prepared every thing for my voyage, took a quantity of bread, a great
pot for fresh water, a compass to steer by, a bottle of rum, (for I had
still a great deal of that left) a basket full of raisins: and thus
loading myself with every thing necessary, I went down to my boat, got
the water out of her, and got her afloat, loaded all my cargo in her,
and then went home again for more: my second cargo was a great bag full
of rice, the umbrella to set up over my head for shade, another large
pot full of lush water, and about two dozen of my small loaves, or
barley-cakes, more than before, with a bottle of goat’s milk, and a
cheese: all which, with great labour and sweat, I brought to my boat;
and praying to God to direct my voyage, I put out, and rowing or
paddling the canoe along the shore, I came at last to the utmost point
of the island, on that side, viz. N.E. And now I was to launch out into
the ocean, and either to venture, or not to venture; I looked on the
rapid currents which ran constantly on both sides of the island, at a
distance, and which were very terrible to me, from the remembrance of
the hazard I had been in before, and my heart began to fail me; for I
foresaw, that if I was driven into either of those currents, I should
be carried a vast way out to sea and perhaps out of my reach, or sight
of the island again; and that then, as my boat was but small, if any
little gale of wind should rise, I should be inevitably lost.
These thoughts so oppressed my mind, that I began to give over my
enterprise, and having haled my boat into a little creek on the shore, I
stepped out, and sat me down upon a little spot of rising ground, very
pensive and anxious, between fear and desire, about my voyage; when, as
I was musing, I could perceive that the tide was turned, and the flood
came on, upon which my going was for so many hours impracticable: upon
this it presently occurred to me, that I should go up to the highest
piece of ground I could find, and observe, if I could, how the sets of
the tide or currents lay, when the flood came in, that I might judge
whether, if I was driven one way out, I might not expect to be driven
another way home, with the same rapidness of the currents. This thought
was no sooner in my head, but I cast my eye upon a little hill which
sufficiently overlooked the sea both ways, and from whence I had a clear
view of the currents, or sets of the tide, and which way I was to guide
myself in my return: here I found, that as the current of the ebb set
out close by the south point of the island, so the current of the flood
set in close by the shore of the north side; and that I had nothing to
do but to keep to the north of the island in my return, and I should do
well enough.
Encouraged with this observation, I resolved the next morning to set out
with the first of the tide; and reposing myself for that night in the
canoe, under the great watch-coat I mentioned, I launched out. I made
first a little out to sea full north, till I began to feel the benefit
of the current, which sat eastward, and which carried me at a great
rate, and yet did not so hurry me as the southern side current had done
before, and so as to take from me all government of the boat; but having
a strong steerage with my paddle, I went, I say, at a great rate,
directly for the wreck, and in less than two hours I came up to it.
It was a dismal sight to look at: the ship, which by its building was
Spanish, stuck fast, jambed in between two rocks; all the stern and
quarter of her was beaten to pieces with the sea; and as her forecastle,
which stuck in the rocks, had run on with great violence, her main-mast
and fore-mast were brought by the board, that is to say, broken short
off, but her boltsprit was sound, and the head and bow appeared firm.
When I came close to her, a dog appeared upon her, which, seeing me
coming, yelped and cried, and as soon as I called him, jumped into the
sea to come to me: and I took him into the boat, but found him almost
dead for hunger and thirst: I gave him a cake of my bread, and he ate
like a ravenous wolf that had been starving a fortnight in the snow: I
then gave the poor creature some fresh water, with which, if I would
have let him, he would have burst himself.
After this I went on board. The first sight I met with was two men
drowned in the cook-room, or forecastle of the ship, with their arms
fast about one another. I concluded, as is indeed probable, that when
the ship struck, it being in a storm, the sea broke so high, and so
continually over her, that the men were not able to bear it, and were
strangled with the constant rushing in of the water, as much as if they
had been under water. Besides the dog, there was nothing left in the
ship that had life, nor any goods that I could see, but what were
spoiled by the water: there were some casks of liquor, whether wine or
brandy I knew not, which lay lower in the hold, and which, the water
being ebbed out, I could see; but they were too big to meddle with: I
saw several chests, which I believed belonged to some of the seamen, and
I got two of them into the boat without examining what was in them.
Had the stern of the ship been fixed, and the fore part broken off, I am
persuaded I might have made a good voyage; for by what I found in these
two chests, I had room to suppose the ship had a great deal of wealth
on board; and if I may guess by the course she steered, she must have
been bound from the Buenos Ayres, or the Rio de la Plata, in the south
part of America, beyond the Brasils, to the Havanna, in the Gulf of
Mexico, and so perhaps to Spain: she had, no doubt, a great treasure in
her, but of no use at that time to any body; and what became of the rest
of her people I then knew not.
I found, besides these chests, a little cask full of liquor, of about
twenty gallons, which I got into my boat with much difficulty. There
were several muskets in a cabin, and a great powder-horn, with about
four pounds of powder in it: as for the muskets, I had no occasion for
them, so I left them, but took the powder-horn. I took a fire-shovel and
tongs, which I wanted extremely; as also two little brass kettles, a
copper pot to make chocolate, and a gridiron; and with this cargo, and
the dog, I came away, the tide beginning to make home again; and the
same evening, about an hour within night, I reached the island again,
weary and fatigued to the last degree.
I reposed that night in the boat, and in the morning I resolved to
harbour what I had gotten in my new cave, not to carry it home to my
castle. After refreshing myself, I got all my cargo on shore, and began
to examine the particulars: the cask of liquor I found to be a kind of
rum, but not such as we had at the Brasils; and, in a word, not at all
good; but when I came to open the chests, I found several things which I
wanted: for example, I found in one a fine case of bottles, of an
extraordinary kind, and filled with cordial waters, fine, and very good;
the bottles held about three pints each, and were tipped with silver: I
found two pots of very good succades, or sweetmeats, so fastened also on
the top, that the salt water had not hurt them; and two more of the
same, which the water had spoiled: I found some very good shirts, which
were very welcome to me, and about a dozen and a half of white linen
handkerchiefs and coloured neckcloths; the former were also very
welcome, being exceeding refreshing to wipe my face in a hot day.
Besides this, when I came to the till in the chests, I found there three
great bags of pieces of eight, which held about eleven hundred pieces in
all; and in one of them, wrapt up in a paper, six doubloons of gold, and
some small bars or wedges of gold; I suppose they might all weigh near
a pound.
The other chest I found had some clothes in it, but of little value; but
by the circumstances, it must have belonged to the gunner’s mate, as
there was no powder in it, but about two pounds of glazed powder in the
three flasks, kept, I suppose, for charging their fowling-pieces on
occasion. Upon the whole, I got very little by this voyage that was of
much use to me; for, as to the money, I had no manner of occasion for
it; it was to me as the dirt under my feet; and I would have given it
all for three or four pair of English shoes and stockings, which were
things I greatly wanted, but had not had on my feet now for many years:
I had, indeed, got two pair of shoes now, which I took off the feet of
the two drowned men whom I saw in the wreck; and I found two pair more
in one of the chests, which were very welcome to me; but they were not
like our English shoes, either for case or service, being rather what we
call pumps than shoes. I found in the seaman’s chest about fifty pieces
of eight in royals, but no gold: I suppose this belonged to a poorer man
than the other, which seemed to belong to some officer.
Well, however, I lugged the money home to my cave, and laid it up, as I
had done that before, which I brought from our own ship; but it was
great pity, as I said, that the other part of the ship had not come to
my share, for I am satisfied I might have loaded my canoe several times
over with money, which, if I had ever escaped to England, would have
lain here safe enough till I might have come again and fetched it.
Having now brought all my things on shore, and secured them, I went back
to my boat, and rowed or paddled her along the shore to her old
harbour, where I laid her up, and made the best of my way to my old
habitation, where I found every thing safe and quiet; so I began to
repose myself, live after my old fashion, and take care of my family
affairs; and for awhile I lived easy enough; only that I was more
vigilant than I used to be, looked out oftener, and did not go abroad so
much; and if at any time I did stir with any freedom, it was always to
the east part of the island, where I was pretty well satisfied the
savages never came, and where I could go without so many precautions,
and such a load of arms and ammunition as I always carried with me, if I
went the other way.
I lived in this condition near two years more; but my unlucky head, that
was always to let me know it was born to make my body miserable, was all
these two years filled with projects and designs, how, if it were
possible, I might get away from this island; for sometimes I was for
making another voyage to the wreck, though my reason told me, that there
was nothing left there worth the hazard of my voyage; sometimes for a
ramble one way, sometimes another; and I believe verity, if I had had
the boat that I went from Sallee in, I should have ventured to sea,
bound any where, I knew not whither.
I have been, in all my circumstances, a memento to those who are touched
with that general plague of mankind, whence, for aught I know, one half
of their miseries flow; I mean, that of not being satisfied with the
station wherein God and nature hath placed them; for, not to look back
upon my primitive condition, and the excellent advice of my father, the
opposition to which was, as I may call it, my original sin, my
subsequent mistakes of the same kind have been the means of my coming
into this miserable condition; for had that Providence, which so happily
had seated me at the Brasils as a planter, blessed me with confined
desires, and could I have been contented to have gone on gradually, I
might have been by this time, I mean in the time of my being on this
island, one of the most considerable planters in the Brasils; nay, I am
persuaded, that by the improvements I had made in that little time I
lived there, and the increase I should probably have made if I had
stayed, I might have been worth a hundred thousand moidores; and what
business had I to leave a settled fortune, well-stocked plantation,
improving and increasing, to turn supercargo to Guinea, to fetch
Negroes, when patience and time would have so increased our stock at
home, that we could have bought them at our own doors, from those whose
business it was to fetch them? And though it had cost us something more,
yet the difference of that price was by no means worth saving at so
great a hazard.
But as this is ordinarily the fate of young heads, so reflection upon
the folly of it is as ordinarily the exercise of more years, or of the
dear-bought experience of time; and so it was with me now; and yet, so
deep had the mistake taken root in my temper, that I could not satisfy
myself in my station, but was continually poring upon the means and
possibility of my escape from this place; and that I may, with the
greater pleasure to the reader, bring on the remaining part of my story,
it may not be improper to give some account of my first conceptions on
the subject of this foolish scheme for my escape; and how, and upon what
foundation, I acted.
I am now to be supposed to be retired into my castle, after my late
voyage to the wreck, my frigate laid up, and secured under water as
usual, and my condition restored to what it was before: I had more
wealth, indeed, than I had before, but was not at all the richer; for I
had no more use for it than the Indians of Peru had before the Spaniards
came thither.
It was one of the nights in the rainy season in March, the
four-and-twentieth year of my first setting foot in this island of
solitariness, I was lying in my bed or hammock, awake, and very well in
health, had no pain, no distemper, no uneasiness of body, no, nor any
uneasiness of mind more than ordinary, but could by no means close my
eyes, that is, so as to sleep; no, not a wink all night long, otherwise
than as follows:
It is as impossible as needless to set down the innumerable crowd of
thoughts that whirled through that great thoroughfare of the brain, the
memory, in this night’s time: I ran over the whole history of my life in
miniature, or by abridgment, as I may call it, to my coming to this
island; and also of that part of my life since I came to this island; in
my reflections upon the state of my case, since I came on shore on this
island; I was comparing the happy posture of my affairs, in the first
years of my habitation here, to that course of anxiety, fear, and care,
which I had lived in ever since I had seen the print of a foot in the
sand; not that I did not believe the savages had frequented the island
even all the while, and might have been several hundreds of them at
times on the shore there; but as I had never known it, and was incapable
of any apprehensions about it, my satisfaction was perfect, though my
danger was the same; and I was as happy in not knowing my danger, as if
I had never really been exposed to it; this furnished my thoughts with
many very profitable reflections, and particularly this one: How
infinitely good that Providence is, which has settled in its government
of mankind such narrow bounds to his sight and knowledge of things; and
though he walks in the midst of so many thousand dangers, the sight of
which, if discovered to him, would distract his mind and sink his
spirits, he is kept serene and calm, by having the events of things hid
from his eyes, and knowing nothing of the dangers which surround him.
After these thoughts had for some time entertained me, I came to reflect
seriously upon the real danger I had been in for so many years in this
very island; and how I had walked about in the greatest security, and
with all possible tranquillity, even perhaps when nothing but a brow on
a hill, a great tree, or the casual approach of night, had been between
me and the worst kind of destruction, viz. that of falling into the
hands of cannibals, and savages, who would have seized on me with the
same view, as I did of a goat, or a turtle; and have thought it no more
a crime to kill and devour me, than I did of a pigeon, or a curlieu: I
would unjustly slander my self, if I should say I was not sincerely
thankful to my great Preserver, to whose singular protection I
acknowledged, with great humility, that all these unknown deliverances
were due; and without which, I must inevitably have fallen into their
merciless hands.
When these thoughts were over, my head was for some time taken up in
considering the nature of these wretched creatures; I mean, the savages;
and how it came to pass in the world, that the wise governour of all
things should give up any of his creatures to such inhumanity; nay, to
something so much below, even brutality it self, as to devour its own
kind; but as this ended in some (at that time fruitless) speculations,
it occurred to me to enquire, what part of the world these wretches
lived in; how far off the coast was from whence they came; what they
ventured over so far from home for; what kind of boats they had; and why
I might not order my self, and my business so, that I might be as able
to go over thither, as they were to come to me.
I never so much as troubled my self to consider what I should do with my
self, when I came thither; what would become of me, if I fell into the
hands of the savages; or how I should escape from them, if they
attempted me; no, nor so much as how it was possible for me to reach the
coast, and not be attempted by some or other of them, without any
possibility of delivering my self; and if I should not fall into their
hands, what I should do for provision, or whither I should bend my
course; none of these thoughts, I say, so much as came in my way; but my
mind was wholly bent upon the notion of my passing over in my boat, to
the main land: I looked back upon my present condition as the most
miserable that could possibly be; that I was not able to throw myself
into any thing but death that could be called worse; that if I reached
the shore of the main, I might, perhaps, meet with relief; or I might
coast along, as I did on the shore of Africa, till I came to some
inhabited country, and where I might find some relief; and after all,
perhaps, I might fall in with some Christian ship that might take me in:
and if the worst came to the worst, I could but die, which would put an
end to all these miseries at once. Pray, note all this was the fruit of
a disturbed mind, an impatient temper, made, as it were, desperate by
the long continuance of my troubles, and the disappointments I had met
in the wreck I had been on board of, and where I had been so near the
obtaining of what I so earnestly longed for, viz. somebody to speak to,
and to learn some knowledge from of the place where I was, and of the
probable means of my deliverance; I say, I was agitated wholly by these
thoughts. All my calm of mind in my resignation to Providence, and
waiting the issue of the dispositions of Heaven, seemed to be suspended;
and I had, as it were, no power to turn my thoughts to any thing but the
project of a voyage to the main; which came upon me with such force, and
such an impetuosity of desire, that it was not to be resisted.
When this had agitated my thoughts for two hours or more, with such
violence that it set my very blood into a ferment, and my pulse beat as
high as if I had been in a fever, merely with the extraordinary fervour
of my mind about it; nature, as if I had been fatigued and exhausted
with the very thought of it, threw me into a sound sleep: one would have
thought I should have dreamed of it; but I did not, nor of any thing
relating to it; but I dreamed, that as I was going out in the morning,
as usual, from my castle, I saw upon the shore two canoes and eleven
savages coming to land, and that they brought with them another savage,
whom they were going to kill, in order to eat him; when on a sudden, the
savage that they were going to kill jumped away, and ran for his life:
then I thought in my sleep, that he came running into my little thick
grove, before my fortification, to hide himself; and that I seeing him
alone, and not perceiving that the others sought him that way, shewed
myself to him, and, smiling upon him, encouraged him: that he kneeled
down to me, seeming to pray me to assist him; upon which I shewed my
ladder, made him go up it, and carried him into my cave, and he became
my servant; and that as soon as I had got this man, I said to myself,
“Now I may certainly venture to the main land; for this fellow will
serve me as a pilot, and will tell me what to do, and whither to go for
provisions, and whither not to go for fear of being devoured; what
places to venture into, and what to escape.” I waked with this thought,
and was under such inexpressible impressions of joy at the prospect of
my escape in my dream, that the disappointments which I felt upon coming
to myself, and finding it was no more than a dream, were equally
extravagant the other way, and threw me into a very great dejection
of spirit.
Upon this, however, I made this conclusion, that my only way to go about
an attempt for an escape, was, if possible, to get a savage in my
possession; and, if possible, it should be one of their prisoners whom
they had condemned to be eaten, and should bring hither to kill: but
these thoughts still were attended with this difficulty, that it was
impossible to effect this, without attacking a whole caravan of them,
and killing them all; and this was not only a very desperate attempt,
and might miscarry; but, on the other hand, I had greatly scrupled the
lawfulness of it to me, and my heart trembled at the thoughts of
shedding so much blood, though it was for my deliverance: I need not
repeat the arguments which occurred to me against this, they being the
same mentioned before: but though I had other reasons to offer now, viz.
that those men were enemies to my life, and would devour me, if they
could; that it was self-preservation, in the highest degree, to deliver
myself from this death of a life, and was acting in my own defence, as
much as if they were actually assaulting me, and the like; I say, though
these things argued for it, yet the thoughts of shedding human blood for
my deliverance were very terrible to me, and such as I could by no means
reconcile myself to a great while.
However, at last, after many secret disputes with myself, and after
great perplexities about it, (for all these arguments, one way and
another, struggled in my head a long time,) the eager prevailing desire
of deliverance at length mastered all the rest, and I resolved, if
possible, to get one of these savages into my hands, cost what it would:
the next thing then was to contrive how to do it; and this indeed was
very difficult to resolve on: but as I could pitch upon no probable
means for it, so I resolved to put myself upon the watch to see them
when they came on shore, and leave the rest to the event, taking such
measures as the opportunity should present, let it be what it would.
With these resolutions in my thoughts, I set myself upon the scout as
often as possible, and indeed so often, till I was heartily tired of it;
for it was above a year and a half that I waited, and for a great part
of that time went out to the west end, and to the south-west corner of
the island, almost every day, to see the canoes, but none appeared. This
was very discouraging, and began to trouble me much; though I can’t say
that it did in this case, as it had done some time before that, viz.
wear off the edge of my desire to the thing; but the longer it seemed to
be delayed, the more eager I was for it: in a word, I was not at first
more careful to shun the sight of these savages, and avoid being seen by
them, than I was now eager to be upon them.
Besides, I fancied myself able to manage one, nay, two or three savages,
if I had them, so as to make them entirely slaves to me, to do whatever
I should direct them, and to prevent their being able, at any time, to
do me any hurt. It was a great while that I pleased myself with this
affair, but nothing still presented; all my fancies and schemes came to
nothing, for no savages came near me for a great while.