
concerning them, as what they came for, what they intended to do, and the
like.  The old man readily undertook it; and stripping himself quite
naked, as most of the savages were, away he went.  After he had been gone
an hour or two, he brings word that he had been among them undiscovered,
that he found they were two parties, and of two several nations, who had
war with one another, and had a great battle in their own country; and
that both sides having had several prisoners taken in the fight, they
were, by mere chance, landed all on the same island, for the devouring
their prisoners and making merry; but their coming so by chance to the
same place had spoiled all their mirth--that they were in a great rage at
one another, and were so near that he believed they would fight again as
soon as daylight began to appear; but he did not perceive that they had
any notion of anybody being on the island but themselves.  He had hardly
made an end of telling his story, when they could perceive, by the
unusual noise they made, that the two little armies were engaged in a
bloody fight.  Friday's father used all the arguments he could to
persuade our people to lie close, and not be seen; he told them their
safety consisted in it, and that they had nothing to do but lie still,
and the savages would kill one another to their hands, and then the rest
would go away; and it was so to a tittle.  But it was impossible to
prevail, especially upon the Englishmen; their curiosity was so
importunate that they must run out and see the battle.  However, they
used some caution too: they did not go openly, just by their own
dwelling, but went farther into the woods, and placed themselves to
advantage, where they might securely see them manage the fight, and, as
they thought, not be seen by them; but the savages did see them, as we
shall find hereafter.

The battle was very fierce, and, if I might believe the Englishmen, one
of them said he could perceive that some of them were men of great
bravery, of invincible spirit, and of great policy in guiding the fight.
The battle, they said, held two hours before they could guess which party
would be beaten; but then that party which was nearest our people's
habitation began to appear weakest, and after some time more some of them
began to fly; and this put our men again into a great consternation, lest
any one of those that fled should run into the grove before their
dwelling for shelter, and thereby involuntarily discover the place; and
that, by consequence, the pursuers would also do the like in search of
them.  Upon this, they resolved that they would stand armed within the
wall, and whoever came into the grove, they resolved to sally out over
the wall and kill them, so that, if possible, not one should return to
give an account of it; they ordered also that it should be done with
their swords, or by knocking them down with the stocks of their muskets,
but not by shooting them, for fear of raising an alarm by the noise.

As they expected it fell out; three of the routed army fled for life, and
crossing the creek, ran directly into the place, not in the least knowing
whither they went, but running as into a thick wood for shelter.  The
scout they kept to look abroad gave notice of this within, with this
comforting addition, that the conquerors had not pursued them, or seen
which way they were gone; upon this the Spanish governor, a man of
humanity, would not suffer them to kill the three fugitives, but sending
three men out by the top of the hill, ordered them to go round, come in
behind them, and surprise and take them prisoners, which was done.  The
residue of the conquered people fled to their canoes, and got off to sea;
the victors retired, made no pursuit, or very little, but drawing
themselves into a body together, gave two great screaming shouts, most
likely by way of triumph, and so the fight ended; the same day, about
three o'clock in the afternoon, they also marched to their canoes.  And
thus the Spaniards had the island again free to themselves, their fright
was over, and they saw no savages for several years after.

After they were all gone, the Spaniards came out of their den, and
viewing the field of battle, they found about two-and-thirty men dead on
the spot; some were killed with long arrows, which were found sticking in
their bodies; but most of them were killed with great wooden swords,
sixteen or seventeen of which they found in the field of battle, and as
many bows, with a great many arrows.  These swords were strange, unwieldy
things, and they must be very strong men that used them; most of those
that were killed with them had their heads smashed to pieces, as we may
say, or, as we call it in English, their brains knocked out, and several
their arms and legs broken; so that it is evident they fight with
inexpressible rage and fury.  We found not one man that was not stone
dead; for either they stay by their enemy till they have killed him, or
they carry all the wounded men that are not quite dead away with them.

This deliverance tamed our ill-disposed Englishmen for a great while; the
sight had filled them with horror, and the consequences appeared terrible
to the last degree, especially upon supposing that some time or other
they should fall into the hands of those creatures, who would not only
kill them as enemies, but for food, as we kill our cattle; and they
professed to me that the thoughts of being eaten up like beef and mutton,
though it was supposed it was not to be till they were dead, had
something in it so horrible that it nauseated their very stomachs, made
them sick when they thought of it, and filled their minds with such
unusual terror, that they were not themselves for some weeks after.  This,
as I said, tamed even the three English brutes I have been speaking of;
and for a great while after they were tractable, and went about the
common business of the whole society well enough--planted, sowed, reaped,
and began to be all naturalised to the country.  But some time after this
they fell into such simple measures again as brought them into a great
deal of trouble.

They had taken three prisoners, as I observed; and these three being
stout young fellows, they made them servants, and taught them to work for
them, and as slaves they did well enough; but they did not take their
measures as I did by my man Friday, viz. to begin with them upon the
principle of having saved their lives, and then instruct them in the
rational principles of life; much less did they think of teaching them
religion, or attempt civilising and reducing them by kind usage and
affectionate arguments.  As they gave them their food every day, so they
gave them their work too, and kept them fully employed in drudgery
enough; but they failed in this by it, that they never had them to assist
them and fight for them as I had my man Friday, who was as true to me as
the very flesh upon my bones.

But to come to the family part.  Being all now good friends--for common
danger, as I said above, had effectually reconciled them--they began to
consider their general circumstances; and the first thing that came under
consideration was whether, seeing the savages particularly haunted that
side of the island, and that there were more remote and retired parts of
it equally adapted to their way of living, and manifestly to their
advantage, they should not rather move their habitation, and plant in
some more proper place for their safety, and especially for the security
of their cattle and corn.

Upon this, after long debate, it was concluded that they would not remove
their habitation; because that, some time or other, they thought they
might hear from their governor again, meaning me; and if I should send
any one to seek them, I should be sure to direct them to that side,
where, if they should find the place demolished, they would conclude the
savages had killed us all, and we were gone, and so our supply would go
too.  But as to their corn and cattle, they agreed to remove them into
the valley where my cave was, where the land was as proper for both, and
where indeed there was land enough.  However, upon second thoughts they
altered one part of their resolution too, and resolved only to remove
part of their cattle thither, and part of their corn there; so that if
one part was destroyed the other might be saved.  And one part of
prudence they luckily used: they never trusted those three savages which
they had taken prisoners with knowing anything of the plantation they had
made in that valley, or of any cattle they had there, much less of the
cave at that place, which they kept, in case of necessity, as a safe
retreat; and thither they carried also the two barrels of powder which I
had sent them at my coming away.  They resolved, however, not to change
their habitation; yet, as I had carefully covered it first with a wall or
fortification, and then with a grove of trees, and as they were now fully
convinced their safety consisted entirely in their being concealed, they
set to work to cover and conceal the place yet more effectually than
before.  For this purpose, as I planted trees, or rather thrust in
stakes, which in time all grew up to be trees, for some good distance
before the entrance into my apartments, they went on in the same manner,
and filled up the rest of that whole space of ground from the trees I had
set quite down to the side of the creek, where I landed my floats, and
even into the very ooze where the tide flowed, not so much as leaving any
place to land, or any sign that there had been any landing thereabouts:
these stakes also being of a wood very forward to grow, they took care to
have them generally much larger and taller than those which I had
planted.  As they grew apace, they planted them so very thick and close
together, that when they had been three or four years grown there was no
piercing with the eye any considerable way into the plantation.  As for
that part which I had planted, the trees were grown as thick as a man's
thigh, and among them they had placed so many other short ones, and so
thick, that it stood like a palisado a quarter of a mile thick, and it
was next to impossible to penetrate it, for a little dog could hardly get
between the trees, they stood so close.

But this was not all; for they did the same by all the ground to the
right hand and to the left, and round even to the side of the hill,
leaving no way, not so much as for themselves, to come out but by the
ladder placed up to the side of the hill, and then lifted up, and placed
again from the first stage up to the top: so that when the ladder was
taken down, nothing but what had wings or witchcraft to assist it could
come at them.  This was excellently well contrived: nor was it less than
what they afterwards found occasion for, which served to convince me,
that as human prudence has the authority of Providence to justify it, so
it has doubtless the direction of Providence to set it to work; and if we
listened carefully to the voice of it, I am persuaded we might prevent
many of the disasters which our lives are now, by our own negligence,
subjected to.

They lived two years after this in perfect retirement, and had no more
visits from the savages.  They had, indeed, an alarm given them one
morning, which put them into a great consternation; for some of the
Spaniards being out early one morning on the west side or end of the
island (which was that end where I never went, for fear of being
discovered), they were surprised with seeing about twenty canoes of
Indians just coming on shore.  They made the best of their way home in
hurry enough; and giving the alarm to their comrades, they kept close all
that day and the next, going out only at night to make their observation:
but they had the good luck to be undiscovered, for wherever the savages
went, they did not land that time on the island, but pursued some other
design.




CHAPTER IV--RENEWED INVASION OF SAVAGES


And now they had another broil with the three Englishmen; one of whom, a
most turbulent fellow, being in a rage at one of the three captive
slaves, because the fellow had not done something right which he bade him
do, and seemed a little untractable in his showing him, drew a hatchet
out of a frog-belt which he wore by his side, and fell upon the poor
savage, not to correct him, but to kill him.  One of the Spaniards who
was by, seeing him give the fellow a barbarous cut with the hatchet,
which he aimed at his head, but stuck into his shoulder, so that he
thought he had cut the poor creature's arm off, ran to him, and
entreating him not to murder the poor man, placed himself between him and
the savage, to prevent the mischief.  The fellow, being enraged the more
at this, struck at the Spaniard with his hatchet, and swore he would
serve him as he intended to serve the savage; which the Spaniard
perceiving, avoided the blow, and with a shovel, which he had in his hand
(for they were all working in the field about their corn land), knocked
the brute down.  Another of the Englishmen, running up at the same time
to help his comrade, knocked the Spaniard down; and then two Spaniards
more came in to help their man, and a third Englishman fell in upon them.
They had none of them any firearms or any other weapons but hatchets and
other tools, except this third Englishman; he had one of my rusty
cutlasses, with which he made at the two last Spaniards, and wounded them
both.  This fray set the whole family in an uproar, and more help coming
in they took the three Englishmen prisoners.  The next question was, what
should be done with them?  They had been so often mutinous, and were so
very furious, so desperate, and so idle withal, they knew not what course
to take with them, for they were mischievous to the highest degree, and
cared not what hurt they did to any man; so that, in short, it was not
safe to live with them.

The Spaniard who was governor told them, in so many words, that if they
had been of his own country he would have hanged them; for all laws and
all governors were to preserve society, and those who were dangerous to
the society ought to be expelled out of it; but as they were Englishmen,
and that it was to the generous kindness of an Englishman that they all
owed their preservation and deliverance, he would use them with all
possible lenity, and would leave them to the judgment of the other two
Englishmen, who were their countrymen.  One of the two honest Englishmen
stood up, and said they desired it might not be left to them.  "For,"
says he, "I am sure we ought to sentence them to the gallows;" and with
that he gives an account how Will Atkins, one of the three, had proposed
to have all the five Englishmen join together and murder all the
Spaniards when they were in their sleep.

When the Spanish governor heard this, he calls to Will Atkins, "How,
Seignior Atkins, would you murder us all?  What have you to say to that?"
The hardened villain was so far from denying it, that he said it was
true, and swore they would do it still before they had done with them.
"Well, but Seignior Atkins," says the Spaniard, "what have we done to you
that you will kill us?  What would you get by killing us?  And what must
we do to prevent you killing us?  Must we kill you, or you kill us?  Why
will you put us to the necessity of this, Seignior Atkins?" says the
Spaniard very calmly, and smiling.  Seignior Atkins was in such a rage at
the Spaniard's making a jest of it, that, had he not been held by three
men, and withal had no weapon near him, it was thought he would have
attempted to kill the Spaniard in the middle of all the company.  This
hare-brained carriage obliged them to consider seriously what was to be
done.  The two Englishmen and the Spaniard who saved the poor savage were
of the opinion that they should hang one of the three for an example to
the rest, and that particularly it should be he that had twice attempted
to commit murder with his hatchet; indeed, there was some reason to
believe he had done it, for the poor savage was in such a miserable
condition with the wound he had received that it was thought he could not
live.  But the governor Spaniard still said No; it was an Englishman that
had saved all their lives, and he would never consent to put an
Englishman to death, though he had murdered half of them; nay, he said if
he had been killed himself by an Englishman, and had time left to speak,
it should be that they should pardon him.

This was so positively insisted on by the governor Spaniard, that there
was no gainsaying it; and as merciful counsels are most apt to prevail
where they are so earnestly pressed, so they all came into it.  But then
it was to be considered what should be done to keep them from doing the
mischief they designed; for all agreed, governor and all, that means were
to be used for preserving the society from danger.  After a long debate,
it was agreed that they should be disarmed, and not permitted to have
either gun, powder, shot, sword, or any weapon; that they should be
turned out of the society, and left to live where they would and how they
would, by themselves; but that none of the rest, either Spaniards or
English, should hold any kind of converse with them, or have anything to
do with them; that they should be forbid to come within a certain
distance of the place where the rest dwelt; and if they offered to commit
any disorder, so as to spoil, burn, kill, or destroy any of the corn,
plantings, buildings, fences, or cattle belonging to the society, they
should die without mercy, and they would shoot them wherever they could
find them.

The humane governor, musing upon the sentence, considered a little upon
it; and turning to the two honest Englishmen, said, "Hold; you must
reflect that it will be long ere they can raise corn and cattle of their
own, and they must not starve; we must therefore allow them provisions."
So he caused to be added, that they should have a proportion of corn
given them to last them eight months, and for seed to sow, by which time
they might be supposed to raise some of their own; that they should have
six milch-goats, four he-goats, and six kids given them, as well for
present subsistence as for a store; and that they should have tools given
them for their work in the fields, but they should have none of these
tools or provisions unless they would swear solemnly that they would not
hurt or injure any of the Spaniards with them, or of their
fellow-Englishmen.

Thus they dismissed them the society, and turned them out to shift for
themselves.  They went away sullen and refractory, as neither content to
go away nor to stay: but, as there was no remedy, they went, pretending
to go and choose a place where they would settle themselves; and some
provisions were given them, but no weapons.  About four or five days
after, they came again for some victuals, and gave the governor an
account where they had pitched their tents, and marked themselves out a
habitation and plantation; and it was a very convenient place indeed, on
the remotest part of the island, NE., much about the place where I
providentially landed in my first voyage, when I was driven out to sea in
my foolish attempt to sail round the island.

Here they built themselves two handsome huts, and contrived them in a
manner like my first habitation, being close under the side of a hill,
having some trees already growing on three sides of it, so that by
planting others it would be very easily covered from the sight, unless
narrowly searched for.  They desired some dried goat-skins for beds and
covering, which were given them; and upon giving their words that they
would not disturb the rest, or injure any of their plantations, they gave
them hatchets, and what other tools they could spare; some peas, barley,
and rice, for sowing; and, in a word, anything they wanted, except arms
and ammunition.

They lived in this separate condition about six months, and had got in
their first harvest, though the quantity was but small, the parcel of
land they had planted being but little.  Indeed, having all their
plantation to form, they had a great deal of work upon their hands; and
when they came to make boards and pots, and such things, they were quite
out of their element, and could make nothing of it; therefore when the
rainy season came on, for want of a cave in the earth, they could not
keep their grain dry, and it was in great danger of spoiling.  This
humbled them much: so they came and begged the Spaniards to help them,
which they very readily did; and in four days worked a great hole in the
side of the hill for them, big enough to secure their corn and other
things from the rain: but it was a poor place at best compared to mine,
and especially as mine was then, for the Spaniards had greatly enlarged
it, and made several new apartments in it.

About three quarters of a year after this separation, a new frolic took
these rogues, which, together with the former villainy they had
committed, brought mischief enough upon them, and had very near been the
ruin of the whole colony.  The three new associates began, it seems, to
be weary of the laborious life they led, and that without hope of
bettering their circumstances: and a whim took them that they would make
a voyage to the continent, from whence the savages came, and would try if
they could seize upon some prisoners among the natives there, and bring
them home, so as to make them do the laborious part of the work for them.

The project was not so preposterous, if they had gone no further.  But
they did nothing, and proposed nothing, but had either mischief in the
design, or mischief in the event.  And if I may give my opinion, they
seemed to be under a blast from Heaven: for if we will not allow a
visible curse to pursue visible crimes, how shall we reconcile the events
of things with the divine justice?  It was certainly an apparent
vengeance on their crime of mutiny and piracy that brought them to the
state they were in; and they showed not the least remorse for the crime,
but added new villanies to it, such as the piece of monstrous cruelty of
wounding a poor slave because he did not, or perhaps could not,
understand to do what he was directed, and to wound him in such a manner
as made him a cripple all his life, and in a place where no surgeon or
medicine could be had for his cure; and, what was still worse, the
intentional murder, for such to be sure it was, as was afterwards the
formed design they all laid to murder the Spaniards in cold blood, and in
their sleep.

The three fellows came down to the Spaniards one morning, and in very
humble terms desired to be admitted to speak with them.  The Spaniards
very readily heard what they had to say, which was this: that they were
tired of living in the manner they did, and that they were not handy
enough to make the necessaries they wanted, and that having no help, they
found they should be starved; but if the Spaniards would give them leave
to take one of the canoes which they came over in, and give them arms and
ammunition proportioned to their defence, they would go over to the main,
and seek their fortunes, and so deliver them from the trouble of
supplying them with any other provisions.

The Spaniards were glad enough to get rid of them, but very honestly
represented to them the certain destruction they were running into; told
them they had suffered such hardships upon that very spot, that they
could, without any spirit of prophecy, tell them they would be starved or
murdered, and bade them consider of it.  The men replied audaciously,
they should be starved if they stayed here, for they could not work, and
would not work, and they could but be starved abroad; and if they were
murdered, there was an end of them; they had no wives or children to cry
after them; and, in short, insisted importunately upon their demand,
declaring they would go, whether they gave them any arms or not.

The Spaniards told them, with great kindness, that if they were resolved
to go they should not go like naked men, and be in no condition to defend
themselves; and that though they could ill spare firearms, not having
enough for themselves, yet they would let them have two muskets, a
pistol, and a cutlass, and each man a hatchet, which they thought was
sufficient for them.  In a word, they accepted the offer; and having
baked bread enough to serve them a month given them, and as much goats'
flesh as they could eat while it was sweet, with a great basket of dried
grapes, a pot of fresh water, and a young kid alive, they boldly set out
in the canoe for a voyage over the sea, where it was at least forty miles
broad.  The boat, indeed, was a large one, and would very well have
carried fifteen or twenty men, and therefore was rather too big for them
to manage; but as they had a fair breeze and flood-tide with them, they
did well enough.  They had made a mast of a long pole, and a sail of four
large goat-skins dried, which they had sewed or laced together; and away
they went merrily together.  The Spaniards called after them "_Bon
voyajo_;" and no man ever thought of seeing them any more.

The Spaniards were often saying to one another, and to the two honest
Englishmen who remained behind, how quietly and comfortably they lived,
now these three turbulent fellows were gone.  As for their coming again,
that was the remotest thing from their thoughts that could be imagined;
when, behold, after two-and-twenty days' absence, one of the Englishmen
being abroad upon his planting work, sees three strange men coming
towards him at a distance, with guns upon their shoulders.

Away runs the Englishman, frightened and amazed, as if he was bewitched,
to the governor Spaniard, and tells him they were all undone, for there
were strangers upon the island, but he could not tell who they were.  The
Spaniard, pausing a while, says to him, "How do you mean--you cannot tell
who?  They are the savages, to be sure."  "No, no," says the Englishman,
"they are men in clothes, with arms."  "Nay, then," says the Spaniard,
"why are you so concerned!  If they are not savages they must be friends;
for there is no Christian nation upon earth but will do us good rather
than harm."  While they were debating thus, came up the three Englishmen,
and standing without the wood, which was new planted, hallooed to them.
They presently knew their voices, and so all the wonder ceased.  But now
the admiration was turned upon another question--What could be the
matter, and what made them come back again?

It was not long before they brought the men in, and inquiring where they
had been, and what they had been doing, they gave them a full account of
their voyage in a few words: that they reached the land in less than two
days, but finding the people alarmed at their coming, and preparing with
bows and arrows to fight them, they durst not go on shore, but sailed on
to the northward six or seven hours, till they came to a great opening,
by which they perceived that the land they saw from our island was not
the main, but an island: that upon entering that opening of the sea they
saw another island on the right hand north, and several more west; and
being resolved to land somewhere, they put over to one of the islands
which lay west, and went boldly on shore; that they found the people very
courteous and friendly to them; and they gave them several roots and some
dried fish, and appeared very sociable; and that the women, as well as
the men, were very forward to supply them with anything they could get
for them to eat, and brought it to them a great way, on their heads.  They
continued here for four days, and inquired as well as they could of them
by signs, what nations were this way, and that way, and were told of
several fierce and terrible people that lived almost every way, who, as
they made known by signs to them, used to eat men; but, as for
themselves, they said they never ate men or women, except only such as
they took in the wars; and then they owned they made a great feast, and
ate their prisoners.

The Englishmen inquired when they had had a feast of that kind; and they
told them about two moons ago, pointing to the moon and to two fingers;
and that their great king had two hundred prisoners now, which he had
taken in his war, and they were feeding them to make them fat for the
next feast.  The Englishmen seemed mighty desirous of seeing those
prisoners; but the others mistaking them, thought they were desirous to
have some of them to carry away for their own eating.  So they beckoned
to them, pointing to the setting of the sun, and then to the rising;
which was to signify that the next morning at sunrising they would bring
some for them; and accordingly the next morning they brought down five
women and eleven men, and gave them to the Englishmen to carry with them
on their voyage, just as we would bring so many cows and oxen down to a
seaport town to victual a ship.

As brutish and barbarous as these fellows were at home, their stomachs
turned at this sight, and they did not know what to do.  To refuse the
prisoners would have been the highest affront to the savage gentry that
could be offered them, and what to do with them they knew not.  However,
after some debate, they resolved to accept of them: and, in return, they
gave the savages that brought them one of their hatchets, an old key, a
knife, and six or seven of their bullets; which, though they did not
understand their use, they seemed particularly pleased with; and then
tying the poor creatures' hands behind them, they dragged the prisoners
into the boat for our men.

The Englishmen were obliged to come away as soon as they had them, or
else they that gave them this noble present would certainly have expected
that they should have gone to work with them, have killed two or three of
them the next morning, and perhaps have invited the donors to dinner.  But
having taken their leave, with all the respect and thanks that could well
pass between people, where on either side they understood not one word
they could say, they put off with their boat, and came back towards the
first island; where, when they arrived, they set eight of their prisoners
at liberty, there being too many of them for their occasion.  In their
voyage they endeavoured to have some communication with their prisoners;
but it was impossible to make them understand anything.  Nothing they
could say to them, or give them, or do for them, but was looked upon as
going to murder them.  They first of all unbound them; but the poor
creatures screamed at that, especially the women, as if they had just
felt the knife at their throats; for they immediately concluded they were
unbound on purpose to be killed.  If they gave them thing to eat, it was
the same thing; they then concluded it was for fear they should sink in
flesh, and so not be fat enough to kill.  If they looked at one of them
more particularly, the party presently concluded it was to see whether he
or she was fattest, and fittest to kill first; nay, after they had
brought them quite over, and began to use them kindly, and treat them
well, still they expected every day to make a dinner or supper for their
new masters.

When the three wanderers had give this unaccountable history or journal
of their voyage, the Spaniard asked them where their new family was; and
being told that they had brought them on shore, and put them into one of
their huts, and were come up to beg some victuals for them, they (the
Spaniards) and the other two Englishmen, that is to say, the whole
colony, resolved to go all down to the place and see them; and did so,
and Friday's father with them.  When they came into the hut, there they
sat, all bound; for when they had brought them on shore they bound their
hands that they might not take the boat and make their escape; there, I
say, they sat, all of them stark naked.  First, there were three comely
fellows, well shaped, with straight limbs, about thirty to thirty-five
years of age; and five women, whereof two might be from thirty to forty,
two more about four or five and twenty; and the fifth, a tall, comely
maiden, about seventeen.  The women were well-favoured, agreeable
persons, both in shape and features, only tawny; and two of them, had
they been perfect white, would have passed for very handsome women, even
in London, having pleasant countenances, and of a very modest behaviour;
especially when they came afterwards to be clothed and dressed, though
that dress was very indifferent, it must be confessed.

The sight, you may be sure, was something uncouth to our Spaniards, who
were, to give them a just character, men of the most calm, sedate
tempers, and perfect good humour, that ever I met with: and, in
particular, of the utmost modesty: I say, the sight was very uncouth, to
see three naked men and five naked women, all together bound, and in the
most miserable circumstances that human nature could be supposed to be,
viz. to be expecting every moment to be dragged out and have their brains
knocked out, and then to be eaten up like a calf that is killed for a
dainty.

The first thing they did was to cause the old Indian, Friday's father, to
go in, and see first if he knew any of them, and then if he understood
any of their speech.  As soon as the old man came in, he looked seriously
at them, but knew none of them; neither could any of them understand a
word he said, or a sign he could make, except one of the women.  However,
this was enough to answer the end, which was to satisfy them that the men
into whose hands they were fallen were Christians; that they abhorred
eating men or women; and that they might be sure they would not be
killed.  As soon as they were assured of this, they discovered such a
joy, and by such awkward gestures, several ways, as is hard to describe;
for it seems they were of several nations.  The woman who was their
interpreter was bid, in the next place, to ask them if they were willing
to be servants, and to work for the men who had brought them away, to
save their lives; at which they all fell a-dancing; and presently one
fell to taking up this, and another that, anything that lay next, to
carry on their shoulders, to intimate they were willing to work.

The governor, who found that the having women among them would presently
be attended with some inconvenience, and might occasion some strife, and
perhaps blood, asked the three men what they intended to do with these
women, and how they intended to use them, whether as servants or as
wives?  One of the Englishmen answered, very boldly and readily, that
they would use them as both; to which the governor said: "I am not going
to restrain you from it--you are your own masters as to that; but this I
think is but just, for avoiding disorders and quarrels among you, and I
desire it of you for that reason only, viz. that you will all engage,
that if any of you take any of these women as a wife, he shall take but
one; and that having taken one, none else shall touch her; for though we
cannot marry any one of you, yet it is but reasonable that, while you
stay here, the woman any of you takes shall be maintained by the man that
takes her, and should be his wife--I mean," says he, "while he continues
here, and that none else shall have anything to do with her."  All this
appeared so just, that every one agreed to it without any difficulty.

Then the Englishmen asked the Spaniards if they designed to take any of
them?  But every one of them answered "No."  Some of them said they had
wives in Spain, and the others did not like women that were not
Christians; and all together declared that they would not touch one of
them, which was an instance of such virtue as I have not met with in all
my travels.  On the other hand, the five Englishmen took them every one a
wife, that is to say, a temporary wife; and so they set up a new form of
living; for the Spaniards and Friday's father lived in my old habitation,
which they had enlarged exceedingly within.  The three servants which
were taken in the last battle of the savages lived with them; and these
carried on the main part of the colony, supplied all the rest with food,
and assisted them in anything as they could, or as they found necessity
required.

But the wonder of the story was, how five such refractory, ill-matched
fellows should agree about these women, and that some two of them should
not choose the same woman, especially seeing two or three of them were,
without comparison, more agreeable than the others; but they took a good
way enough to prevent quarrelling among themselves, for they set the five
women by themselves in one of their huts, and they went all into the
other hut, and drew lots among them who should choose first.

Him that drew to choose first went away by himself to the hut where the
poor naked creatures were, and fetched out her he chose; and it was worth
observing, that he that chose first took her that was reckoned the
homeliest and oldest of the five, which made mirth enough amongst the
rest; and even the Spaniards laughed at it; but the fellow considered
better than any of them, that it was application and business they were
to expect assistance in, as much as in anything else; and she proved the
best wife of all the parcel.

When the poor women saw themselves set in a row thus, and fetched out one
by one, the terrors of their condition returned upon them again, and they
firmly believed they were now going to be devoured.  Accordingly, when
the English sailor came in and fetched out one of them, the rest set up a
most lamentable cry, and hung about her, and took their leave of her with
such agonies and affection as would have grieved the hardest heart in the
world: nor was it possible for the Englishmen to satisfy them that they
were not to be immediately murdered, till they fetched the old man,
Friday's father, who immediately let them know that the five men, who
were to fetch them out one by one, had chosen them for their wives.  When
they had done, and the fright the women were in was a little over, the
men went to work, and the Spaniards came and helped them: and in a few
hours they had built them every one a new hut or tent for their lodging
apart; for those they had already were crowded with their tools,
household stuff, and provisions.  The three wicked ones had pitched
farthest off, and the two honest ones nearer, but both on the north shore
of the island, so that they continued separated as before; and thus my
island was peopled in three places, and, as I might say, three towns were
begun to be built.

And here it is very well worth observing that, as it often happens in the
world (what the wise ends in God's providence are, in such a disposition
of things, I cannot say), the two honest fellows had the two worst wives;
and the three reprobates, that were scarce worth hanging, that were fit
for nothing, and neither seemed born to do themselves good nor any one
else, had three clever, careful, and ingenious wives; not that the first
two were bad wives as to their temper or humour, for all the five were
most willing, quiet, passive, and subjected creatures, rather like slaves
than wives; but my meaning is, they were not alike capable, ingenious, or
industrious, or alike cleanly and neat.  Another observation I must make,
to the honour of a diligent application on one hand, and to the disgrace
of a slothful, negligent, idle temper on the other, that when I came to
the place, and viewed the several improvements, plantings, and management
of the several little colonies, the two men had so far out-gone the
three, that there was no comparison.  They had, indeed, both of them as
much ground laid out for corn as they wanted, and the reason was,
because, according to my rule, nature dictated that it was to no purpose
to sow more corn than they wanted; but the difference of the cultivation,
of the planting, of the fences, and indeed, of everything else, was easy
to be seen at first view.

The two men had innumerable young trees planted about their huts, so
that, when you came to the place, nothing was to be seen but a wood; and
though they had twice had their plantation demolished, once by their own
countrymen, and once by the enemy, as shall be shown in its place, yet
they had restored all again, and everything was thriving and flourishing
about them; they had grapes planted in order, and managed like a
vineyard, though they had themselves never seen anything of that kind;
and by their good ordering their vines, their grapes were as good again
as any of the others.  They had also found themselves out a retreat in
the thickest part of the woods, where, though there was not a natural
cave, as I had found, yet they made one with incessant labour of their
hands, and where, when the mischief which followed happened, they secured
their wives and children so as they could never be found; they having, by
sticking innumerable stakes and poles of the wood which, as I said, grew
so readily, made the grove impassable, except in some places, when they
climbed up to get over the outside part, and then went on by ways of
their own leaving.

As to the three reprobates, as I justly call them, though they were much
civilised by their settlement compared to what they were before, and were
not so quarrelsome, having not the same opportunity; yet one of the
certain companions of a profligate mind never left them, and that was
their idleness.  It is true, they planted corn and made fences; but
Solomon's words were never better verified than in them, "I went by the
vineyard of the slothful, and it was all overgrown with thorns": for when
the Spaniards came to view their crop they could not see it in some
places for weeds, the hedge had several gaps in it, where the wild goats
had got in and eaten up the corn; perhaps here and there a dead bush was
crammed in, to stop them out for the present, but it was only shutting
the stable-door after the steed was stolen.  Whereas, when they looked on
the colony of the other two, there was the very face of industry and
success upon all they did; there was not a weed to be seen in all their
corn, or a gap in any of their hedges; and they, on the other hand,
verified Solomon's words in another place, "that the diligent hand maketh
rich"; for everything grew and thrived, and they had plenty within and
without; they had more tame cattle than the others, more utensils and
necessaries within doors, and yet more pleasure and diversion too.

It is true, the wives of the three were very handy and cleanly within
doors; and having learned the English ways of dressing, and cooking from
one of the other Englishmen, who, as I said, was a cook's mate on board
the ship, they dressed their husbands' victuals very nicely and well;
whereas the others could not be brought to understand it; but then the
husband, who, as I say, had been cook's mate, did it himself.  But as for
the husbands of the three wives, they loitered about, fetched turtles'
eggs, and caught fish and birds: in a word, anything but labour; and they
fared accordingly.  The diligent lived well and comfortably, and the
slothful hard and beggarly; and so, I believe, generally speaking, it is
all over the world.

But I now come to a scene different from all that had happened before,
either to them or to me; and the origin of the story was this: Early one
morning there came on shore five or six canoes of Indians or savages,
call them which you please, and there is no room to doubt they came upon
the old errand of feeding upon their slaves; but that part was now so
familiar to the Spaniards, and to our men too, that they did not concern
themselves about it, as I did: but having been made sensible, by their
experience, that their only business was to lie concealed, and that if
they were not seen by any of the savages they would go off again quietly,
when their business was done, having as yet not the least notion of there
being any inhabitants in the island; I say, having been made sensible of
this, they had nothing to do but to give notice to all the three
plantations to keep within doors, and not show themselves, only placing a
scout in a proper place, to give notice when the boats went to sea again.

This was, without doubt, very right; but a disaster spoiled all these
measures, and made it known among the savages that there were inhabitants
there; which was, in the end, the desolation of almost the whole colony.
After the canoes with the savages were gone off, the Spaniards peeped
abroad again; and some of them had the curiosity to go to the place where
they had been, to see what they had been doing.  Here, to their great
surprise, they found three savages left behind, and lying fast asleep
upon the ground.  It was supposed they had either been so gorged with
their inhuman feast, that, like beasts, they were fallen asleep, and
would not stir when the others went, or they had wandered into the woods,
and did not come back in time to be taken in.

The Spaniards were greatly surprised at this sight and perfectly at a
loss what to do.  The Spaniard governor, as it happened, was with them,
and his advice was asked, but he professed he knew not what to do.  As
for slaves, they had enough already; and as to killing them, there were
none of them inclined to do that: the Spaniard governor told me they
could not think of shedding innocent blood; for as to them, the poor
creatures had done them no wrong, invaded none of their property, and
they thought they had no just quarrel against them, to take away their
lives.  And here I must, in justice to these Spaniards, observe that, let
the accounts of Spanish cruelty in Mexico and Peru be what they will, I
never met with seventeen men of any nation whatsoever, in any foreign
country, who were so universally modest, temperate, virtuous, so very
good-humoured, and so courteous, as these Spaniards: and as to cruelty,
they had nothing of it in their very nature; no inhumanity, no barbarity,
no outrageous passions; and yet all of them men of great courage and
spirit.  Their temper and calmness had appeared in their bearing the
insufferable usage of the three Englishmen; and their justice and
humanity appeared now in the case of the savages above.  After some
consultation they resolved upon this; that they would lie still a while
longer, till, if possible, these three men might be gone.  But then the
governor recollected that the three savages had no boat; and if they were
left to rove about the island, they would certainly discover that there
were inhabitants in it; and so they should be undone that way.  Upon
this, they went back again, and there lay the fellows fast asleep still,
and so they resolved to awaken them, and take them prisoners; and they
did so.  The poor fellows were strangely frightened when they were seized
upon and bound; and afraid, like the women, that they should be murdered
and eaten: for it seems those people think all the world does as they do,
in eating men's flesh; but they were soon made easy as to that, and away
they carried them.

It was very happy for them that they did not carry them home to the
castle, I mean to my palace under the hill; but they carried them first
to the bower, where was the chief of their country work, such as the
keeping the goats, the planting the corn, &c.; and afterward they carried
them to the habitation of the two Englishmen.  Here they were set to
work, though it was not much they had for them to do; and whether it was
by negligence in guarding them, or that they thought the fellows could
not mend themselves, I know not, but one of them ran away, and, taking to
the woods, they could never hear of him any more.  They had good reason
to believe he got home again soon after in some other boats or canoes of
savages who came on shore three or four weeks afterwards, and who,
carrying on their revels as usual, went off in two days' time.  This
thought terrified them exceedingly; for they concluded, and that not
without good cause indeed, that if this fellow came home safe among his
comrades, he would certainly give them an account that there were people
in the island, and also how few and weak they were; for this savage, as
observed before, had never been told, and it was very happy he had not,
how many there were or where they lived; nor had he ever seen or heard
the fire of any of their guns, much less had they shown him any of their
other retired places; such as the cave in the valley, or the new retreat
which the two Englishmen had made, and the like.

The first testimony they had that this fellow had given intelligence of
them was, that about two months after this six canoes of savages, with
about seven, eight, or ten men in a canoe, came rowing along the north
side of the island, where they never used to come before, and landed,
about an hour after sunrise, at a convenient place, about a mile from the
habitation of the two Englishmen, where this escaped man had been kept.
As the chief Spaniard said, had they been all there the damage would not
have been so much, for not a man of them would have escaped; but the case
differed now very much, for two men to fifty was too much odds.  The two
men had the happiness to discover them about a league off, so that it was
above an hour before they landed; and as they landed a mile from their
huts, it was some time before they could come at them.  Now, having great
reason to believe that they were betrayed, the first thing they did was
to bind the two slaves which were left, and cause two of the three men
whom they brought with the women (who, it seems, proved very faithful to
them) to lead them, with their two wives, and whatever they could carry
away with them, to their retired places in the woods, which I have spoken
of above, and there to bind the two fellows hand and foot, till they
heard farther.  In the next place, seeing the savages were all come on
shore, and that they had bent their course directly that way, they opened
the fences where the milch cows were kept, and drove them all out;
leaving their goats to straggle in the woods, whither they pleased, that
the savages might think they were all bred wild; but the rogue who came
with them was too cunning for that, and gave them an account of it all,
for they went directly to the place.

When the two poor frightened men had secured their wives and goods, they
sent the other slave they had of the three who came with the women, and
who was at their place by accident, away to the Spaniards with all speed,
to give them the alarm, and desire speedy help, and, in the meantime,
they took their arms and what ammunition they had, and retreated towards
the place in the wood where their wives were sent; keeping at a distance,
yet so that they might see, if possible, which way the savages took.  They
had not gone far but that from a rising ground they could see the little
army of their enemies come on directly to their habitation, and, in a
moment more, could see all their huts and household stuff flaming up
together, to their great grief and mortification; for this was a great
loss to them, irretrievable, indeed, for some time.  They kept their
station for a while, till they found the savages, like wild beasts,
spread themselves all over the place, rummaging every way, and every
place they could think of, in search of prey; and in particular for the
people, of whom now it plainly appeared they had intelligence.

The two Englishmen seeing this, thinking themselves not secure where they
stood, because it was likely some of the wild people might come that way,
and they might come too many together, thought it proper to make another
retreat about half a mile farther; believing, as it afterwards happened,
that the further they strolled, the fewer would be together.  Their next
halt was at the entrance into a very thick-grown part of the woods, and
where an old trunk of a tree stood, which was hollow and very large; and
in this tree they both took their standing, resolving to see there what
might offer.  They had not stood there long before two of the savages
appeared running directly that way, as if they had already had notice
where they stood, and were coming up to attack them; and a little way
farther they espied three more coming after them, and five more beyond
them, all coming the same way; besides which, they saw seven or eight
more at a distance, running another way; for in a word, they ran every
way, like sportsmen beating for their game.

The poor men were now in great perplexity whether they should stand and
keep their posture or fly; but after a very short debate with themselves,
they considered that if the savages ranged the country thus before help
came, they might perhaps find their retreat in the woods, and then all
would be lost; so they resolved to stand them there, and if they were too
many to deal with, then they would get up to the top of the tree, from
whence they doubted not to defend themselves, fire excepted, as long as
their ammunition lasted, though all the savages that were landed, which
was near fifty, were to attack them.

Having resolved upon this, they next considered whether they should fire
at the first two, or wait for the three, and so take the middle party, by
which the two and the five that followed would be separated; at length
they resolved to let the first two pass by, unless they should spy them
the tree, and come to attack them.  The first two savages confirmed them
also in this resolution, by turning a little from them towards another
part of the wood; but the three, and the five after them, came forward
directly to the tree, as if they had known the Englishmen were there.
Seeing them come so straight towards them, they resolved to take them in
a line as they came: and as they resolved to fire but one at a time,
perhaps the first shot might hit them all three; for which purpose the
man who was to fire put three or four small bullets into his piece; and
having a fair loophole, as it were, from a broken hole in the tree, he
took a sure aim, without being seen, waiting till they were within about
thirty yards of the tree, so that he could not miss.

While they were thus waiting, and the savages came on, they plainly saw
that one of the three was the runaway savage that had escaped from them;
and they both knew him distinctly, and resolved that, if possible, he
should not escape, though they should both fire; so the other stood ready
with his piece, that if he did not drop at the first shot, he should be
sure to have a second.  But the first was too good a marksman to miss his
aim; for as the savages kept near one another, a little behind in a line,
he fired, and hit two of them directly; the foremost was killed outright,
being shot in the head; the second, which was the runaway Indian, was
shot through the body, and fell, but was not quite dead; and the third
had a little scratch in the shoulder, perhaps by the same ball that went
through the body of the second; and being dreadfully frightened, though
not so much hurt, sat down upon the ground, screaming and yelling in a
hideous manner.

The five that were behind, more frightened with the noise than sensible
of the danger, stood still at first; for the woods made the sound a
thousand times bigger than it really was, the echoes rattling from one
side to another, and the fowls rising from all parts, screaming, and
every sort making a different noise, according to their kind; just as it
was when I fired the first gun that perhaps was ever shot off in the
island.

However, all being silent again, and they not knowing what the matter
was, came on unconcerned, till they came to the place where their
companions lay in a condition miserable enough.  Here the poor ignorant
creatures, not sensible that they were within reach of the same mischief,
stood all together over the wounded man, talking, and, as may be
supposed, inquiring of him how he came to be hurt; and who, it is very
rational to believe, told them that a flash of fire first, and
immediately after that thunder from their gods, had killed those two and
wounded him.  This, I say, is rational; for nothing is more certain than
that, as they saw no man near them, so they had never heard a gun in all
their lives, nor so much as heard of a gun; neither knew they anything of
killing and wounding at a distance with fire and bullets: if they had,
one might reasonably believe they would not have stood so unconcerned to
view the fate of their fellows, without some apprehensions of their own.

Our two men, as they confessed to me, were grieved to be obliged to kill
so many poor creatures, who had no notion of their danger; yet, having
them all thus in their power, and the first having loaded his piece
again, resolved to let fly both together among them; and singling out, by
agreement, which to aim at, they shot together, and killed, or very much
wounded, four of them; the fifth, frightened even to death, though not
hurt, fell with the rest; so that our men, seeing them all fall together,
thought they had killed them all.

The belief that the savages were all killed made our two men come boldly
out from the tree before they had charged their guns, which was a wrong
step; and they were under some surprise when they came to the place, and
found no less than four of them alive, and of them two very little hurt,
and one not at all.  This obliged them to fall upon them with the stocks
of their muskets; and first they made sure of the runaway savage, that
had been the cause of all the mischief, and of another that was hurt in
the knee, and put them out of their pain; then the man that was not hurt
at all came and kneeled down to them, with his two hands held up, and
made piteous moans to them, by gestures and signs, for his life, but
could not say one word to them that they could understand.  However, they
made signs to him to sit down at the foot of a tree hard by; and one of
the Englishmen, with a piece of rope-yarn, which he had by great chance
in his pocket, tied his two hands behind him, and there they left him;
and with what speed they could made after the other two, which were gone
before, fearing they, or any more of them, should find way to their
covered place in the woods, where their wives, and the few goods they had
left, lay.  They came once in sight of the two men, but it was at a great
distance; however, they had the satisfaction to see them cross over a
valley towards the sea, quite the contrary way from that which led to
their retreat, which they were afraid of; and being satisfied with that,
they went back to the tree where they left their prisoner, who, as they
supposed, was delivered by his comrades, for he was gone, and the two
pieces of rope-yarn with which they had bound him lay just at the foot of
the tree.

They were now in as great concern as before, not knowing what course to
take, or how near the enemy might be, or in what number; so they resolved
to go away to the place where their wives were, to see if all was well
there, and to make them easy.  These were in fright enough, to be sure;
for though the savages were their own countrymen, yet they were most
terribly afraid of them, and perhaps the more for the knowledge they had
of them.  When they came there, they found the savages had been in the
wood, and very near that place, but had not found it; for it was indeed
inaccessible, from the trees standing so thick, unless the persons
seeking it had been directed by those that knew it, which these did not:
they found, therefore, everything very safe, only the women in a terrible
fright.  While they were here they had the comfort to have seven of the
Spaniards come to their assistance; the other ten, with their servants,
and Friday's father, were gone in a body to defend their bower, and the
corn and cattle that were kept there, in case the savages should have
roved over to that side of the country, but they did not spread so far.
With the seven Spaniards came one of the three savages, who, as I said,
were their prisoners formerly; and with them also came the savage whom
the Englishmen had left bound hand and foot at the tree; for it seems
they came that way, saw the slaughter of the seven men, and unbound the
eighth, and brought him along with them; where, however, they were
obliged to bind again, as they had the two others who were left when the
third ran away.

The prisoners now began to be a burden to them; and they were so afraid
of their escaping, that they were once resolving to kill them all,
believing they were under an absolute necessity to do so for their own
preservation.  However, the chief of the Spaniards would not consent to
it, but ordered, for the present, that they should be sent out of the way
to my old cave in the valley, and be kept there, with two Spaniards to
guard them, and have food for their subsistence, which was done; and they
were bound there hand and foot for that night.

When the Spaniards came, the two Englishmen were so encouraged, that they
could not satisfy themselves to stay any longer there; but taking five of
the Spaniards, and themselves, with four muskets and a pistol among them,
and two stout quarter-staves, away they went in quest of the savages.  And
first they came to the tree where the men lay that had been killed; but
it was easy to see that some more of the savages had been there, for they
had attempted to carry their dead men away, and had dragged two of them a
good way, but had given it over.  From thence they advanced to the first
rising ground, where they had stood and seen their camp destroyed, and
where they had the mortification still to see some of the smoke; but
neither could they here see any of the savages.  They then resolved,
though with all possible caution, to go forward towards their ruined
plantation; but, a little before they came thither, coming in sight of
the sea-shore, they saw plainly the savages all embarked again in their
canoes, in order to be gone.  They seemed sorry at first that there was
no way to come at them, to give them a parting blow; but, upon the whole,
they were very well satisfied to be rid of them.

The poor Englishmen being now twice ruined, and all their improvements
destroyed, the rest all agreed to come and help them to rebuild, and
assist them with needful supplies.  Their three countrymen, who were not
yet noted for having the least inclination to do any good, yet as soon as
they heard of it (for they, living remote eastward, knew nothing of the
matter till all was over), came and offered their help and assistance,
and did, very friendly, work for several days to restore their habitation
and make necessaries for them.  And thus in a little time they were set
upon their legs again.

About two days after this they had the farther satisfaction of seeing
three of the savages' canoes come driving on shore, and, at some distance
from them, two drowned men, by which they had reason to believe that they
had met with a storm at sea, which had overset some of them; for it had
blown very hard the night after they went off.  However, as some might
miscarry, so, on the other hand, enough of them escaped to inform the
rest, as well of what they had done as of what had happened to them; and
to whet them on to another enterprise of the same nature, which they, it
seems, resolved to attempt, with sufficient force to carry all before
them; for except what the first man had told them of inhabitants, they
could say little of it of their own knowledge, for they never saw one
man; and the fellow being killed that had affirmed it, they had no other
witness to confirm it to, them.




CHAPTER V--A GREAT VICTORY


It was five or six months after this before they heard any more of the
savages, in which time our men were in hopes they had either forgot their
former bad luck, or given over hopes of better; when, on a sudden, they
were invaded with a most formidable fleet of no less than
eight-and-twenty canoes, full of savages, armed with bows and arrows,
great clubs, wooden swords, and such like engines of war; and they
brought such numbers with them, that, in short, it put all our people
into the utmost consternation.

As they came on shore in the evening, and at the easternmost side of the
island, our men had that night to consult and consider what to do.  In
the first place, knowing that their being entirely concealed was their
only safety before and would be much more so now, while the number of
their enemies would be so great, they resolved, first of all, to take
down the huts which were built for the two Englishmen, and drive away
their goats to the old cave; because they supposed the savages would go
directly thither, as soon as it was day, to play the old game over again,
though they did not now land within two leagues of it.  In the next
place, they drove away all the flocks of goats they had at the old bower,
as I called it, which belonged to the Spaniards; and, in short, left as
little appearance of inhabitants anywhere as was possible; and the next
morning early they posted themselves, with all their force, at the
plantation of the two men, to wait for their coming.  As they guessed, so
it happened: these new invaders, leaving their canoes at the east end of
the island, came ranging along the shore, directly towards the place, to
the number of two hundred and fifty, as near as our men could judge.  Our
army was but small indeed; but, that which was worse, they had not arms
for all their number.  The whole account, it seems, stood thus: first, as
to men, seventeen Spaniards, five Englishmen, old Friday, the three
slaves taken with the women, who proved very faithful, and three other
slaves, who lived with the Spaniards.  To arm these, they had eleven
muskets, five pistols, three fowling-pieces, five muskets or
fowling-pieces which were taken by me from the mutinous seamen whom I
reduced, two swords, and three old halberds.

To their slaves they did not give either musket or fusee; but they had
each a halberd, or a long staff, like a quarter-staff, with a great spike
of iron fastened into each end of it, and by his side a hatchet; also
every one of our men had a hatchet.  Two of the women could not be
prevailed upon but they would come into the fight, and they had bows and
arrows, which the Spaniards had taken from the savages when the first
action happened, which I have spoken of, where the Indians fought with
one another; and the women had hatchets too.

The chief Spaniard, whom I described so often, commanded the whole; and
Will Atkins, who, though a dreadful fellow for wickedness, was a most
daring, bold fellow, commanded under him.  The savages came forward like
lions; and our men, which was the worst of their fate, had no advantage
in their situation; only that Will Atkins, who now proved a most useful
fellow, with six men, was planted just behind a small thicket of bushes
as an advanced guard, with orders to let the first of them pass by and
then fire into the middle of them, and as soon as he had fired, to make
his retreat as nimbly as he could round a part of the wood, and so come
in behind the Spaniards, where they stood, having a thicket of trees
before them.

When the savages came on, they ran straggling about every way in heaps,
out of all manner of order, and Will Atkins let about fifty of them pass
by him; then seeing the rest come in a very thick throng, he orders three
of his men to fire, having loaded their muskets with six or seven bullets
apiece, about as big as large pistol-bullets.  How many they killed or
wounded they knew not, but the consternation and surprise was
inexpressible among the savages; they were frightened to the last degree
to hear such a dreadful noise, and see their men killed, and others hurt,
but see nobody that did it; when, in the middle of their fright, Will
Atkins and his other three let fly again among the thickest of them; and
in less than a minute the first three, being loaded again, gave them a
third volley.

Had Will Atkins and his men retired immediately, as soon as they had
fired, as they were ordered to do, or had the rest of the body been at
hand to have poured in their shot continually, the savages had been
effectually routed; for the terror that was among them came principally
from this, that they were killed by the gods with thunder and lightning,
and could see nobody that hurt them.  But Will Atkins, staying to load
again, discovered the cheat: some of the savages who were at a distance
spying them, came upon them behind; and though Atkins and his men fired
at them also, two or three times, and killed above twenty, retiring as
fast as they could, yet they wounded Atkins himself, and killed one of
his fellow-Englishmen with their arrows, as they did afterwards one
Spaniard, and one of the Indian slaves who came with the women.  This
slave was a most gallant fellow, and fought most desperately, killing
five of them with his own hand, having no weapon but one of the armed
staves and a hatchet.

Our men being thus hard laid at, Atkins wounded, and two other men
killed, retreated to a rising ground in the wood; and the Spaniards,
after firing three volleys upon them, retreated also; for their number
was so great, and they were so desperate, that though above fifty of them
were killed, and more than as many wounded, yet they came on in the teeth
of our men, fearless of danger, and shot their arrows like a cloud; and
it was observed that their wounded men, who were not quite disabled, were
made outrageous by their wounds, and fought like madmen.

When our men retreated, they left the Spaniard and the Englishman that
were killed behind them: and the savages, when they came up to them,
killed them over again in a wretched manner, breaking their arms, legs,
and heads, with their clubs and wooden swords, like true savages; but
finding our men were gone, they did not seem inclined to pursue them, but
drew themselves up in a ring, which is, it seems, their custom, and
shouted twice, in token of their victory; after which, they had the
mortification to see several of their wounded men fall, dying with the
mere loss of blood.

The Spaniard governor having drawn his little body up together upon a
rising ground, Atkins, though he was wounded, would have had them march
and charge again all together at once: but the Spaniard replied,
"Seignior Atkins, you see how their wounded men fight; let them alone
till morning; all the wounded men will be stiff and sore with their
wounds, and faint with the loss of blood; and so we shall have the fewer
to engage."  This advice was good: but Will Atkins replied merrily, "That
is true, seignior, and so shall I too; and that is the reason I would go
on while I am warm."  "Well, Seignior Atkins," says the Spaniard, "you
have behaved gallantly, and done your part; we will fight for you if you
cannot come on; but I think it best to stay till morning:" so they
waited.

But as it was a clear moonlight night, and they found the savages in
great disorder about their dead and wounded men, and a great noise and
hurry among them where they lay, they afterwards resolved to fall upon
them in the night, especially if they could come to give them but one
volley before they were discovered, which they had a fair opportunity to
do; for one of the Englishmen in whose quarter it was where the fight
began, led them round between the woods and the seaside westward, and
then turning short south, they came so near where the thickest of them
lay, that before they were seen or heard eight of them fired in among
them, and did dreadful execution upon them; in half a minute more eight
others fired after them, pouring in their small shot in such a quantity
that abundance were killed and wounded; and all this while they were not
able to see who hurt them, or which way to fly.

The Spaniards charged again with the utmost expedition, and then divided
themselves into three bodies, and resolved to fall in among them all
together.  They had in each body eight persons, that is to say, twenty-
two men and the two women, who, by the way, fought desperately.  They
divided the firearms equally in each party, as well as the halberds and
staves.  They would have had the women kept back, but they said they were
resolved to die with their husbands.  Having thus formed their little
army, they marched out from among the trees, and came up to the teeth of
the enemy, shouting and hallooing as loud as they could; the savages
stood all together, but were in the utmost confusion, hearing the noise
of our men shouting from three quarters together.  They would have fought
if they had seen us; for as soon as we came near enough to be seen, some
arrows were shot, and poor old Friday was wounded, though not
dangerously.  But our men gave them no time, but running up to them,
fired among them three ways, and then fell in with the butt-ends of their
muskets, their swords, armed staves, and hatchets, and laid about them so
well that, in a word, they set up a dismal screaming and howling, flying
to save their lives which way soever they could.

Our men were tired with the execution, and killed or mortally wounded in
the two fights about one hundred and eighty of them; the rest, being
frightened out of their wits, scoured through the woods and over the
hills, with all the speed that fear and nimble feet could help them to;
and as we did not trouble ourselves much to pursue them, they got all
together to the seaside, where they landed, and where their canoes lay.
But their disaster was not at an end yet; for it blew a terrible storm of
wind that evening from the sea, so that it was impossible for them to go
off; nay, the storm continuing all night, when the tide came up their
canoes were most of them driven by the surge of the sea so high upon the
shore that it required infinite toil to get them off; and some of them
were even dashed to pieces against the beach.  Our men, though glad of
their victory, yet got little rest that night; but having refreshed
themselves as well as they could, they resolved to march to that part of
the island where the savages were fled, and see what posture they were
in.  This necessarily led them over the place where the fight had been,
and where they found several of the poor creatures not quite dead, and
yet past recovering life; a sight disagreeable enough to generous minds,
for a truly great man though obliged by the law of battle to destroy his
enemy, takes no delight in his misery.  However, there was no need to
give any orders in this case; for their own savages, who were their
servants, despatched these poor creatures with their hatchets.

At length they came in view of the place where the more miserable remains
of the savages' army lay, where there appeared about a hundred still;
their posture was generally sitting upon the ground, with their knees up
towards their mouth, and the head put between the two hands, leaning down
upon the knees.  When our men came within two musket-shots of them, the
Spaniard governor ordered two muskets to be fired without ball, to alarm
them; this he did, that by their countenance he might know what to
expect, whether they were still in heart to fight, or were so heartily
beaten as to be discouraged, and so he might manage accordingly.  This
stratagem took: for as soon as the savages heard the first gun, and saw
the flash of the second, they started up upon their feet in the greatest
consternation imaginable; and as our men advanced swiftly towards them,
they all ran screaming and yelling away, with a kind of howling noise,
which our men did not understand, and had never heard before; and thus
they ran up the hills into the country.

At first our men had much rather the weather had been calm, and they had
all gone away to sea: but they did not then consider that this might
probably have been the occasion of their coming again in such multitudes
as not to be resisted, or, at least, to come so many and so often as
would quite desolate the island, and starve them.  Will Atkins,
therefore, who notwithstanding his wound kept always with them, proved
the best counsellor in this case: his advice was, to take the advantage
that offered, and step in between them and their boats, and so deprive
them of the capacity of ever returning any more to plague the island.
They consulted long about this; and some were against it for fear of
making the wretches fly to the woods and live there desperate, and so
they should have them to hunt like wild beasts, be afraid to stir out
about their business, and have their plantations continually rifled, all
their tame goats destroyed, and, in short, be reduced to a life of
continual distress.

Will Atkins told them they had better have to do with a hundred men than
with a hundred nations; that, as they must destroy their boats, so they
must destroy the men, or be all of them destroyed themselves.  In a word,
he showed them the necessity of it so plainly that they all came into it;
so they went to work immediately with the boats, and getting some dry
wood together from a dead tree, they tried to set some of them on fire,
but they were so wet that they would not burn; however, the fire so
burned the upper part that it soon made them unfit for use at sea.

When the Indians saw what they were about, some of them came running out
of the woods, and coming as near as they could to our men, kneeled down
and cried, "Oa, Oa, Waramokoa," and some other words of their language,
which none of the others understood anything of; but as they made pitiful
gestures and strange noises, it was easy to understand they begged to
have their boats spared, and that they would be gone, and never come
there again.  But our men were now satisfied that they had no way to
preserve themselves, or to save their colony, but effectually to prevent
any of these people from ever going home again; depending upon this, that
if even so much as one of them got back into their country to tell the
story, the colony was undone; so that, letting them know that they should
not have any mercy, they fell to work with their canoes, and destroyed
every one that the storm had not destroyed before; at the sight of which,
the savages raised a hideous cry in the woods, which our people heard
plain enough, after which they ran about the island like distracted men,
so that, in a word, our men did not really know what at first to do with
them.  Nor did the Spaniards, with all their prudence, consider that
while they made those people thus desperate, they ought to have kept a
good guard at the same time upon their plantations; for though it is true
they had driven away their cattle, and the Indians did not find out their
main retreat, I mean my old castle at the hill, nor the cave in the
valley, yet they found out my plantation at the bower, and pulled it all
to pieces, and all the fences and planting about it; trod all the corn
under foot, tore up the vines and grapes, being just then almost ripe,
and did our men inestimable damage, though to themselves not one
farthing's worth of service.

Though our men were able to fight them upon all occasions, yet they were
in no condition to pursue them, or hunt them up and down; for as they
were too nimble of foot for our people when they found them single, so
our men durst not go abroad single, for fear of being surrounded with
their numbers.  The best was they had no weapons; for though they had
bows, they had no arrows left, nor any materials to make any; nor had
they any edge-tool among them.  The extremity and distress they were
reduced to was great, and indeed deplorable; but, at the same time, our
men were also brought to very bad circumstances by them, for though their
retreats were preserved, yet their provision was destroyed, and their
harvest spoiled, and what to do, or which way to turn themselves, they
knew not.  The only refuge they had now was the stock of cattle they had
in the valley by the cave, and some little corn which grew there, and the
plantation of the three Englishmen.  Will Atkins and his comrades were
now reduced to two; one of them being killed by an arrow, which struck
him on the side of his head, just under the temple, so that he never
spoke more; and it was very remarkable that this was the same barbarous
fellow that cut the poor savage slave with his hatchet, and who
afterwards intended to have murdered the Spaniards.

I looked upon their case to have been worse at this time than mine was at
any time, after I first discovered the grains of barley and rice, and got
into the manner of planting and raising my corn, and my tame cattle; for
now they had, as I may say, a hundred wolves upon the island, which would
devour everything they could come at, yet could be hardly come at
themselves.

When they saw what their circumstances were, the first thing they
concluded was, that they would, if possible, drive the savages up to the
farther part of the island, south-west, that if any more came on shore
they might not find one another; then, that they would daily hunt and
harass them, and kill as many of them as they could come at, till they
had reduced their number; and if they could at last tame them, and bring
them to anything, they would give them corn, and teach them how to plant,
and live upon their daily labour.  In order to do this, they so followed
them, and so terrified them with their guns, that in a few days, if any
of them fired a gun at an Indian, if he did not hit him, yet he would
fall down for fear.  So dreadfully frightened were they that they kept
out of sight farther and farther; till at last our men followed them, and
almost every day killing or wounding some of them, they kept up in the
woods or hollow places so much, that it reduced them to the utmost misery
for want of food; and many were afterwards found dead in the woods,
without any hurt, absolutely starved to death.

When our men found this, it made their hearts relent, and pity moved
them, especially the generous-minded Spaniard governor; and he proposed,
if possible, to take one of them alive and bring him to understand what
they meant, so far as to be able to act as interpreter, and go among them
and see if they might be brought to some conditions that might be
depended upon, to save their lives and do us no harm.

It was some while before any of them could be taken; but being weak and
half-starved, one of them was at last surprised and made a prisoner.  He
was sullen at first, and would neither eat nor drink; but finding himself
kindly used, and victuals given to him, and no violence offered him, he
at last grew tractable, and came to himself.  They often brought old
Friday to talk to him, who always told him how kind the others would be
to them all; that they would not only save their lives, but give them
part of the island to live in, provided they would give satisfaction that
they would keep in their own bounds, and not come beyond it to injure or
prejudice others; and that they should have corn given them to plant and
make it grow for their bread, and some bread given them for their present
subsistence; and old Friday bade the fellow go and talk with the rest of
his countrymen, and see what they said to it; assuring them that, if they
did not agree immediately, they should be all destroyed.

The poor wretches, thoroughly humbled, and reduced in number to about
thirty-seven, closed with the proposal at the first offer, and begged to
have some food given them; upon which twelve Spaniards and two
Englishmen, well armed, with three Indian slaves and old Friday, marched
to the place where they were.  The three Indian slaves carried them a
large quantity of bread, some rice boiled up to cakes and dried in the
sun, and three live goats; and they were ordered to go to the side of a
hill, where they sat down, ate their provisions very thankfully, and were
the most faithful fellows to their words that could be thought of; for,
except when they came to beg victuals and directions, they never came out
of their bounds; and there they lived when I came to the island and I
went to see them.  They had taught them both to plant corn, make bread,
breed tame goats, and milk them: they wanted nothing but wives in order
for them soon to become a nation.  They were confined to a neck of land,
surrounded with high rocks behind them, and lying plain towards the sea
before them, on the south-east corner of the island.  They had land
enough, and it was very good and fruitful; about a mile and a half broad,
and three or four miles in length.  Our men taught them to make wooden
spades, such as I made for myself, and gave among them twelve hatchets
and three or four knives; and there they lived, the most subjected,
innocent creatures that ever were heard of.

After this the colony enjoyed a perfect tranquillity with respect to the
savages, till I came to revisit them, which was about two years after;
not but that, now and then, some canoes of savages came on shore for
their triumphal, unnatural feasts; but as they were of several nations,
and perhaps had never heard of those that came before, or the reason of
it, they did not make any search or inquiry after their countrymen; and
if they had, it would have been very hard to have found them out.

Thus, I think, I have given a full account of all that happened to them
till my return, at least that was worth notice.  The Indians were
wonderfully civilised by them, and they frequently went among them; but
they forbid, on pain of death, any one of the Indians coming to them,
because they would not have their settlement betrayed again.  One thing
was very remarkable, viz. that they taught the savages to make wicker-
work, or baskets, but they soon outdid their masters: for they made
abundance of ingenious things in wicker-work, particularly baskets,
sieves, bird-cages, cupboards, &c.; as also chairs, stools, beds,
couches, being very ingenious at such work when they were once put in the
way of it.

My coming was a particular relief to these people, because we furnished
them with knives, scissors, spades, shovels, pick-axes, and all things of
that kind which they could want.  With the help of those tools they were
so very handy that they came at last to build up their huts or houses
very handsomely, raddling or working it up like basket-work all the way
round.  This piece of ingenuity, although it looked very odd, was an
exceeding good fence, as well against heat as against all sorts of
vermin; and our men were so taken with it that they got the Indians to
come and do the like for them; so that when I came to see the two
Englishmen's colonies, they looked at a distance as if they all lived
like bees in a hive.

As for Will Atkins, who was now become a very industrious, useful, and
sober fellow, he had made himself such a tent of basket-work as I believe
was never seen; it was one hundred and twenty paces round on the outside,
as I measured by my steps; the walls were as close worked as a basket, in
panels or squares of thirty-two in number, and very strong, standing
about seven feet high; in the middle was another not above twenty-two
paces round, but built stronger, being octagon in its form, and in the
eight corners stood eight very strong posts; round the top of which he
laid strong pieces, knit together with wooden pins, from which he raised
a pyramid for a handsome roof of eight rafters, joined together very
well, though he had no nails, and only a few iron spikes, which he made
himself, too, out of the old iron that I had left there.  Indeed, this
fellow showed abundance of ingenuity in several things which he had no
knowledge of: he made him a forge, with a pair of wooden bellows to blow
the fire; he made himself charcoal for his work; and he formed out of the
iron crows a middling good anvil to hammer upon: in this manner he made
many things, but especially hooks, staples, and spikes, bolts and hinges.
But to return to the house: after he had pitched the roof of his
innermost tent, he worked it up between the rafters with basket-work, so
firm, and thatched that over again so ingeniously with rice-straw, and
over that a large leaf of a tree, which covered the top, that his house
was as dry as if it had been tiled or slated.  He owned, indeed, that the
savages had made the basket-work for him.  The outer circuit was covered
as a lean-to all round this inner apartment, and long rafters lay from
the thirty-two angles to the top posts of the inner house, being about
twenty feet distant, so that there was a space like a walk within the
outer wicker-wall, and without the inner, near twenty feet wide.

The inner place he partitioned off with the same wickerwork, but much
fairer, and divided into six apartments, so that he had six rooms on a
floor, and out of every one of these there was a door: first into the
entry, or coming into the main tent, another door into the main tent, and
another door into the space or walk that was round it; so that walk was
also divided into six equal parts, which served not only for a retreat,
but to store up any necessaries which the family had occasion for.  These
six spaces not taking up the whole circumference, what other apartments
the outer circle had were thus ordered: As soon as you were in at the
door of the outer circle you had a short passage straight before you to
the door of the inner house; but on either side was a wicker partition
and a door in it, by which you went first into a large room or
storehouse, twenty feet wide and about thirty feet long, and through that
into another not quite so long; so that in the outer circle were ten
handsome rooms, six of which were only to be come at through the
apartments of the inner tent, and served as closets or retiring rooms to
the respective chambers of the inner circle; and four large warehouses,
or barns, or what you please to call them, which went through one
another, two on either hand of the passage, that led through the outer
door to the inner tent.  Such a piece of basket-work, I believe, was
never seen in the world, nor a house or tent so neatly contrived, much
less so built.  In this great bee-hive lived the three families, that is
to say, Will Atkins and his companion; the third was killed, but his wife
remained with three children, and the other two were not at all backward
to give the widow her full share of everything, I mean as to their corn,
milk, grapes, &c., and when they killed a kid, or found a turtle on the
shore; so that they all lived well enough; though it was true they were
not so industrious as the other two, as has been observed already.

One thing, however, cannot be omitted, viz. that as for religion, I do
not know that there was anything of that kind among them; they often,
indeed, put one another in mind that there was a God, by the very common
method of seamen, swearing by His name: nor were their poor ignorant
savage wives much better for having been married to Christians, as we
must call them; for as they knew very little of God themselves, so they
were utterly incapable of entering into any discourse with their wives
about a God, or to talk anything to them concerning religion.

The utmost of all the improvement which I can say the wives had made from
them was, that they had taught them to speak English pretty well; and
most of their children, who were near twenty in all, were taught to speak
English too, from their first learning to speak, though they at first
spoke it in a very broken manner, like their mothers.  None of these
children were above six years old when I came thither, for it was not
much above seven years since they had fetched these five savage ladies
over; they had all children, more or less: the mothers were all a good
sort of well-governed, quiet, laborious women, modest and decent, helpful
to one another, mighty observant, and subject to their masters (I cannot
call them husbands), and lacked nothing but to be well instructed in the
Christian religion, and to be legally married; both of which were happily
brought about afterwards by my means, or at least in consequence of my
coming among them.




CHAPTER VI--THE FRENCH CLERGYMAN'S COUNSEL


Having thus given an account of the colony in general, and pretty much of
my runagate Englishmen, I must say something of the Spaniards, who were
the main body of the family, and in whose story there are some incidents
also remarkable enough.

I had a great many discourses with them about their circumstances when
they were among the savages.  They told me readily that they had no
instances to give of their application or ingenuity in that country; that
they were a poor, miserable, dejected handful of people; that even if
means had been put into their hands, yet they had so abandoned themselves
to despair, and were so sunk under the weight of their misfortune, that
they thought of nothing but starving.  One of them, a grave and sensible
man, told me he was convinced they were in the wrong; that it was not the
part of wise men to give themselves up to their misery, but always to
take hold of the helps which reason offered, as well for present support
as for future deliverance: he told me that grief was the most senseless,
insignificant passion in the world, for that it regarded only things
past, which were generally impossible to be recalled or to be remedied,
but had no views of things to come, and had no share in anything that
looked like deliverance, but rather added to the affliction than proposed
a remedy; and upon this he repeated a Spanish proverb, which, though I
cannot repeat in the same words that he spoke it in, yet I remember I
made it into an English proverb of my own, thus:--

   "In trouble to be troubled,
   Is to have your trouble doubled."

He then ran on in remarks upon all the little improvements I had made in
my solitude: my unwearied application, as he called it; and how I had
made a condition, which in its circumstances was at first much worse than
theirs, a thousand times more happy than theirs was, even now when they
were all together.  He told me it was remarkable that Englishmen had a
greater presence of mind in their distress than any people that ever he
met with; that their unhappy nation and the Portuguese were the worst men
in the world to struggle with misfortunes; for that their first step in
dangers, after the common efforts were over, was to despair, lie down
under it, and die, without rousing their thoughts up to proper remedies
for escape.

I told him their case and mine differed exceedingly; that they were cast
upon the shore without necessaries, without supply of food, or present
sustenance till they could provide for it; that, it was true, I had this
further disadvantage and discomfort, that I was alone; but then the
supplies I had providentially thrown into my hands, by the unexpected
driving of the ship on the shore, was such a help as would have
encouraged any creature in the world to have applied himself as I had
done.  "Seignior," says the Spaniard, "had we poor Spaniards been in your
case, we should never have got half those things out of the ship, as you
did: nay," says he, "we should never have found means to have got a raft
to carry them, or to have got the raft on shore without boat or sail: and
how much less should we have done if any of us had been alone!"  Well, I
desired him to abate his compliments, and go on with the history of their
coming on shore, where they landed.  He told me they unhappily landed at
a place where there were people without provisions; whereas, had they had
the common sense to put off to sea again, and gone to another island a
little further, they had found provisions, though without people: there
being an island that way, as they had been told, where there were
provisions, though no people--that is to say, that the Spaniards of
Trinidad had frequently been there, and had filled the island with goats
and hogs at several times, where they had bred in such multitudes, and
where turtle and sea-fowls were in such plenty, that they could have been
in no want of flesh, though they had found no bread; whereas, here they
were only sustained with a few roots and herbs, which they understood
not, and which had no substance in them, and which the inhabitants gave
them sparingly enough; and they could treat them no better, unless they
would turn cannibals and eat men's flesh.

They gave me an account how many ways they strove to civilise the savages
they were with, and to teach them rational customs in the ordinary way of
living, but in vain; and how they retorted upon them as unjust that they
who came there for assistance and support should attempt to set up for
instructors to those that gave them food; intimating, it seems, that none
should set up for the instructors of others but those who could live
without them.  They gave me dismal accounts of the extremities they were
driven to; how sometimes they were many days without any food at all, the
island they were upon being inhabited by a sort of savages that lived
more indolent, and for that reason were less supplied with the
necessaries of life, than they had reason to believe others were in the
same part of the world; and yet they found that these savages were less
ravenous and voracious than those who had better supplies of food.  Also,
they added, they could not but see with what demonstrations of wisdom and
goodness the governing providence of God directs the events of things in
this world, which, they said, appeared in their circumstances: for if,
pressed by the hardships they were under, and the barrenness of the
country where they were, they had searched after a better to live in,
they had then been out of the way of the relief that happened to them by
my means.

They then gave me an account how the savages whom they lived amongst
expected them to go out with them into their wars; and, it was true, that
as they had firearms with them, had they not had the disaster to lose
their ammunition, they could have been serviceable not only to their
friends, but have made themselves terrible both to friends and enemies;
but being without powder and shot, and yet in a condition that they could
not in reason decline to go out with their landlords to their wars; so
when they came into the field of battle they were in a worse condition
than the savages themselves, for they had neither bows nor arrows, nor
could they use those the savages gave them.  So they could do nothing but
stand still and be wounded with arrows, till they came up to the teeth of
the enemy; and then, indeed, the three halberds they had were of use to
them; and they would often drive a whole little army before them with
those halberds, and sharpened sticks put into the muzzles of their
muskets.  But for all this they were sometimes surrounded with
multitudes, and in great danger from their arrows, till at last they
found the way to make themselves large targets of wood, which they
covered with skins of wild beasts, whose names they knew not, and these
covered them from the arrows of the savages: that, notwithstanding these,
they were sometimes in great danger; and five of them were once knocked
down together with the clubs of the savages, which was the time when one
of them was taken prisoner--that is

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