_Appendix I_
THE DRIFT OF OUR RURAL POPULATION CITYWARD
(An editorial)
To an individual who from whatever motives of personal advantage or mere
curiosity has made himself an observer of current tendencies, the drift of
our rural population cityward gives food for serious reflection. This
drift is one of the most pronounced of the social and economic phenomena
of the day. Its consequences upon the life, welfare, and future of the
great nation to which we are proud to acknowledge our whole-hearted
allegiance are matters of such paramount importance to all concerned that
we should turn aside more often than we do from the distracting exactions
of our ordinary activities to give them prolonged and earnest
consideration.
A generation or so ago human beings were content to spend the full term of
their earthly existence amid rural surroundings, or if in their declining
days they longed for more of the comforts and associations which are among
the cravings of mortality, it was an easy proposition to move to the
nearest village or, if they were too high and mighty for this simple
measure to satisfy them, they could indulge in the more grandiose
performance of residing in the county seat. But nowadays our people want
more. Rich or poor, tall or dumpy, tottering grandmothers or babies in
swaddling-clothes, they long for ampler pastures. Their brawny arms or
hoary heads must bedeck nothing less than the metropolis itself, and
perchance put shoulders to the wheel in the incessant grind of the urban
treadmill. Can you beat it? Unquestioned profit does not attend the
migration. It stands to reason that some of the very advantages sought
have been sacrificed on the altar of the drift cityward. Let us say you
have your individual domicile or the cramped and sunless apartment you dub
your habitation within corporate limits. Does that mean that the
privileges of the city are at your disposal, so that you have merely to
reach forth your hand and pluck them? Well, hardly! You certainly do not
reside in the downtown section, or if you do, you wish to heaven you
didn't. And you can reach this section only with delay and inconvenience,
whether in the hours of business or in the subsequent period devoted to
the glitter of nocturnal revelry and amusement.
But whatever the disadvantages of the city, the people who endure them are
convinced that to go back to the vines and figtrees of their native heath
would be jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. Why? Well, for one
thing, there is no such thing as leisure in the areas that lie beyond
those vast aggregations of humanity which constitute our cities. Not only
are there innumerable and seemingly interminable chores that must follow
the regular occupations of the day, but a thousand emergencies due to
chance, weather, or the natural cussedness of things must be disposed of
as they arise, regardless of what plans the rustic swain cherishes for the
use of his spare time. Urban laborers have contrived by one means or
another to bring about a limitation of the number of hours per diem they
are forced to toil. To the farmers such an alleviation of their hardships
is not within the realm of practicability. They kick about it of course.
They say it's a blooming nuisance. But neither their heartburnings nor
their struggles can efface it as a fact.
Again, the means of entertainment are more limited, and that by a big lot,
with the farmer than with those who dwell in the cities. It is all very
well to talk about the blessings of the rural telephone, rural free
delivery, and the automobile. These things do make communication easier
than it used to be, but after all they're only a drop in the bucket and do
little to stop the drift cityward. We may remark just here that if you
live a thousand miles from nowhere and are willing to drive your Tin
Lizzie into town for "the advantages," you aren't likely to get much even
along the line of the movies, and you'll get less still if what you're
after is an A-1 school for your progeny.
Finally, the widespread impression that the farmer is a bloated and
unscrupulous profiteer has done much to disgust him with his station and
employment in life. We don't say he's the one and only when it comes to
the virtues. Maybe he hasn't sprouted any wings yet. What if he hasn't?
The cities, with their brothels, their big business, and their municipal
governments--you wouldn't have the face to say that there's anything wrong
with them, now would you? Oh, no! Of course not! The farmer pays high for
his machinery and goes clear to the bottom of his pocketbook when he has
to buy shoes or a sack of flour, but let him have a steer's hide or a
wagon load of wheat to sell, and it's somebody else's ox that's gored.
Consumers pay big prices for farm products, goodness knows, but they don't
pay them to the farmer. Not on your tintype. The middleman gets his, you
needn't question that. We beg pardon a thousand times. We mean the
middle_men_. There's no end to those human parasites.
And so farmer after farmer breaks up the old homestead and contributes his
mite to the drift cityward. What will be the result that comes out of it
all? The effect upon the farmer deserves an editorial all to itself. Here
we must limit ourselves to the effects on the future of our beloved
American nation. And even these we can now do no more than mention; we
lack space to elaborate them. One effect, if the tendency continues, will
be such a reduction in home-produced foodstuffs that we shall have to
import from other countries lying abroad a good portion of the means of
our physical sustenance, and shall face such an increase in the cost of
the same that thousands and thousands of our people will find it
increasingly harder as the years pass by to maintain their relative
economic position. Another effect will be that our civilization, which to
this point has sprawled over broad acres, will become an urban
civilization, penned in amid conditions, restraints, privations, and
perhaps also opportunities unprecedented in our past history and unknown
to the experience we have had hitherto. A final effect will be that our
most conservative class, the rural populace, will no longer present
resistance that is formidable to the innovations which those who hold
extreme views are forever exhorting us to embrace; and the result may well
be that the disintegration of this staying and stabilizing element in our
citizenship--one that retards and mollifies if it does not inhibit
change--will produce consequences in its train which may be as dire as
they are difficult to foretell.
_Appendix_ 2
CAUSES FOR THE AMERICAN SPIRIT OF LIBERTY
(From the _Speech on Conciliation with the Colonies_)
By EDMUND BURKE
In this character of the Americans, a love of freedom is the predominating
feature which marks and distinguishes the whole; and as an ardent is
always a jealous affection, your Colonies become suspicious, restive, and
untractable whenever they see the least attempt to wrest from them by
force, or shuffle from them by chicane, what they think the only advantage
worth living for. This fierce spirit of liberty is stronger in the English
Colonies probably than in any other people of the earth, and this from a
great variety of powerful causes; which, to understand the true temper of
their minds and the direction which this spirit takes, it will not be
amiss to lay open somewhat more largely.
First, the people of the Colonies are descendants of Englishmen. England,
Sir, is a nation which still, I hope, respects, and formerly adored, her
freedom. The Colonists emigrated from you when this part of your character
was most predominant; and they took this bias and direction the moment
they parted from your hands. They are therefore not only devoted to
liherty, but to liberty according to English ideas, and on English
principles. Abstract liberty, like other mere abstractions, is not to be
found. Liberty inheres in some sensible object; and every nation has
formed to itself some favorite point, which by way of eminence becomes the
criterion of their happiness. It happened, you know, Sir, that the great
contests for freedom in this country were from the earliest times chiefly
upon the question of taxing. Most of the contests in the ancient
commonwealths turned primarily on the right of election of magistrates; or
on the balance among the several orders of the state. The question of
money was not with them so immediate. But in England it was otherwise. On
this point of taxes the ablest pens, and most eloquent tongues, have been
exercised; the greatest spirits have acted and suffered. In order to give
the fullest satisfaction concerning the importance of this point, it was
not only necessary for those who in argument defended the excellence of
the English Constitution to insist on this privilege of granting money as
a dry point of fact, and to prove that the right had been acknowledged in
ancient parchments and blind usages to reside in a certain body called a
House of Commons. They went much farther; they attempted to prove, and
they succeeded, that in theory it ought to be so, from the particular
nature of a House of Commons as an immediate representative of the people,
whether the old records had delivered this oracle or not. They took
infinite pains to inculcate, as a fundamental principle, that in all
monarchies the people must in effect themselves, mediately or immediately,
possess the power of granting their own money, or no shadow of liberty can
subsist. The Colonies draw from you, as with their life-blood, these ideas
and principles. Their love of liberty, as with you, fixed and attached on
this specific point of taxing. Liberty might be safe, or might be
endangered, in twenty other particulars, without their being much pleased
or alarmed. Here they felt its pulse; and as they found that beat, they
thought themselves sick or sound. I do not say whether they were right or
wrong in applying your general arguments to their own case. It is not
easy, indeed, to make a monopoly of theorems and corollaries. The fact is,
that they did thus apply those general arguments; and your mode of
governing them, whether through lenity or indolence, through wisdom or
mistake, confirmed them in the imagination that they, as well as you, had
an interest in these common principles.
They were further confirmed in this pleasing error by the form of their
provincial legislative assemblies. Their governments are popular in an
high degree; some are merely popular; in all, the popular representative
is the most weighty; and this share of the people in their ordinary
government never fails to inspire them with lofty sentiments, and with a
strong aversion from whatever tends to deprive them of their chief
importance.
If anything were wanting to this necessary operation of the form of
government, religion would have given it a complete effect. Religion,
always a principle of energy, in this new people is no way worn out or
impaired; and their mode of professing it is also one main cause of this
free spirit. The people are Protestants; and of that kind which is the
most adverse to all implicit submission of mind and opinion. This is a
persuasion not only favorable to liberty, but built upon it. I do not
think, Sir, that the reason of this averseness in the dissenting churches
from all that looks like absolute government is so much to be sought in
their religious tenets, as in their history. Every one knows that the
Roman Catholic religion is at least coeval with most of the governments
where it prevails; that it has generally gone hand in hand with them, and
received great favor and every kind of support from authority. The Church
of England too was formed from her cradle under the nursing care of
regular government. But the dissenting interests have sprung up in direct
opposition to all the ordinary powers of the world, and could justify that
opposition only on a strong claim to natural liberty. Their very existence
depended on the powerful and unremitted assertion of that claim. All
Protestantism, even the most cold and passive, is a sort of dissent. But
the religion most prevalent in our Northern Colonies is a refinement on
the principle of resistance; it is the dissidence of dissent, and the
protestantism of the Protestant religion. This religion, under a variety
of denominations agreeing in nothing but in the communion of the spirit of
liberty, is predominant in most of the Northern Provinces, where the
Church of England, notwithstanding its legal rights, is in reality no more
than a sort of private sect, not composing most probably the tenth of the
people. The Colonists left England when this spirit was high, and in the
emigrants was the highest of all; and even that stream of foreigners which
has been constantly flowing into these Colonies has, for the greatest
part, been composed of dissenters from the establishments of their several
countries, who have brought with them a temper and character far from
alien to that of the people with whom they mixed.
Sir, I can perceive by their manner that some gentlemen object to the
latitude of this description, because in the Southern Colonies the Church
of England forms a large body, and has a regular establishment. It is
certainly true. There is, however, a circumstance attending these Colonies
which, in my opinion, fully counterbalances this difference, and makes the
spirit of liberty still more high and haughty than in those to the
northward. It is that in Virginia and the Carolinas they have a vast
multitude of slaves. Where this is the case in any part of the world,
those who are free are by far the most proud and jealous of their freedom.
Freedom is to them not only an enjoyment, but a kind of rank and
privilege. Not seeing there, that freedom, as in countries where it is a
common blessing and as broad and general as the air, may be united with
much abject toil, with great misery, with all the exterior of servitude;
liberty looks, amongst them, like something that is more noble and
liberal. I do not mean, Sir, to commend the superior morality of this
sentiment, which has at least as much pride as virtue in it; but I cannot
alter the nature of man. The fact is so; and these people of the Southern
Colonies are much more strongly, and with an higher and more stubborn
spirit, attached to liberty than those to the northward. Such were all the
ancient commonwealths; such were our Gothic ancestors; such in our days
were the Poles; and such will be all masters of slaves, who are not slaves
themselves. In such a people the haughtiness of domination combines with
the spirit of freedom, fortifies it, and renders it invincible.
Permit me, Sir, to add another circumstance in our Colonies which
contributes no mean part towards the growth and effect of this untractable
spirit. I mean their education. In no country perhaps in the world is the
law so general a study. The profession itself is numerous and powerful;
and in most provinces it takes the lead. The greater number of the
deputies sent to the Congress were lawyers. But all who read, and most do
read, endeavor to obtain some smattering in that science. I have been told
by an eminent bookseller, that in no branch of his business, after tracts
of popular devotion, were so many books as those on the law exported to
the Plantations. The Colonists have now fallen into the way of printing
them for their own use. I hear that they have sold nearly as many of
Blackstone's Commentaries in America as in England. General Gage marks out
this disposition very particularly in a letter on your table. He states
that all the people in his government are lawyers, or smatterers in law;
and that in Boston they have been enabled, by successful chicane, wholly
to evade many parts of one of your capital penal constitutions. The
smartness of debate will say that this knowledge ought to teach them more
clearly the rights of legislature, their obligations to obedience, and the
penalties of rebellion. All this is mighty well. But my honorable and
learned friend on the floor, who condescends to mark what I say for
animadversion, will disdain that ground. He has heard, as well as I, that
when great honors and great emoluments do not win over this knowledge to
the service of the state, it is a formidable adversary to government. If
the spirit be not tamed and broken by these happy methods, it is stubborn
and litigious. _Abeunt studia in mores_. This study renders men
acute, inquisitive, dexterous, prompt in attack, ready in defence, full of
resources. In other countries, the people, more simple, and of a less
mercurial cast, judge of an ill principle in government only by an actual
grievance; here they anticipate the evil, and judge of the pressure of the
grievance by the badness of the principle. They augur misgovernment at a
distance, and snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze.
The last cause of this disobedient spirit in the Colonies is hardly less
powerful than the rest, as it is not merely moral, but laid deep in the
natural constitution of things. Three thousand miles of ocean lie between
you and them. No contrivance can prevent the effect of this distance in
weakening government. Seas roll, and months pass, between the order and
the execution; and the want of a speedy explanation of a single point is
enough to defeat a whole system. You have, indeed, winged ministers of
vengeance, who carry your bolts in their pounces to the remotest verge of
the sea. But there a power steps in that limits the arrogance of raging
passions and furious elements, and says, _So far shalt thou go, and no
farther_. Who are you, that you should fret and rage, and bite the
chains of nature? Nothing worse happens to you than does to all nations
who have extensive empire; and it happens in all the forms into which
empire can be thrown. In large bodies the circulation of power must be
less vigorous at the extremities. Nature has said it. The Turk cannot
govern Egypt and Arabia and Kurdistan as he governs Thrace; nor has he the
same dominion in Crimea and Algiers which he has at Brusa and Smyrna.
Despotism itself is obliged to truck and huckster. The Sultan gets such
obedience as he can. He governs with a loose rein, that he may govern at
all; and the whole of the force and vigor of his authority in his center
is derived from a prudent relaxation in all his borders. Spain, in her
provinces, is, perhaps, not so well obeyed as you are in yours. She
complies, too; she submits; she watches times. This is the immutable
condition, the eternal law of extensive and detached empire.
Then, Sir, from these six capital sources--of descent, of form of
government, of religion in the Northern Provinces, of manners in the
Southern, of education, of the remoteness of situation from the first
mover of government-from all these causes a fierce spirit of liberty has
grown up. It has grown with the growth of the people in your Colonies, and
increased with the increase of their wealth; a spirit that unhappily
meeting with an exercise of power in England which, however lawful, is not
reconcilable to any ideas of liberty, much less with theirs, has kindled
this flame that is ready to consume us.
_Appendix 3_
PARABLE OF THE SOWER
(Matthew 13:3,8 and 18-23)
And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying,
Behold, a sower went forth to sow;
And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side,
and the fowls came and devoured them up:
Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth:
and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth:
And when the sun was up, they were scorched;
and because they had no root, they withered away.
And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them:
But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit,
some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.
Hear ye therefore the parable of the sower.
When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not,
then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his
heart. This is he which received seed by the way side.
But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he
that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it.
Yet he hath not root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when
tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is
offended.
He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word;
and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the
word, and he becometh unfruitful.
But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the
word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth,
some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.
_Appendix 4_
THE SEVEN AGES OF MAN
_(As You Like It, II, vii, 139-166)_
By WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel,
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin'd,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose well say'd, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
_Appendix 5_
THE CASTAWAY
(From _Robinson Crusoe_)
By Daniel Defoe
And now our case was very dismal indeed; for we all saw plainly that the
sea went so high that the boat could not escape, and that we should be
inevitably drowned. As to making sail, we had none, nor, if we had, could
we have done anything with it; so we worked at the oar towards the land,
though with heavy hearts, like men going to execution; for we all knew
that when the boat came near the shore, she would be dashed in a thousand
pieces by the beach of the sea. However, we committed our souls to God in
the most earnest manner; and the wind driving us towards the shore, we
hastened our destruction with our own hands, pulling as well as we could
towards land.
What the shore was, whether rock or sand, whether steep or shoal, we knew
not; the only hope that could rationally give us the least shadow of
expectation, was if we might happen into some bay or gulf, or the mouth of
some river, where by great chance we might have run our boat in, or got
under the lee of the land, and perhaps made smooth water. But there was
nothing of this appeared; but as we made nearer and nearer the shore, the
land looked more frightful than the sea.
After we had rowed, or rather driven, about a league and a half, as we
reckoned it, a raging wave, mountain-like, came rolling astern of us, and
plainly bade us expect the _coup de grâce_. In a word, it took us
with such a fury that it overset the boat at once; and separating us as
well from the boat as from one another, gave us not time hardly to say,
"O God!" for we were all swallowed up in a moment.
Nothing can describe the confusion of thought which I felt, when I sank
into the water; for though I swam very well, yet I could not deliver
myself from the waves so as to draw breath, till that wave having driven
me, or rather carried me, a vast way on towards the shore, and having
spent itself, went back, and left me upon the land almost dry, but half
dead with the water I took in. I had so much presence of mind, as well as
breath left, that seeing myself nearer the mainland than I expected, I got
upon my feet, and endeavored to make on towards the land as fast as I
could, before another wave should return and take me up again; but I soon
found it was impossible to avoid it; for I saw the sea come after me as
high as a great hill, and as furious as an enemy, which I had no means or
strength to contend with: my business was to hold my breath, and raise
myself upon the water, if I could; and so by swimming to preserve my
breathing, and pilot myself towards the shore if possible; my greatest
concern now being that the wave, as it would carry me a great way toward
the shore when it came on, might not carry me back again with it when it
gave back towards the sea.
The wave that came upon me again buried me at once twenty or thirty feet
deep in its own body, and I could feel myself I carried with a mighty
force and swiftness towards the shore a very great way; but I held my
breath, and assisted myself to swim still forward with all my might. I was
ready to burst with holding my breath, when as I felt myself rising up,
so, to my immediate relief, I found my head and hands shoot out above the
surface of the water; and though it was not two seconds of time that I
could keep myself so, yet it relieved me greatly, gave me breath and new
courage. I was covered again with water a good while, but not so long but
I held it out; and finding the water had spent itself, and began to
return, I struck forward against the return of the waves, and felt ground
again with my feet. I stood still a few moments to recover breath, and
till the waters went from me, and then took to my heels, and ran with what
strength I had, farther towards the shore. But neither would this deliver
me from the fury of the sea, which came pouring in after me again; and
twice more I was lifted up by the waves and carried forwards as before,
the shore being very flat.
The last time of these two had well-nigh been fatal to me; for the sea
having hurried me along, as before, landed me, or rather dashed me,
against a piece of a rock, and that with such force as it left me
senseless, and indeed helpless, as to my own deliverance; for the blow,
taking my side and breast, beat the breath as it were quite out of my
body; and had it returned again immediately, I must have been strangled in
the water; but I recovered a little before the return of the waves, and
seeing I should be covered again with the water, I resolved to hold fast
by a piece of the rock, and so to hold my breath, if possible, till the
wave went back. Now, as the waves were not so high as at first, being
nearer land, I held my hold till the wave abated, and then fetched another
run, which brought me so near the shore that the next wave, though it went
over me, yet did not so swallow me up as to carry me away; and the next
run I took I got to the mainland; where, to my great comfort, I clambered
up the cliffs of the shore, and sat me down upon the grass, free from
danger and quite out of the reach of the water. I was now landed, and safe
on shore, and began to look up and thank God that my life was saved, in a
case wherein there was some minutes before scarce any room to hope. I
believe it is impossible to express, to the life, what the ecstasies and
transports of the soul are when it is so saved, as I may say, out of the
very grave: and I do not wonder now at that custom, when a malefactor, who
has the halter about his neck, is tied up, and just going to be turned
off, and has a reprieve brought to him--I say, I do not wonder that they
bring a surgeon with it, to let him blood that very moment they tell him
of it, that the surprise may not drive the animal spirits from the heart,
and overwhelm him.
"For sudden joys, like griefs, confound at first."
I walked about on the shore, lifting up my hands, and my whole being, as I
may say, wrapt up in a contemplation of my deliverance; making a thousand
gestures and motions, which I cannot describe; reflecting upon all my
comrades that were drowned, and that there should not be one soul saved
but myself; for, as for them, I never saw them afterwards, or any sign of
them, except three of their hats, one cap, and two shoes that were not
fellows.
I cast my eyes to the stranded vessel, when, the breach and froth of the
sea being so big, I could hardly see it, it lay so far off; and
considered, Lord! how was it possible I could get on shore?
After I had solaced my mind with the comfortable part of my condition, I
began to look round me, to see what kind of place I was in, and what was
next to be done: and I soon found my comforts abate, and that, in a word,
I had a dreadful deliverance: for I was wet, had no clothes to shift me,
nor anything either to eat or drink, to comfort me; neither did I see any
prospect before me but that of perishing with hunger, or being devoured by
wild beasts: and that which was particularly afflicting to me was, that I
had no weapon, either to hunt and kill any creature for my sustenance, or
to defend myself against any other creature that might desire to kill me
for theirs. In a word, I had nothing about me but a knife, a tobacco-pipe,
and a little tobacco in a box. This was all my provision; and this threw
me into terrible agonies of mind, that for awhile I ran about like a
madman. Night coming upon me, I began with a heavy heart, to consider what
would be my lot if there were any ravenous beasts in that country, seeing
at night they always come abroad for their prey.
All the remedy that offered to my thoughts, at that time, was to get up
into a thick busby tree, like a fir, but thorny, which grew near me, and
where I resolved to sit all night, and consider the next day what death I
should die, for as yet I saw no prospect of life. I walked about a furlong
from the shore, to see if I could find any fresh water to drink, which I
did to my great joy; and having drunk, and put a little tobacco in my
mouth to prevent hunger, I went to the tree, and getting up into it,
endeavored to place myself so that if I should sleep I might not fall. And
having cut me a short stick, like a truncheon, for my defense, I took up
my lodging; and being excessively fatigued, I fell fast asleep, and slept
as comfortably as, I believe, few could have done in my condition, and
found myself more refreshed with it than I think I ever was on such an
occasion.
When I waked it was broad day, the weather clear, and the storm abated, so
that the sea did not rage and swell as before; but that which surprised me
most was, that the ship was lifted off in the night from the sand where
she lay, by the swelling of the tide, and was driven up almost as far as
the rock which I at first mentioned, where I had been so bruised by the
wave dashing me against it. This being within about a mile from the shore
where I was, and the ship seeming to stand upright still, I wished myself
on board, that at least I might save some necessary things for my use.
When I came down from my apartment in the tree, I looked about me again,
and the first thing I found was the boat, which lay, as the wind and sea
had tossed her up, upon the land, about two miles on my right hand. I
walked as far as I could upon the shore to have got to her; but found a
neck, or inlet, of water between me and the boat, which was about half a
mile broad; so I came back for the present, being more intent upon getting
at the ship, where I hoped to find something for my present subsistence.
A little after noon I found the sea very calm and the tide ebbed so far
out, that I could come within a quarter of a mile of the ship. And here I
found a fresh renewing of my grief; for I saw evidently that if we had
kept on board, we had been all safe: that is to say, we had all got safe
on shore, and I had not been so miserable as to be left entirely destitute
of all comfort and company, as I now was. This forced tears to my eyes
again; but as there was little relief in that, I resolved, if possible, to
get to the ship-, so I pulled off my clothes, for the weather was hot to
extremity, and took the water. But when I came to the ship, my difficulty
was still greater to know how to get on board; for, as she lay aground,
and high out of the water, there was nothing within my reach to lay hold
of. I swam round her twice, and the second time I espied a small piece of
rope, which I wondered I did not see at first, hanging down by the
fore-chains so low that, with great difficulty, I got hold of it, and by
the help of that rope got up into the forecastle of the ship. Here I found
that the ship was bulged, and had a great deal of water in her hold; but
that she lay so on the side of a bank of hard sand, or rather earth, that
her stern lay lifted up upon the bank, and her head low, almost to the
water. By this means all her quarter was free, and all that was in that
part was dry; for you may be sure my first work was to search, and to see
what was spoiled and what was free. And, first, I found that all the
ship's provisions were dry and untouched by the water, and being very well
disposed to eat, I went to the bread-room, and filled my pockets with
biscuit, and ate it as I went about other things, for I had no time to
lose. I also found some rum in the great cabin, of which I took a large
dram, and which I had, indeed, need enough of to spirit me for what was
before me. Now I wanted nothing but a boat, to furnish myself with many
things which I foresaw would be very necessary to me.
It was in vain to sit still and wish for what was not to be had; and this
extremity roused my application. We had several spare yards, and two or
three large spars of wood, and a spare topmast or two in the ship: I
resolved to fall tp work with these, and I flung as many of them overboard
as I could manage for their weight, tying every one with a rope, that they
might not drive away. When this was done I went down the ship's side, and
pulling them to me I tied four of them together at both ends, as well as I
could, in the form of a raft, and laying two or three short pieces of
plank upon them, crossways, I found I could walk upon it very well, but
that it was not able to bear any great weight, the pieces being too light.
So I went to work, and with the carpenter's saw I cut a spare topmast into
three lengths, and added them to my raft, with a great deal of labor and
pains. But the hope of furnishing myself with necessaries encouraged me to
go beyond what I should have been able to have done upon another occasion.
My raft was now strong enough to bear any reasonable weight. My next care
was what to load it with, and how to preserve what I laid upon it from the
surf of the sea: but I was not long considering this. I first laid all the
planks or boards upon it that I could get, and having considered well what
I most wanted, I first got three of the seamen's chests, which I had
broken open and emptied, and lowered them down upon my raft; the first of
these I filled with provisions--viz., bread, rice, three Dutch cheeses,
five pieces of dried goat's flesh (which we lived much upon), and a little
remainder of European corn, which had been laid by for some fowls which we
brought to sea with us, but the fowls were killed. There had been some
barley and wheat together; but, to my great disappointment, I found
afterwards that the rats had eaten or spoiled it all. As for liquors, I
found several cases of bottles belonging to our skipper, in which were
some cordial waters; and, in all, about five or six gallons of arrack.
These I stowed by themselves, there being no need to put them into the
chest, nor any room for them. While I was doing this, I found the tide
began to flow, though very calm; and I had the mortification to see my
coat, shirt, and waistcoat, which I had left on shore upon the sand, swim
away. As for my breeches, which were only linen, and open-kneed, I swam on
board in them and my stockings. However, this put me upon rummaging for
clothes, of which I found enough, but took no more than I wanted for
present use, for I had other things which my eye was more upon; as, first,
tools to work with on shore: and it was after long searching that I found
out the carpenter's chest, which was indeed a very useful prize to me, and
much more valuable than a ship-lading of gold would have been at that
time. I got it down to my raft, whole as it was, without losing time to
look into it, for I knew in general what it contained.
My next care was for some ammunition and arms. There were two very good
fowling-pieces in the great cabin, and two pistols. These I secured first,
with some powder-horns, a small bag of shot, and two old rusty swords. I
knew there were three barrels of powder in the ship, but knew not where
our gunner had stowed them; but with much search I found them, two of them
dry and good, the third had taken water. Those two I got to my raft, with
the arms. And now I thought myself pretty well freighted, and began to
think how I should get to shore with them, having neither sail, oar, nor
rudder; and the least capful of wind would have overset all my navigation.
I had three encouragements: first, a smooth, calm sea; secondly, the tide
rising, and setting in to the shore; thirdly, what little wind there was
blew me towards the land. And thus, having found two or three broken oars,
belonging to the boat, and besides the tools which were in the chest, two
saws, an axe, and a hammer, with this cargo I put to sea. For a mile, or
thereabouts, my raft went very well, only that I found it drive a little
distant from the place where I had landed before: by which I perceived
that there was some indraught of the water, and consequently, I hoped to
find some creek or river there, which I might malze use of as a port to
get to land with my cargo.
As I imagined, so it was. There appeared before me a little opening of the
land. I found a strong current of the tide set into it; so I guided my
raft as well as I could, to keep in the middle of the stream.
But here I had like to have suffered a second shipwreck, which, if I had,
I think verily would have broken my heart; for, knowing nothing of the
coast, my raft ran aground at one end of it upon a shoal, and not being
aground at the other end, it wanted but a little that all my cargo had
slipped off towards the end that was afloat, and so fallen into the water.
I did my utmost, by setting my back against the chests, to keep them in
their places, but could not thrust off the raft with all my strength;
neither durst I stir from the posture I was in; but holding up the chests
with all my might, I stood in that manner near half an hour, in which time
the rising of the water brought me a little more upon a level; and a
little after, the water still rising, my raft floated again, and I thrust
her off with the oar I had into the channel, and then driving up higher, I
at length found myself in the mouth of a little river, with land on both
sides, and a strong current or tide running up. I looked on both sides for
a proper place to get to shore, for I was not willing to be driven too
high up the river; hoping in time to see some ship at sea, and therefore
resolved to place myself as near the coast as I could.
At length I spied a little cove on the right shore of the creek, to which,
with great pain and difficulty, I guided my raft, and at last got so near,
that reaching ground with my oar, I could thrust her directly in. But here
I had like to have dipped all my cargo into the sea again; for that shore
lying pretty steep-that is to say, sloping--there was no place to land but
where one end of my float, if it ran on shore, would lie so high, and the
other sink lower, as before, that it would endanger my cargo again. All
that I could do was to wait till the tide was at the highest, keeping the
raft with my oar like an anchor, to hold the side of it fast to the shore,
near a flat piece of ground, which I expected the water would flow over;
and so it did. As soon as I found water enough, for my raft drew about a
foot of water, I thrust her upon that flat piece of ground, and there
fastened or moored her, by sticking my two broken oars into the ground-one
on one side, near one end, and one on the other side, near the other end;
and thus I lay till the water ebbed away, and left my raft and all my
cargo safe on shore.
_Appendix 6_