I must provide more ground for my harvest, and plant a larger quantity
of corn, than I used to do; so I marked out a larger piece of land, and
began the fence in the same manner as before, in which Friday not only
worked very willingly and very hard, but did it very cheerfully; and I
told him what it was for, that it was for corn to make more bread,
because he was now with me, and that I might have enough for him and
myself too: he appeared very sensible of that part, and let me know,
that he thought I had much more labour upon me on his account, than I
had for myself, and that he would work the harder for me, if I would
tell him what to do.
This was the pleasantest year of all the life I led in this place.
Friday began to talk pretty well, and understand the names of almost
every thing I had occasion to call for, and of every place I had to send
him to, and talk a great deal to me; so that, in short, I began now to
have some use for my tongue again, which indeed I had very little
occasion for before; that is to say, about speech. Besides the pleasure
of talking to him, I had a singular satisfaction in the fellow himself;
his simple unfeigned honesty appeared to me more and more every day, and
I began really to love the creature; and on his side, I believe, he
loved me more than it was possible for him ever to love any
thing before.
I had a mind once to try if he had any hankering inclination to his own
country again; and having learnt him English so well, that he could
answer me almost any questions, I asked him, whether the nation that he
belonged to never conquered in battle? At which he smiled, and said,
“Yes, yes, we always fight the better;” that is, he meant, always get
the better in fight; and so we began the following discourse. “You
always fight the better!” said I: “how came you to be taken prisoner
then, Friday?”
_Friday._ My nation beat much for all that.
_Master_. How beat? if your nation beat them, how came you to be taken?
_Friday_. They more than my nation in the place where me was; they take
one, two, three, and me: my nation over-beat them in the yonder place,
where me no was; there my nation take one two great thousand.
_Master_. But why did not your side recover you from the hands of your
enemies then?
_Friday_. They run one, two, three, and me, and make go in the canoe; my
nation have no canoe that time.
_Master_. Well, Friday, and what does your nation do with the men they
take? Do they carry them away, and eat them as these did?
_Friday._ Yes, my nation eat mans too, eat all up.
_Master_. Where do they carry them?
_Friday_. Go to other place where they think.
_Master_. Do they come hither?
_Friday_. Yes, yes, they come hither; come other else place.
_Master_. Have you been here with them?
_Friday_. Yes, I been here [points to the N.W. side of the island,
which, it seems, was their side.]
By this I understood, that my man Friday had formerly been among the
savages, who used to come on shore on the farther part of the island, on
the said man eating occasions that he was now brought for; and some time
after, when I took the courage to carry him to that side, being the same
I formerly mentioned, he presently knew the place, and told me, he was
there once when they ate up twenty men, two women, and one child: he
could not tell twenty in English, but he numbered them by laying so many
stones in a row, and pointing to me to tell them over.
I have told this passage, because it introduces what follows; that after
I had had this discourse with him, I asked him, how far it was from our
island to the shore, and whether the canoes were not often lost? He told
me there was no danger, no canoes ever lost; but that after a little way
out to sea, there was a current, and a wind always one way in the
morning, the other in the afternoon.
This I understand to be no more than the sets of the tide, as going out,
or coming in; but I afterwards understood it was occasioned by the great
draught and reflux of the mighty river Oroonoque; in the mouth of which
river, as I thought afterwards, our island lay; and that this land,
which I perceived to the W. and N.W. was the great island Trinidad, on
the north point of the mouth of the river. I asked Friday a thousand
questions about the country, the inhabitants, the sea, the coast, and
what nations were near: he told me all he knew with the greatest
openness imaginable. I asked him the names of the several nations of his
sort of people, but could get no other name than Caribs; from whence I
easily understood, that these were the Caribees, which our maps place on
that part of America which reaches from the mouth of the river Oroonoque
to Guinea, and onwards to St. Martha. He told me, that up a great way
beyond the moon, that was, beyond the setting of the moon, which must be
W. from their country, there dwelt white-bearded men, like me, and
pointed to my great whiskers, which I mentioned before; and that they
had killed much mans, that was his word: by which I understood he meant
the Spaniards, whose cruelties in America had been spread over the whole
countries, and were remembered by all the nations from father to son.
I inquired if he could tell me how I might come from this island, and
get among those white men; he told me, Yes, yes, I might go in two
canoe; I could not understand what he meant by two canoe; till at last,
with great difficulty, I found he meant, that it must be in a large
great boat as big as two canoes.
This part of Friday’s discourse began to relish with me very well; and
from this time I entertained some hopes, that one time or other I might
find an opportunity to make my escape from this place, and that this
poor savage might be a means to help me to do it.
During the long time that Friday had now been with me, and that he began
to speak to me, and understand me, I was not wanting to lay a foundation
of religious knowledge in his mind; particularly I asked him one time,
Who made him? The poor creature did not understand me at all, but
thought I had asked who was his father: but I took it by another handle,
and asked him, Who made the sea, the ground he walked on, and the hills
and woods? He told me, it was one old Benamuckee that lived beyond all:
he could describe nothing of this great person, but that he was very
old; much older, he said, than the sea or the land, than the moon or the
stars. I asked him then, if this old person had made all things, why did
not all things worship him? He looked very grave, and with a perfect
look of innocence said, All things said O! to him. I asked him, if the
people who die in his country, went away any where? He said, Yes, they
all went to Benamuckee. Then I asked him, whether those they ate up,
went thither too? he said, Yes.
From these things I began to instruct him in the knowledge of the true
God. I told him, that the great Maker of all things lived there,
pointing up towards heaven; that he governs the world by the same power
and providence by which he made it; that he was omnipotent, could do
every thing for us, give every thing to us, take every thing from us:
and thus, by degrees, I opened his eyes. He listened with great
attention, and received with pleasure the notion of Jesus Christ being
sent to redeem us, and of the manner of making our prayers to God, and
his being able to hear us, even into heaven: he told me one day, that if
our God could hear us up beyond the sun, he must needs be a greater God
than their Benamuckee, who lived but a little way off, and yet could not
hear, till they went up to the great mountains, where he dwelt, to speak
to him. I asked him, if ever he went thither to speak to him? He said,
No, they never went that were young men; none went thither but the old
men; whom he called their Oowookakee, that is, as I made him explain it
to me, their religious, or clergy; and that they went to say O! (so he
called saying prayers,) and then came back, and told them what
Benamuckee said. By this I observed, that there is priestcraft even
amongst the most blinded ignorant Pagans in the world; and the policy of
making a secret religion, in order to preserve the veneration of the
people to the clergy, is not only to be found in the Roman, but perhaps
among all religious in the world, even among the most brutish and
barbarous savages.
I endeavoured to clear up this fraud to my man Friday; and told him,
that the pretence of their old men going up to the mountains to say O!
to their god Benamuckee, was a cheat; and their bringing word from
thence what he said, was much more so; that if they met with any answer,
or spoke with any one there, it must be with an evil spirit: and then I
entered into a long discourse with him about the devil, the original of
him, his rebellion against God, his enmity to man, the reason of it, his
setting himself up in the dark parts of the world to be worshipped
instead of God, and as God, and the many stratagems he made use of, to
delude mankind to their ruin; how he had a secret access to our passions
and to our affections, to adapt his snares so to our inclinations, as to
cause us even to be our own tempters, and to run upon our own
destruction by our own choice.
I found it was not so easy to imprint right notions in his mind about
the devil, as it was about the being of a God: nature assisted all my
arguments to evidence to him even the necessity of a great First Cause,
and over-ruling governing Power, a secret directing Providence, and of
the equity and justice of paying homage to Him that made us, and the
like: but there appeared nothing of all this in the notion of an evil
spirit, of his original, his being, his nature, and, above all, of his
inclination to do evil, and to draw us in to do so too: and the poor
creature puzzled me once in such a manner, by a question merely natural
and innocent, that I scarce knew what to say to him. I had been talking
a great deal to him of the power of God, his omnipotence, his dreadful
aversion to sin, his being a consuming fire to the workers of iniquity;
how, as he had made as all, he could destroy us, and all the world, in
a moment; and he listened with great seriousness to me all the while.
After this, I had been telling; him how the devil was God’s enemy in the
hearts of men, and used all his malice and skill to defeat the good
designs of Providence, and to ruin the kingdom of Christ in the world,
and the like: “Well,” says Friday, “but you say God is so strong, so
great, is he not much strong, much might, as the devil?”—“Yes, yes,”
said I, Friday, “God is stronger than the devil, God is above the devil,
and therefore we pray to God to tread him under our feet, and enable us
to resist his temptations, and quench his fiery darts.”—“But,” says he
again, “if God much strong, much might, as the devil, why God not kill
the devil, so make him no more wicked?”
I was strangely surprised at his question; and after all, though I was
now an old man, yet I was but a young doctor, and ill enough qualified
for a casuist, or a solver of difficulties: and, at first, I could not
tell what to say; so I pretended not to hear him, and asked him what he
said; but he was too earnest for an answer to forget his question; so
that he repeated it in the very same broken words, as above. By this
time I had recovered myself a little, and I said, “God will at last
punish him severely; he is reserved for the judgment, and is to be cast
into the bottomless pit, to dwell with everlasting fire.” This did not
satisfy Friday; but he returns upon me, repeating my words, “Reserve at
last! me no understand: but why not kill the devil now, not kill great
ago?”—“You may as well ask me,” said I, “why God does not kill you and
me, when we do wicked things here that offend him: we are preserved to
repent and be pardoned.” He muses awhile at this; “Well, well,” says he,
mighty affectionately, “that well; so you I, devil, all wicked, all
preserve, repent, God pardon all.” Here I was run down again by him to
the last degree, and it was a testimony to me, how the mere notions of
nature, though they will guide reasonable creatures to the knowledge of
a God, and of a worship or homage due to the supreme being of God, as
the consequence of our nature; yet nothing but divine revelation can
form the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and of a redemption purchased for
us; of a Mediator; of a new covenant; and of an Intercessor at the
footstool of God’s throne; I say, nothing but a revelation from Heaven
can form these in the soul; and that therefore the Gospel of our Lord
and Saviour Jesus Christ, I mean the word of God, and the Spirit of God,
promised for the guide and sanctifier of his people, are the absolutely
necessary instructors of the souls of men in the saving knowledge of
God, and the means of salvation.
I therefore diverted the present discourse between me and my man, rising
up hastily, as upon some sudden occasion of going out; then sending him
for some thing a great way off, I seriously prayed to God, that he would
enable me to instruct savingly this poor savage, assisting, by his
Spirit, the heart of the poor ignorant creature to receive the light of
the knowledge of God in Christ, reconciling him to himself, and would
guide me to speak so to him from the word of God, as his conscience
might be convinced, his eyes opened, and his soul saved. When he came
again to me, I entered into a long discourse with him upon the subject
of the redemption of man by the Saviour of the world, and of the
doctrine of the Gospel preached from Heaven, viz. of the repentance
towards God, and faith in our blessed Lord Jesus: I then explained to
him, as well as I could, why our blessed Redeemer took not on him the
nature of angels, but the seed of Abraham, and how, for that reason, the
fallen angels had no share in the redemption; that he came only to the
lost sheep of the house of Israel, and the like.
I had, God knows, more sincerity than knowledge, in all the methods I
took for this poor creature’s instruction; and must acknowledge, what I
believe all that act upon the same principle will find, that in laying
things open to him, I really informed and instructed myself in many
things that either I did not know, or had not fully considered before;
but which occurred naturally to my mind, upon my searching into them for
the information of this poor savage; and I had more affection in my
inquiry after things upon this occasion, than ever I felt before; so
that whether this poor wild wretch was the better for me or no, I had
great reason to be thankful that ever he came to me: my grief sat
lighter upon me, my habitation grew comfortable to me beyond measure;
and when I reflected, that in this solitary life, which I had been
confined to, I had not only been moved myself to look up to Heaven, and
to seek to the Hand that brought me thither, but was now to be made an
instrument, under Providence, to save the life, and for aught I knew the
soul, of a poor savage, and bring him to the true knowledge of religion,
and of the Christian doctrine, that he might know Christ Jesus, to know
whom is life eternal; I say, when I reflected upon all these things, a
secret joy ran through every part of my soul, and I frequently rejoiced
that ever I was brought to this place, which I had often thought the
most dreadful of all afflictions that could possibly have befallen me.
In this thankful frame I continued all the remainder of my time; and the
conversation which employed the hours between Friday and me was such, as
made the three years which we lived there together perfectly and
completely happy, if any such thing as complete happiness can be found
in a sublunary state. The savage was now a good Christian, a much better
than I; though I have reason to hope, and bless God for it, that we were
equally penitent, and comforted restored penitents: we had here the Word
of God to read, and no farther off from his Spirit to instruct than if
we had been in England.
I always applied myself to reading the Scripture, and to let him know as
well as I could the meaning of what I read; and he again, by his serious
inquiries and questions, made me, as I said before, a much better
scholar in the Scripture knowledge, than I should ever have been by my
own private reading. Another thing I cannot refrain from observing here,
also from experience, in this retired part of my life; viz. how infinite
and inexpressible a blessing it is, that the knowledge of God, and of
the doctrine of salvation by Christ Jesus, is so plainly laid down in
the Word of God, so easy to be received and understood, that as the bare
reading the Scripture made me capable of understanding enough of my duty
to carry me directly on to the great work of sincere repentance for my
sins, and laying hold of a Saviour for life and salvation, to a stated
reformation in practice, and obedience to all God’s commands, and this
without any teacher or instructor (I mean, human); so the plain
instruction sufficiently served to the enlightening this savage
creature, and bringing him to be such a Christian, as I have known few
equal to him in my life.
As to the disputes, wranglings, strife, and contention, which has
happened in the world about religion, whether niceties in doctrines, or
schemes of church-government, they were all perfectly useless to us, as,
for aught I can yet see, they have been to all the rest in the world: we
had the sure guide to heaven, viz. the Word of God; and we had, blessed
be God! comfortable views of the Spirit of God, teaching and instructing
us by his Word, leading us into all truth, and making us both willing
and obedient to His instruction of his Word; and I cannot see the least
use that the greatest knowledge of the disputed points in religion,
which have made such confusions in the world, would have been to us, if
we could have obtained it. But I must go on with the historical part of
things, and take every part in its order.
After Friday and I became more intimately acquainted, and that he could
understand almost all I said to him, and speak fluently, though in
broken English, to me, I acquainted him with my own story, or at least
so much of it as related to my coming into the place, how I had lived
there, and how long: I let him into the mystery (for such it was to him)
of gunpowder and bullets, and taught him how to shoot: I gave him a
knife, which he was wonderfully delighted with; and I made him a belt
with a frog hanging to it, such as in England we wear hangers in; and in
the frog, instead of a hanger, I gave him a hatchet, which was not only
as good a weapon in some cases, but much more useful upon many
occasions.
I described to him the countries of Europe, and particularly England,
which I came from; how we lived, how we worshipped God, how we behaved
to one another, and how we traded in ships to all the parts of the
world. I gave him an account of the wreck which I had been on board of,
and shewed him as near as I could, the place where she lay; but she was
all beaten in pieces long before, and quite gone.
I shewed him the ruins of our boat, which we lost when we escaped, and
which I could not stir with my whole strength then, but was now fallen
almost all to pieces. Upon seeing this boat, Friday stood musing a great
while, and said nothing; I asked him what it was he studied upon? At
last, says he, “Me see such boat like come to place at my nation.”
I did not understand him a good while; but at last, when I had examined
further into it, I understood by him, that a boat, such as that had
been, came on shore upon the country where he lived; that is, as he
explained it, was driven thither by stress of weather. I presently
imagined, that some European ship must have been cast away upon their
coast, and the boat might get loose, and drive ashore; but was so dull,
that I never once thought of men making escape from a wreck thither,
much less whence they might come; so I only inquired after a description
of the boat.
Friday described the boat to me well enough; but brought me better to
understand him, when he added, with some warmth, “We save the white mans
from drown.” Then I presently asked him, if there, were white mans, as
he called them, in the boat? “Yes,” he said, “the boat full of white
mans.” I asked him, how many! he told upon his fingers seventeen. I
asked him then, what became of them? he told me, “They live, they dwell
at my nation.”
This put new thoughts into my head again; for I presently imagined, that
these might be the men belonging to the ship that was cast away in sight
of my island, as I now call it; and who, after the ship was struck on
the rock, and they saw her inevitably lost, had saved themselves in
their boat, and were landed upon that wild shore among the savages.
Upon this I inquired of him more critically, what was become of them? He
assured me they lived still there, that they had been there about four
years, that the savages let them alone, and gave them victuals to live.
I asked him, how it came to pass they did not kill them, and eat them?
He said, “No, they make brother with them:” that is, as I understood
him, a truce: and then he added, “They eat no mans but when make the war
fight:” that is to say, they never eat any men, but such as come to
fight with them, and are taken in battle.
It was after this, some considerable time, that being on the top of the
hill, at the east side of the island, from whence, as I have said, I had
in a clear day discovered the main or continent of America; Friday, the
weather being very serene, looks very earnestly towards the main land,
and in a kind of surprise falls a-jumping and dancing, and calls out to
me, for I was at some distance from him: I asked him what was the
matter? “O joy!” says he, “O glad! there see my country, there
my nation!”
I observed an extraordinary sense of pleasure appeared in his face, and
his eyes sparkled, and his countenance discovered a strange eagerness,
as if he had a mind to be in his own country again; and this observation
of mine put a great many thoughts into me; which made me at first not so
easy about my new man Friday as I was before; and I made no doubt, but
that if Friday could get back to his own nation again, he would not
only forget all his religion, but all his obligations to me; and would
be forward enough to give his countrymen an account of me, and come
back, perhaps, with an hundred or two of them, and make a feast upon me,
at which he might be as merry as he used to be with those of his
enemies, when they were taken in war.
But I wronged the poor honest creature very much, for which I was very
sorry afterwards: however, as my jealousy increased, and held me some
weeks, I was a little more circumspect, and not so familiar and kind to
him as before; in which I was certainly in the wrong too, the honest
grateful creature having no thought about it, but what consisted of the
best principles, both as a religious Christian and as a grateful friend,
as appeared afterwards to my full satisfaction.
Whilst my jealousy of him lasted, you may be sure I was every day
pumping him, to see if he would discover any of the new thoughts which I
suspected were in him; but I found every thing he said was so honest and
so innocent, that I could find nothing to nourish my suspicion; and, in
spite of all my uneasiness, he made me at last entirely his own again;
nor did he in the least perceive that I was uneasy; and therefore I
could not suspect him of deceit.
One day, walking up the same hill, but the weather being hazy at sea, so
that we could not see the continent, I called to him, and said, “Friday,
do not you wish yourself in your own country, your own nation”—“Yes,”
he said, “I be much O glad to be at my own nation.”—“What would you do
there?” said I: “would you turn wild again, eat men’s flesh again, and
be a savage as you were before?” He looked full of concern, and shaking
his head, said, “No, no, Friday tell them to live good; tell them to
pray God; tell them to eat corn-bread, cattle-flesh, milk, no eat man
again.”—“Why, then,” said I to him, “they will kill you.” He looked
grave at that, and then said, “No, they no kill me, they willing love
learn:” he meant by this, they would be willing to learn. He added,
they learnt much of the bearded mans that came in the boat. Then I asked
him, if he would go back to them? He smiled at that, and told me he
could not swim so far. I told him I would make a canoe for him. He told
me he would go, if I would so with him. “I go!” said I, “why, they will
eat me if I come there.”—“No, no,” says he, “me make them no eat you,
me make they much love you:” he meant he would tell them how I had
killed his enemies and saved his life, and so he would make them love
me. Then he told me, as well as he could, how kind they were to
seventeen white men, or bearded men, as he called them, who came on
shore in distress.