the worse on our side; but, the noise increasing, we could easily
perceive that it was the howling and yelling of those hellish creatures;
and, on a sudden, we perceived two or three troops of wolves on our
left, one behind us, and one on our front, so that we seemed to be
surrounded with them; however, as they did not fall upon us, we kept our
way forward, as fast as we could make our horses go, which, the way
being very rough, was only a good large trot; and in this manner we only
came in view of the entrance of the wood through which we were to pass,
at the farther side of the plain; but we were greatly surprised, when,
coming near the lane, or pass, we saw a confused number of wolves
standing just at the entrance.
On a sudden, at another opening of the wood, we heard the noise of a
gun; and, looking that way, out rushed a horse, with a saddle and a
bridle on him, flying like the wind, and sixteen or seventeen wolves
after him full speed: indeed the horse had the heels of them; but as we
supposed that he could not hold it at that rate, we doubted not but they
would get up with him at last; and no question but they did.
Here we had a most horrible sight; for, riding up to the entrance where
the horse came out, we found the carcass of another horse, and of two
men devoured by these ravenous creatures, and of one the man was no
doubt the same whom we heard fire a gun, for there lay a gun just by him
fired off; but as to the man, his head, and the upper part of his body,
were eaten up.
This filled us with horror, and we knew not what course to take; but the
creatures resolved us soon, for they gathered about us presently, in
hopes of prey; and I verily believe there were three hundred of them. It
happened very much to our advantage, that at the entrance into the wood,
but a little way from it, there by some large timber trees, which had
been cut down the summer before, and I suppose lay there for carriage: I
drew my little troop in among these trees, and placing ourselves in a
line behind one long tree, I advised them all to alight, and keeping
that tree before us for a breastwork, to stand in a triangle, or three
fronts, enclosing our horses in the centre.
We did so, and it was well we did; for never was a more furious charge
than the creatures made upon us in this place; they came on us with a
growling kind of a noise, and mounted the piece of timber (which, as I
said, was our breastwork,) as if they were only rushing upon their prey;
and this fury of theirs, it seems, was principally occasioned by their
seeing our horses behind us, which was the prey they aimed at. I ordered
our men to fire as before, every man; and they took their aim so sure,
that indeed they killed several of the wolves at the first volley; but
there was a necessity to keep a continual firing, for they came on like
devils, those behind pushing on those before.
When we had fired our second volley of fusils, we thought they stopped a
little, and I hoped they would have gone off, but it was but a moment,
for others came forward again; so we fired our vollies of pistols; and I
believe in these four firings we killed seventeen or eighteen of them,
and lamed twice as many; yet they came on again.
I was loath to spend our last shot too hastily; so I called my servant,
not my man Friday, for he was better employed; for, with the greatest
dexterity imaginable, he charged my fusil and his own, while we were
engaged; but, as I said, I called my other man; and giving him a horn of
powder, I bade him lay a train all along the piece of timber, and let it
be a large train; he did so, and had but time to get away, when the
wolves came up to it, and some were got up upon it; when I, snapping an
uncharged pistol close to the powder, set it on fire; and those that
were upon the timber were scorched with it, and six or seven of them
fell, or rather jumped in among us, with the force and fright of the
fire; we dispatched these in an instant, and the rest were so frighted
with the light, which the night, for now it was very near dark, made
more terrible, that they drew back a little.
Upon which I ordered our last pistols to be fired off in one volley, and
after that we gave a shout; upon this the wolves turned tail, and we
sallied immediately upon near twenty lame ones, which we found
struggling on the ground, and fell a-cutting them with our swords, which
answered our expectation; for the crying and howling they made were
better understood by their fellows; so that they fled and left us.
We had, first and last, killed about three score of them; and had it
been daylight, we had killed many more. The field of battle being thus
cleared, we made forward again; for we had still near a league to go. We
heard the ravenous creatures howl and yell in the woods as we went,
several times; and sometimes we fancied we saw some of them, but the
snow dazzling our eyes, we were not certain; so in about an hour more we
came to the town, where we were to lodge, which we found in a terrible
fright, and all in arms; for it seems, that, the night before, the
wolves and some bears had broken into that village, and put them in a
terrible fright; and they were obliged to keep guard night and day, but
especially in the night, to preserve their cattle, and indeed
their people.
The next morning our guide was so ill, and his limbs so swelled with the
rankling of his two wounds, that he could go no farther; so we were
obliged to take a new guide there, and go to Tholouse, where we found a
warm climate, a fruitful pleasant country, and no snow, no wolves, or
any thing like them; but when we told our story at Tholouse, they told
us it was nothing but what was ordinary in the great forest at the foot
of the mountains, especially when the snow lay on the ground; but they
inquired much what kind of a guide we had gotten, that would venture to
bring us that way in such a severe season; and told us, it was very much
we were not all devoured. When we told them how we placed ourselves, and
the horses in the middle, they blamed us exceedingly, and told us it was
fifty to one but we had been all destroyed; for it was the sight of the
horses that made the wolves so furious, seeing their prey; and that at
other times they are really afraid of a gun; but they being excessive
hungry, and raging on that account, the eagerness to come at the horses
had made them senseless of danger; and that if we had not by the
continued fire, and at last by the stratagem of the train of powder,
mastered them, it had been great odds but that we had been torn to
pieces; whereas, had we been content to have sat still on horseback, and
fired as horsemen, they would not have taken the horses so much for
their own, when men were on their backs, as otherwise; and withal they
told us, that at last, if we had stood all together, and left our
horses, they would have been so eager to have devoured them, that we
might have come off safe, especially having our fire-arms in our hands,
and being so many in number.
For my part, I was never so sensible of danger in my life; for seeing
above three hundred devils come roaring and open-mouthed to devour us,
and having nothing to shelter us, or retreat to, I gave myself over for
lost; and as it was, I believe, I shall never care to cross those
mountains again; I think I would much rather go a thousand leagues by
sea, though I were sure to meet with a storm once a week.
I have nothing uncommon to take notice of in my passage through France;
nothing but what other travellers have given an account of, with much
more advantage than I can. I travelled from Tholouse to Paris, and
without any considerable stay came to Calais, and landed safe at Dover,
the fourteenth of January, after having had a severe cold season to
travel in.
I was now come to the centre of my travels, and had in a little time all
my new-discovered estate safe about me, the bills of exchange, which I
brought with me, having been very currently paid.
My principal guide and privy-counsellor was my good ancient widow, who,
in gratitude for the money I had sent her, thought no pains too much, or
care too great, to employ for me; and I trusted her so entirely with
every thing, that I was perfectly easy as to the security of my effects;
and indeed I was very happy from my beginning, and now to the end, in
the unspotted integrity of this good gentlewoman.
And now I began to think of leaving my effects with this woman, and
setting out for Lisbon, and so to the Brasils. But now another scruple
came in the way, and that was religion; for as I had entertained some
doubts about the Roman religion, even while I was abroad, especially in
my state of solitude; so I knew there was no going to the Brasils for
me, much less going to settle there, unless I resolved to embrace the
Roman Catholic religion, without any reserve; except on the other hand I
resolved to be a sacrifice to my principles, be a martyr for religion,
and die in the Inquisition: so I resolved to stay at home, and, if I
could find means for it, to dispose of my plantation.
To this purpose I wrote to my old friend at Lisbon, who in return gave
me notice, that he could easily dispose of it there: but that if I
thought fit to give him leave to offer it in my name to the two
merchants, the survivors of my trustees, who lived in the Brasils, who
must fully understand the value of it, who lived just upon the spot, and
who I knew to be very rich, so that he believed they would be fond of
buying it; he did not doubt, but I should make 4 or 5000 pieces of eight
the more of it.
Accordingly I agreed, gave him orders to offer it to them, and he did
so; and in about eight months more, the ship being then returned, he
sent me an account, that they had accepted the offer, and had remitted
33,000 pieces of eight to a correspondent of theirs at Lisbon, to
pay for it.
In return, I signed the instrument of sale in the form which they sent
from Lisbon, and sent it to my old man, who sent me the bills of
exchange for 32,800 pieces of eight for the estate; reserving the
payment of 100 moidores a year, to him (the old man) during his life,
and 50 moidores afterwards to his son for his life, which I had promised
them; and which the plantation was to make good as a rent charge. And
thus I have given the first part of a life of fortune and adventure, a
life of Providence’s chequer-work, and of a variety which the world will
seldom be able to shew the like of: beginning foolishly, but closing
much more happily than any part of it ever gave me leave to much as
to hope for.
Any one would think, that in this state of complicated good fortune, I
was past running any more hazards, and so indeed I had been, if other
circumstances had concurred: but I was inured to a wandering life, had
no family, nor many relations; nor, however rich, had I contracted much
acquaintance; and though I had sold my estate in the Brasils, yet I
could not keep that country out of my head, and had a great mind to be
upon the wing again; especially I could not resist the strong
inclination I had to see my island, and to know if the poor Spaniards
were in being there; and how the rogues I left there had used them.
My true friend the widow earnestly dissuaded me from it, and so far
prevailed with me, that almost for seven years she prevented my running
abroad; during which time I took my two nephews, the children of one of
my brothers, into my care: the eldest having something of his own, I
bred up as a gentleman and gave him a settlement of some addition to his
estate, after my decease; the other I put out to a captain of a ship;
and after five years, finding him a sensible, bold, enterprising young
fellow, I put him into a good ship, and sent him to sea: and this young
fellow afterwards drew me in, as old as I was, to farther
adventures myself.
In the meantime, I in part settled myself here; for, first of all, I
married, and that not either to my disadvantage or dissatisfaction; and
had three children, two sons and one daughter: but my wife dying, and my
nephew coming home with good success from a voyage to Spain, my
inclination to go abroad, and his importunity, prevailed, and engaged me
to go in his ship as a private trader to the East Indies. This in the
year 1694.
In this voyage I visited my new colony in the island, saw my successors
the Spaniards, had the whole story of their lives, and of the villains I
left there; how at first they insulted the poor Spaniards, how they
afterwards agreed, disagreed, united, separated, and how at last the
Spaniards were obliged to use violence with them; how they were
subjected to the Spaniards; how honestly the Spaniards used them; an
history, if it were entered into, as full of variety and wonderful
accidents as my own part: particularly also as to their battles with the
Caribbeans, who landed several times upon the island, and as to the
improvement they made upon the island itself; and how five of them made
an attempt upon the main land, and brought away eleven men and five
women prisoners; by which, at my coming, I found about twenty young
children on the island.
Here I stayed about twenty days; left them supplies of all necessary
things, and particularly of arms, powder, shot, clothes, tools, and two
workmen, which I brought from England with me; viz. a carpenter and
a smith.
Besides this, I shared the lands into parts with them, reserved to
myself the property of the whole, but gave them such parts respectively,
as they agreed on; and, having settled all things with them, and engaged
them not to leave the place, I left them there.
From thence I touched at the Brasils, from whence I sent a bark, which I
bought there, with more people to the island; and in it, besides other
supplies, I sent seven women, being such as I found proper for service,
or for wives to such as would take them. As for the Englishmen, I
promised them to send them some women from England, with a good cargo of
necessaries, if they would apply themselves to planting; which I
afterwards could not perform: the fellows proved very honest and
diligent, after they were mastered, and had their properties set apart
for them, I sent them also from the Brasils five cows, three of them
being big with calf, some sheep, and some hogs, which, when I came
again, were considerably increased.
But all these things, with an account how three hundred Caribbees came
and invaded them, and ruined their plantations, and how they fought with
that whole number twice, and were at first defeated and some of them
killed; but at last a storm destroying their enemies’ canoes, they
famished or destroyed almost all the rest, and renewed and recovered the
possession of their plantation, and still lived upon the island:—
All these things, with some very surprising incidents in some new
adventures of my own, for ten years more I may, perhaps, give a further
account of hereafter.
* * * * *
That homely proverb used on so many occasions in England, viz. “That
what is bred in the bone will not go out of the flesh,” was never more
verified than in the story of my Life. Any one would think, that after
thirty-five years affliction, and a variety of unhappy circumstances,
which few men, if any, ever went through before, and after near seven
years of peace and enjoyment in the fulness of all things; grown old,
and when, if ever, it might be allowed me to have had experience of
every state of middle life, and to know which was most adapted to make a
man completely happy; I say, after all this, any one would have thought
that the native propensity to rambling, which I gave an account of in my
first setting out into the world to have been so predominant in my
thoughts, should be worn out, the volatile part be fully evacuated, or
at least condensed, and I might at sixty-one years of age have been a
little inclined to stay at home, and have done venturing life and
fortune any more.
Nay farther, the common motive of foreign adventures was taken away in
me; for I had no fortune to make, I had nothing to seek: if I had gained
ten thousand pounds, I had been no richer; for I had already sufficient
for me, and for those I had to leave it to, and that I had was visibly
increasing; for having no great family, I could not spend the income of
what I had, unless I would set up for an expensive way of living, such
as a great family, servants, equipage, gaiety, and the like, which were
things I had no notion of, or inclination to; so that I had nothing
indeed to do, but to sit still, and fully enjoy what I had got, and see
it increase daily upon my hands.
Yet all these things, had no effect upon me, or at least not enough to
resist the strong inclination I had to go abroad again, which hung about
me like a chronical distemper; particularly the desire of seeing my new
plantation in the island, and the colony I left there, ran in my head
continually. I dreamed of it all night, and my imagination ran upon it
all day; it was uppermost in all my thoughts, and my fancy worked so
steadily and strongly upon it, that I talked of it in my sleep; in
short, nothing could remove it out of my mind; it even broke so
violently into all my discourses, that it made my conversation tiresome;
for I could talk of nothing else, all my discourse ran into it, even to
impertinence, and I saw it myself.
I have often heard persons of good judgment say, that all the stir
people make in the world about ghosts and apparitions, is owing to the
strength of imagination, and the powerful operation of fancy in their
minds; that there is no such thing as a spirit appearing, or a ghost
walking, and the like; that people’s poring affectionately upon the past
conversation of their deceased friends so realizes it to them, that they
are capable of fancying upon some extraordinary circumstances that they
see them, talk to them, and are answered by them, when, in truth, there
is nothing but shadow and vapour in the thing; and they really know
nothing of the matter.
For my part, I know not to this hour whether there are any such things
as real apparitions, spectres, or walking of people after they are dead,
or whether there is any thing in the stories they tell us of that kind,
more than the product of vapours, sick minds, and wandering fancies. But
this I know, that my imagination worked up to such a height, and brought
me into such excess of vapours, or what else I may call it, that I
actually supposed myself oftentimes upon the spot, at my old castle
behind the trees, saw my old Spaniard, Friday’s father, and the
reprobate sailors whom I left upon the island; nay, I fancied I talked
with them, and looked at them so steadily, though I was broad awake, as
at persons just before me; and this I did till I often frightened myself
with the images my fancy represented to me: one time in my sleep I had
the villany of the three pirate sailors so lively related to me, by the
first Spaniard and Friday’s father, that it was surprising; they told me
how they barbarously attempted to murder all the Spaniards, and that
they set fire to the provisions they had laid up, on purpose to distress
and starve them; things that I had never heard of, and that were yet all
of them true in fact; but it was so warm in my imagination, and so
realized to me, that to the hour I saw them, I could not be persuaded
but that it was or would be true; also how I resented it when the
Spaniard complained to me, and how I brought them to justice, tried them
before me, and ordered them all three to be hanged. What there was
really in this, shall be seen in its place; for however I came to form
such things in my dream, and what secret converse of spirits injected
it, yet there was, I say, very much of it true. I own, that this dream
had nothing literally and specifically true; but the general part was so
true, the base and villanous behaviour of these three hardened rogues
was such, and had been so much worse than all I can describe, that the
dream had too much similitude of the fact; and as I would afterwards
have punished them severely, so if I had hanged them all, I had been
much in the right, and should have been justifiable both by the laws of
God and man.
But to return to my story.—In this kind of temper I had lived some
years, I had no enjoyment of my life, no pleasant hours, no agreeable
diversion but what had something or other of this in it; so that my
wife, who saw my mind so wholly bent upon it, told me very seriously one
night, that she believed there was some secret powerful impulse of
Providence upon me, which had determined me to go thither again; and
that she found nothing hindered my going, but my being engaged to a wife
and children. She told me, that it was true she could not think of
parting with me; but as she was assured, that if she was dead it would
be the first thing I would do; so, as it seemed to her that the thing
was determined above, she would not be the only obstruction; for if I
thought fit, and resolved to go—Here she found me very intent upon her
words, and that I looked very earnestly at her; so that it a little
disordered her, and she stopped. I asked her why she did not go on, and
say out what she was going to say? But I perceived her heart was too
full, and some tears stood in her eyes: “Speak out, my dear,” said I;
“are you willing I should go?”—“No,” says she, very affectionately, “I
am far from willing: but if you are resolved to go,” says she, “and
rather than I will be the only hindrance, I will go with you; for though
I think it a preposterous thing for one of your years, and in your
condition, yet if it must be,” said she again, weeping, “I won’t leave
you; for if it be of Heaven, you must do it; there is no resisting it;
and if Heaven makes it your duty to go, he will also make it mine to go
with you, or otherwise dispose of me, that I may not obstruct it.”
This affectionate behaviour of my wife brought me a little out of the
vapours, and I began to consider what I was doing; I corrected my
wandering fancy, and began to argue with myself sedately, what business
I had, after threescore years, and after such a life of tedious
sufferings and disasters, and closed in so happy and easy a manner, I
say, what business had I to rush into new hazards, and put myself upon
adventures, fit only for youth and poverty to run into?
With those thoughts, I considered my new engagement; that I had a wife,
one child born, and my wife then great with child of another; that I had
all the world could give me and had no need to seek hazards for gain;
that I was declining in years, and ought to think rather of leaving what
I had gained, than of seeking to increase it; that as to what my wife
had said, of its being an impulse from Heaven, and that it should be my
duty to go, I had no notion of that; so after many of these cogitations,
I struggled with the power of my imagination, reasoned myself out of it,
_as I believe people may always do in like cases, if they will_; and, in
a word, I conquered it; composed myself with such arguments as occurred
to my thoughts, and which my present condition furnished me plentifully
with; and particularly, as the most effectual method, I resolved to
divert myself with other things, and to engage in some business that
might effectually tie me up from any more excursions of this kind; for I
found the thing return upon me chiefly when I was idle, had nothing to
do, or any thing of moment immediately before me.
To this purpose I bought a little farm in the county of Bedford, and
resolved to remove myself thither. I had a little convenient house upon
it, and the land about it I found was capable of great improvement, and
that it was many ways suited to my inclination, which delighted in
cultivating, managing, planting, and improving of land; and
particularly, being an inland country, I was removed from conversing
among ships, sailors, and things relating to the remote part of
the world.
In a word, I went down to my farm, settled my family, bought me ploughs,
harrows, a cart, waggon, horses, cows, sheep; and setting seriously to
work, became in one half year a mere country gentleman; my thoughts were
entirely taken up in managing my servants, cultivating the ground,
enclosing, planting, &c.; and I lived, as I thought, the most agreeable
life that nature was capable of directing, or that a man always bred to
misfortunes was capable of being retreated to.