_He Settles in the Brazils as a Planter--Makes another Voyage and is
Shipwrecked_
As he was charitable in his proposal, so he was just in the performance
to a tittle; for he ordered the seamen that none should offer to touch
anything I had; then he took everything into his own possession, and
gave me back an exact inventory of them, that I might have them, even
so much as my three earthen jars.
As to my boat, it was a very good one, and that he saw, and told me he
would buy it of me for the ship’s use, and asked me what I would have
for it? I told him he had been so generous to me in everything, that I
could not offer to make any price for the boat, but left it entirely to
him; upon which he told me he would give me a note of his hand to pay
me eighty pieces of eight for it at Brazil, and when it came there, if
any one offered to give more, he would make it up. He offered me also
sixty pieces of eight more for my boy, Xury, which I was loth to take;
not that I was not willing to let the captain have him, but I was very
loth to sell the poor boy’s liberty, who had assisted me so faithfully
in procuring my own. However, when I let him know my reason, he owned
it to be just, and offered me this medium, that he would give the boy
an obligation to set him free in ten years if he turned Christian.
Upon this, and Xury saying he was willing to go to him, I let the
captain have him.
We had a very good voyage to the Brazils, and arrived in the Bay
de Todos los Santos, or All Saints’ Bay, in about twenty-two days
after. And now I was once more delivered from the most miserable of
all conditions of life; and what to do next with myself I was now to
consider.
The generous treatment the captain gave me, I can never enough
remember. He would take nothing of me for my passage, gave me twenty
ducats for the leopard’s skin, and forty for the lion’s skin, which
I had in my boat, and caused everything I had in the ship to be
punctually delivered me; and what I was willing to sell he bought, such
as the case of bottles, two of my guns, and a piece of the lump of
beeswax--for I had made candles of the rest; in a word, I made about
220 pieces of eight of all my cargo, and with this stock I went on
shore in the Brazils.
I had not been long here, but being recommended to the house of a good
honest man like himself, who had an _ingeino_ as they call it, that
is, a plantation and a sugar-house, I lived with him some time, and
acquainted myself by that means with the manner of their planting and
making of sugar; and seeing how well the planters lived, and how they
grew rich suddenly, I resolved, if I could get a license to settle
there, I would turn planter among them, resolving in the meantime to
find out some way to get my money which I left in London remitted to
me. To this purpose, getting a kind of a letter of naturalization, I
purchased as much land that was uncured as my money would reach, and
formed a plan for my plantation and settlement, and such a one as might
be suitable to the stock which I proposed to myself to receive from
England.
I had a neighbor, a Portuguese of Lisbon, but born of English parents,
whose name was Wells, and in much such circumstances as I was. I call
him my neighbor, because his plantation lay next to mine, and we went
on very sociably together. My stock was but low, as well as his; and
we rather planted for food than anything else, for about two years.
However, we began to increase, and our land began to come into order;
so that the third year we planted some tobacco, and made each of us a
large piece of ground ready for planting canes in the year to come. But
we both wanted help; and now I found more than before, I had done wrong
in parting with my boy Xury.
But alas! for me to do wrong that never did right was no great wonder.
I had no remedy but to go on. I was gotten into an employment quite
remote to my genius, and directly contrary to the life I delighted in,
and for which I forsook my father’s house, and broke through all his
good advice; nay, I was coming into the very middle station, or upper
degree of low life, which my father advised me to before; and which,
if I resolved to go on with, I might as well have stayed at home, and
never have fatigued myself in the world as I had done. And I used often
to say to myself, I could have done this as well in England among my
friends, as have gone 5,000 miles off to do it among strangers and
savages, in a wilderness, and at such a distance as never to hear from
any part of the world that had the least knowledge of me.
In this manner I used to look upon my condition with the utmost regret.
I had nobody to converse with, but now and then this neighbor; no work
to be done, but by the labor of my hands; and I used to say, I lived
just like a man cast away upon some desolate island, that had nobody
there but himself. But how just has it been! and how should all men
reflect, that when they compare their present conditions with others
that are worse, Heaven may oblige them to make the exchange, and be
convinced of their former felicity by their experience;--I say, how
just has it been, that the truly solitary life I reflected on in an
island of mere desolation should be my lot, who had so often unjustly
compared it with the life which I then led, in which, had I continued,
I had in all probability been exceeding prosperous and rich.
I was in some degree settled in my measures for carrying on the
plantation before my kind friend, the captain of the ship that took
me up at sea, went back; for the ship remained there in providing his
loading, and preparing for his voyage, near three months; when, telling
him what little stock I had left behind me in London, he gave me this
friendly and sincere advice: “Seignior Inglese,” says he, for so he
always called me, “if you will give me letters, and a procuration here
in form to me, with orders to the person who has your money in London
to send your effects to Lisbon, to such persons as I shall direct, and
in such goods as are proper for this country, I will bring you the
produce of them, God willing, at my return. But since human affairs
are all subject to changes and disaster, I would have you give orders
but for one hundred pounds sterling, which, you say, is half your
stock, and let the hazard be run for the first; so that if it come
safe, you may order the rest the same way; and if it miscarry, you may
have the other half to have recourse to for your supply.”
This was so wholesome advice, and looked so friendly, that I could not
but be convinced it was the best course I could take; so I accordingly
prepared letters to the gentlewoman with whom I had left my money, and
a procuration to the Portuguese captain, as he desired.
I wrote the English captain’s widow a full account of all my
adventures; my slavery, escape, and how I had met with the Portuguese
captain at sea, the humanity of his behavior, and in what condition
I was now in, with all other necessary directions for my supply. And
when this honest captain came to Lisbon, he found means, by some of
the English merchants there, to send over not the order only, but a
full account of my story to a merchant at London, who represented it
effectually to her; whereupon, she not only delivered the money, but
out of her own pocket sent the Portuguese captain a very handsome
present for his humanity and charity to me.
The merchant in London vesting this hundred pounds in English goods,
such as the captain had written for, sent them directly to him at
Lisbon, and he brought them all safe to me to the Brazils; among which,
without my direction (for I was too young in my business to think of
them), he had taken care to have all sorts of tools, iron-work, and
utensils necessary for my plantation, and which were of great use to
me.
When this cargo arrived, I thought my fortune made, for I was surprised
with joy of it; and my good steward, the captain, had laid out the five
pounds, which my friend had sent him for a present for himself, to
purchase and bring me over a servant under bond for six years’ service,
and would not accept of any consideration, except a little tobacco,
which I would have him accept, being of my own produce.
Neither was this all; but my goods being all English manufactures, such
as cloth, stuffs, baize, and things particularly valuable and desirable
in the country, I found means to sell them to a very great advantage;
so that I may say I had more than four times the value of my first
cargo, and was now infinitely beyond my poor neighbor, I mean in the
advancement of my plantation; for the first thing I did, I bought me a
negro slave, and an European servant also; I mean another besides that
which the captain brought me from Lisbon.
But as abused prosperity is oftentimes made the very means of our
greatest adversity, so was it with me. I went on the next year with
great success in my plantation. I raised fifty great rolls of tobacco
on my own ground, more than I had disposed of for necessaries among my
neighbors; and these fifty rolls, being each of above a hundredweight,
were well cured, and laid by against the return of the fleet from
Lisbon. And now, increasing in business and in wealth, my head began
to be full of projects and undertakings beyond my reach, such as are,
indeed, often the ruin of the best heads in business. Had I continued
in the station I was now in, I had room for all the happy things to
have yet befallen me for which my father so earnestly recommended a
quiet, retired life, and of which he had so sensibly described the
middle station of life to be full of. But other things attended me,
and I was still to be the wilful agent of all my own miseries; and
particularly, to increase my fault and double the reflections upon
myself, which in my future sorrows I should have leisure to make. All
these miscarriages were procured by my apparent obstinate adhering
to my foolish inclination of wandering abroad, and pursuing that
inclination in contradiction to the clearest views of doing myself good
in a fair and plain pursuit of those prospects, and those measures of
life, which Nature and Providence concurred to present me with, and to
make my duty.
As I had once done thus in my breaking away from my parents, so I could
not be content now, but I must go and leave the happy view I had of
being a rich and thriving man in my new plantation, only to pursue a
rash and immoderate desire of rising faster than the nature of the
thing admitted; and thus I cast myself down again into the deepest gulf
of human misery that ever man fell into, or perhaps could be consistent
with life and a state of health in the world.
To come then, by the just degrees to the particulars of this part of
my story. You may suppose, that having now lived almost four years in
the Brazils, and beginning to thrive and prosper very well upon my
plantation, I had not only learned the language, but had contracted
acquaintance and friendship among my fellow-planters, as well as among
the merchants at St. Salvador, which was our port, and that in my
discourses among them I had frequently given them an account of my two
voyages to the coast of Guinea, the manner of trading with the negroes
there, and how easy it was to purchase upon the coast for trifles--such
as beads, toys, knives, scissors, hatchets, bits of glass, and the
like--not only gold dust, Guinea grains, elephants’ teeth, etc., but
negroes, for the service of the Brazils, in great numbers.
They listened always very attentively to my discourses on these heads,
but especially to that part which related to the buying negroes; which
was a trade, at that time, not only not far entered into, but, as far
as it was, had been carried on by the _assiento_, or permission, of the
Kings of Spain and Portugal, and engrossed in the public, so that few
negroes were bought, and those excessive dear.
It happened, being in company with some merchants and planters of my
acquaintance, and talking of those things very earnestly, three of them
came to me the next morning, and told me they had been musing very much
upon what I had discoursed with them of, the last night, and they came
to make a secret proposal to me. And after enjoining me secrecy, they
told me that they had a mind to fit out a ship to go to Guinea; that
they had all plantations as well as I, and were straitened for nothing
so much as servants; that as it was a trade that could not be carried
on because they could not publicly sell the negroes when they came
home, so they desired to make but one voyage, to bring the negroes on
shore privately, and divide them among their own plantations; and, in a
word, the question was, whether I would go as their supercargo in the
ship, to manage the trading part upon the coast of Guinea; and they
offered me that I should have my equal share of the negroes without
providing any part of the stock.
This was a fair proposal, it must be confessed, had it been made to
any one that had not had a settlement and plantation of his own to
look after, which was in a fair way of coming to be very considerable,
and with a good stock upon it. But for me, that was thus entered and
established, and had nothing to do but go on as I had begun, for three
or four years more, and to have sent for the other hundred pounds
from England; and who, in that time, and with that little addition,
could scarce have failed of being worth three or four thousand pounds
sterling, and that increasing too--for me to think of such a voyage,
was the most preposterous thing that ever man, in such circumstances,
could be guilty of.
But I, that was born to be my own destroyer, could no more resist the
offer than I could restrain my first rambling designs, when my father’s
good counsel was lost upon me. In a word, I told them I would go with
all my heart, if they would undertake to look after my plantation in
my absence, and would dispose of it to such as I should direct if I
miscarried. This they all engaged to do, and entered into writings or
covenants to do so; I made a formal will, disposing of my plantation
and effects, in case of my death; making the captain of the ship that
had saved my life, as before, my universal heir, but obliging him to
dispose of my effects as I had directed in my will; one-half of the
produce being to himself, and the other to be shipped to England.
In short, I took all possible caution to preserve my effects, and keep
up my plantation. Had I used half as much prudence to have looked
into my own interest, and have made a judgment of what I ought to
have done and not to have done, I had certainly never gone away from
so prosperous an undertaking, leaving all the probable views of a
thriving circumstance, and gone upon a voyage to sea, attended with
all its common hazards, to say nothing of the reasons I had to expect
particular misfortunes to myself.
But I was hurried on, and obeyed blindly the dictates of my fancy
rather than my reason. And accordingly, the ship being fitted out, and
the cargo furnished, and all things done as by agreement by my partners
in the voyage, I went on board in an evil hour, the first of September,
1659, being the same day eight years that I went from my father and
mother at Hull, in order to act the rebel to their authority, and the
fool to my own interest.
Our ship was about 120 tons burden, carried six guns and fourteen men,
besides the master, his boy, and myself. We had on board no large
cargo of goods, except of such toys as were fit for our trade with
the negroes--such as beads, bits of glass, shells, and odd trifles,
especially little looking-glasses, knives, scissors, hatchets, and the
like.
The same day I went on board we set sail, standing away to the
northward upon our own coast, with design to stretch over for the
African coast, when they came about 10 or 12 degrees of northern
latitude, which, it seems, was the manner of their course in those
days. We had very good weather, only excessive hot, all the way upon
our own coast, till we came to the height of Cape St. Augustino, from
whence, keeping farther off at sea, we lost sight of land, and steered
as if we were bound for the Isle Fernando de Noronha, holding our
course N.E. by N., and leaving those isles on the east. In this course
we passed the line in about twelve days’ time, and were, by our last
observation, in 7 degrees 22 minutes northern latitude, when a violent
tornado, or hurricane, took us quite out of our knowledge. It began
from the south-east, came about to the north-west, and then settled
into the north-east, from whence it blew in such a terrible manner,
that for twelve days together we could do nothing but drive, and,
scudding away before it, let it carry us wherever fate and the fury of
the winds directed; and during these twelve days, I need not say that I
expected every day to be swallowed up, nor, indeed, did any in the ship
expect to save their lives.
In this distress we had, besides the terror of the storm, one of
our men die of the fever, and one man and the boy washed overboard.
About the twelfth day, the weather abating a little, the master made
an observation as well as he could, and found that he was in about
11 degrees north latitude, but that he was 22 degrees of longitude
difference west from Cape St. Augustino; so that he found he was gotten
upon the coast of Guiana, or the north part of Brazil, beyond the river
Amazon, toward that of the river Orinoco, commonly called the Great
River, and began to consult with me what course he should take, for the
ship was leaky and very much disabled, and he was going directly back
to the coast of Brazil.
I was positively against that; and looking over the charts of the
sea-coast of America with him, we concluded there was no inhabited
country for us to have recourse to till we came within the circle
of the Caribbee Islands, and therefore resolved to stand away for
Barbadoes, which by keeping off at sea, to avoid the indraft of the
Bay or Gulf of Mexico, we might easily perform, as we hoped, in about
fifteen days’ sail; whereas we could not possibly make our voyage to
the coast of Africa without some assistance, both to our ship and to
ourselves.
With this design we changed our course, and steered away N.W. by W. in
order to reach some of our English islands, where I hoped for relief;
but our voyage was otherwise determined; for being in the latitude of
12 degrees 18 minutes, a second storm came upon us, which carried us
away with the same impetuosity westward, and drove us so out of the
very way of all human commerce, that had all our lives been saved, as
to the sea, we were rather in danger of being devoured by savages than
ever returning to our own country.
In this distress, the wind still blowing very hard, one of our men
early in the morning cried out, “Land!” and we had no sooner ran
out of our cabin to look out, in hopes of seeing whereabouts in the
world we were, but the ship struck upon a sand, and in a moment, her
motion being so stopped, the sea broke over her in such a manner,
that we expected we should all have perished immediately; and we were
immediately driven into our close quarters, to shelter us from the very
foam and spray of the sea.
It is not easy for any one, who has not been in the like condition, to
describe or conceive the consternation of men in such circumstances. We
knew nothing where we were, or upon what land it was we were driven,
whether an island or the main, whether inhabited or not inhabited;
and as the rage of the wind was still great, though rather less than
at first, we could not so much as hope to have the ship hold many
minutes without breaking in pieces, unless the winds, by a kind of
miracle, should turn immediately about. In a word, we sat looking one
upon another, and expecting death every moment, and every man acting
accordingly, as preparing for another world; for there was little or
nothing more for us to do in this. That which was our present comfort,
and all the comfort we had, was that, contrary to our expectation, the
ship did not break yet, and that the master said the wind began to
abate.
Now, though we thought that the wind did a little abate, yet the ship
having thus struck upon the sand, and sticking too fast for us to
expect her getting off, we were in a dreadful condition indeed, and had
nothing to do but to think of saving our lives as well as we could. We
had a boat at our stern just before the storm, but she was first staved
by dashing against the ship’s rudder, and in the next place, she broke
away, and either sunk, or was driven off to sea, so there was no hope
from her; we had another boat on board, but how to get her off into the
sea was a doubtful thing. However, there was no room to debate, for we
fancied the ship would break in pieces every minute, and some told us
she was actually broken already.
In this distress, the mate of our vessel lays hold of the boat, and
with the help of the rest of the men they got her slung over the ship’s
side; and getting all into her, let go, and committed ourselves, being
eleven in number, to God’s mercy, and the wild sea; for though the
storm was abated considerably, yet the sea went dreadful high upon the
shore, and might well be called _den wild zee_, as the Dutch call the
sea in a storm.
And now our case was very dismal indeed, for we all saw plainly that
the sea went so high, that the boat could not live, 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 toward the
land, though with heavy hearts, like men going to execution, for we
all knew that when the boat came nearer the shore, she would be dashed
in a thousand pieces by the breach 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 may 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 sunk
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 sea, as it would
carry me a great way towards 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 20 or 30 feet
deep in its own body, and I could feel myself 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 the ground again with my feet. I stood still a few
moments to recover breath, and till the water 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 near 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 near 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 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, viz., that 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 his blood that every moment they tell him of it, that the
surprise may not drive the animal spirits from his 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 the 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 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 a while 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 bushy 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 drank, 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, as that if I should sleep I
might not fall; and having cut me a short stick, like a truncheon, for
my defence, I took up my lodging, and having been excessively fatigued,
I fell fast asleep, and slept as comfortably as, I believe, few could
have done in my condition, and found myself the most refreshed with it
that I think I ever was on such an occasion.