no? and what do you think, shall we see your father?” The fellow stood
mute as a stock a good while; but when I named his father, the poor
affectionate creature looked dejected; and I could see the tears run
down his face very plentifully. “What is the matter, Friday?” said I;
“are you troubled because you may see your father”—“No, no,” says he,
shaking his head, “no see him more, no ever more see again.”—“Why so,”
said I, “Friday? how do you know that?”—“O no, O no,” says Friday, “he
long ago die; long ago, he much old man.”—“Well, well,” said I,
“Friday, you don’t know; but shall we see any one else then?” The
fellow, it seems, had better eyes than I, and he points just to the hill
above my old house; and though we lay half a league off, he cries out,
“Me see! me see! yes, yes, me see much man there, and there, and there.”
I looked, but I could see nobody, no, not with a perspective-glass;
which was, I suppose, because I could not hit the place; for the fellow
was right, as I found upon inquiry the next day, and there were five or
six men all together stood to look at the ship, not knowing what to
think of us.
As soon as Friday had told me he saw people, I caused the English
ancient to be spread, and fired three guns, to give them notice we were
friends; and about half a quarter of an hour after, we perceived a smoke
rise from the side of the creek; so I immediately ordered a boat out,
taking Friday with me; and hanging out a white flag, or a flag of
truce, I went directly on shore, taking with me the young friar I
mentioned, to whom I had told the whole story of living there, and the
manner of it, and every particular both of myself and those that I left
there, and who was on that account extremely desirous to go with me, We
had besides about sixteen men very well armed, if we had found any new
guest there which we did not know of; but we had no need of weapons.
As we went on shore upon the tide of flood near high water, we rowed
directly into the creek; and the first man I fixed my eye upon was the
Spaniard whose life I had saved, and whom I knew by his face perfectly
well; as to his habit, I shall describe it afterwards. I ordered nobody
to go on shore at first but myself; but there was no keeping Friday in
the boat; for the affectionate creature had spied his father at a
distance, a good way off of the Spaniards, where indeed I saw nothing of
him; and if they had not let him go on shore he would have jumped into
the sea. He was no sooner on shore, but he flew away to his father like
an arrow out of a bow. It would have made any man shed tears in spite of
the firmest resolution to have seen the first transports of this poor
fellow’s joy, when he came to his father; how he embraced him, kissed
him, stroked his face, took him in his arms, set him down upon a tree,
and lay down by him; then stood and looked at him as any one would look
at a strange picture, for a quarter of an hour together; then lay down
upon the ground, and stroked his legs, and kissed them, and then got up
again, and stared at him; one would have thought the fellow bewitched:
but it would have made a dog laugh to see how the next day his passion
run out another way: in the morning he walked along the shore to and
again, with his father, several hours, always leading him by the hand as
if he had been a lady and every now and then would come to fetch
something or other for him from the boat, either a lump of sugar, or a
dram, a biscuit, or something or other that was good. In the afternoon
his frolics ran another way; for then he would set the old man down upon
the ground, and dance about him, and made a thousand antic postures and
gestures; and all the while he did this he would be talking to him, and
telling him one story or another of his travels, and of what had
happened to him abroad, to divert him. In short, if the same filial
affection was to be found in Christians to their parents in our parts of
the world, one would be tempted to say there hardly would have been any
need of the fifth commandment.
But this is a digression; I return to my landing. It would be endless to
take notice of all the ceremonies and civilities that the Spaniards
received me with. The first Spaniard whom, as I said, I knew very well,
was he whose life I saved; he came towards the boat attended by one
more, carrying a flag of truce also; and he did not only not know me at
first, but he had no thoughts, no notion, of its being me that was come
til I spoke to him. “Seignior,” said I, in Portuguese, “do you not know
me?” At which he spoke not a word; but giving his musket to the man
that was with him, threw his arms abroad, and saying something in
Spanish that I did not perfectly hear, came forward, and embraced me,
telling me, he was inexcusable not to know that face again that he had
once seen, as of an angel from Heaven sent to save his life: he said
abundance of very handsome things, as a well-bred Spaniard always knows
how: and then beckoning to the person that attended him, bade him go and
call out his comrades. He then asked me if I would walk to my old
habitation, where he would give me possession of my own house again, and
where I should see there, had been but mean improvements; so I walked
along with him; but alas! I could no more find the place again than if I
had never been there; for they had planted so many trees, and placed
them in such a posture, so thick and close to one another, in ten years
time they were grown so big, that, in short, the place was
inaccessible, except by such windings and blind ways as they themselves
only who made them could find.
I asked them, what put them upon all these fortifications? He told me, I
would say there was need enough of it, when they had given an account
how they had passed their time since their arriving in the island,
especially after they had the misfortune to find that I was gone: he
told me he could not but have some satisfaction in my good fortune, when
he heard that I was gone in a good ship, and to my satisfaction; and
that he had oftentimes a strong persuasion that one time or other he
should see me again: but nothing that ever befel him in his life, he
said, was so surprising and afflicting to him at first, as the
disappointment he was under when he came back to the island, and found I
was not there.
As to the three barbarians (so he called them) that were left behind,
and of whom he said he had a long story to tell me; the Spaniards all
thought themselves much better among the savages, only that their number
was so small. “And,” says he, “had they been strong enough, we had been
all long ago in purgatory,” and with that he crossed himself upon the
breast. But, Sir,” says he, “I hope you will not be displeased, when I
shall tell you how, forced by necessity, we were obliged, for our own
preservation, to disarm them, and making them our subjects, who would
not be content with being moderately our masters, but would be our
murderers.” I answered, I was heartily afraid of it when I left them
there; and nothing troubled me at my parting from the island, but that
they were not come back, that I might have put them in possession of
every thing first, and left the other in a state of subjection, as they
deserved; but if they had reduced them to it, I was very glad, and
should be very far from finding any fault with it; for I knew they were
a parcel of refractory, ungovernable villains, and were fit for any
manner of mischief.
While I was saying this came the man whom he had sent back, and with
him eleven men more: in the dress they were in, it was impossible to
guess what nation they were of; but he made all clear both to them and
to me. First he turned to me, and pointing to them, said, “These, Sir,
are some of the gentlemen who owe their lives to you;” and then turning
to them, and pointing to me, he let them know who I was; upon which they
all came up one by one, not as if they had been sailors, and ordinary
fellows, and I the like, but really as if they had been ambassadors or
noblemen, and I a monarch or a great conqueror: their behaviour was to
the last degree obliging and courteous, and yet mixed with a manly
majestic gravity, which very well became them; and, in short, they had
so much more manners than I, that I scarce knew how to receive their
civilities, much less how to return them in kind.
The history of their coming to, and conduct in the island after my going
away, is so remarkable, and has so many incidents, which the former part
of my relation will help to understand, and which will, in most of the
particulars, refer to that account I have already given, that I cannot
but commit them with great delight to the reading of those that
come after me.
I shall no longer trouble the story with a relation in the first person,
which will put me to the expense of ten thousand Said I’s, and Said
he’s, and He told me’s, and I told him’s, and the like; but I shall
collect the facts historically as near as I can gather them out of my
memory from what they related to me, and from what I met with in my
conversing with them, and with the place.
In order to do this succinctly, and as intelligibly as I can, I must go
back to the circumstance in which I left the island, and which the
persons were in of whom I am to speak. At first it is necessary to
repeat, that I had sent away Friday’s father and the Spaniard, the two
whose lives I had rescued from the savages; I say, I had sent them away
in a large canoe to the main, as I then thought it, to fetch over the
Spaniard’s companions whom he had left behind him, in order to save them
from the like calamity that he had been in, and in order to succour them
for the present, and that, if possible, we might together find some way
for our deliverance afterward.
When I sent them away, I had no visible appearance of, or the least room
to hope for, my own deliverance, any more than I had twenty years
before; much less had I any foreknowledge of what after happened, I mean
of an English ship coming on shore there to fetch them off; and it could
not but be a very great surprise to them when they came back, not only
to find that I was gone, but to find three strangers left on the spot,
possessed of all that I had left behind me, which would otherwise have
been their own.
The first thing, however, which I inquired into, that I might begin
where I left off, was of their own part; and I desired he would give me
a particular account of his voyage back to his countrymen with the boat,
when I sent him to fetch them over. He told me there was little variety
in that part; for nothing remarkable happened to them on the way, they
having very calm weather and a smooth sea; for his countrymen it could
not be doubted, he said, but that they were overjoyed to see him (it
seems he was the principal man among them, the captain of the vessel
they had been shipwrecked in having been dead some time:) they were, he
said, the more surprised to see him, because they knew that he was
fallen into the hands of savages, who, they were satisfied, would devour
him, as they did all the rest of their prisoners; that when he told them
the story of the deliverance, and in what manner he was furnished for
carrying them away, it was like a dream to them; and their astonishment,
they said, was something like that of Joseph’s brethren, when he told
them who he was, and told them the story of his exaltation in Pharaoh’s
court; but when he shewed them the arms, the powder, the ball, and the
provisions that he brought them for their journey or voyage, they were
restored to themselves, took a just share of the joy of their
deliverance, and immediately prepared to come away with him.
Their first business was to get canoes; and in this they were obliged
not to stick so much upon the honest part of it, but to trespass upon
their friendly savages, and to borrow two large canoes or periaguas, on
pretence of going out a-fishing, or for pleasure.
In these they came away the next morning; it seems they wanted no time
to get themselves ready, for they had no baggage, neither clothes, or
provisions, or any thing in the world, but what they had on them, and a
few roots to eat, of which they used to make their bread.
They were in all three weeks absent, and in that time, unluckily for
them, I had the occasion offered for my escape, as I mentioned in my
other part, and to get off from the island; leaving three of the most
impudent, hardened, ungoverned, disagreeable villains behind me that any
man could desire to meet with, to the poor Spaniards’ great grief and
disappointment you may be sure.
The only just thing the rogues did, was, that when the Spaniards came on
shore, they gave my letter to them, and gave them provisions and other
relief, as I had ordered them to do; also they gave them the long paper
of directions, which I had left with them, containing the particular
methods which I took for managing every part of my life there; the way
how I baked my bread, bred up my tame goats, and planted my corn; how I
cured my grapes, made my pots, and, in a word, every thing I did; all
this being written down, they gave to the Spaniards, two of whom
understood English well enough; nor did they refuse to accommodate the
Spaniards with any thing else, for they agreed very well for some time;
they gave them an equal admission into the house, or cave, and they
began to live very sociably; and the head Spaniard, who had seen pretty
much of my method, and Friday’s father together, managed all their
affairs; for as for the Englishmen, they did nothing but ramble about
the island, shoot parrots, and catch tortoises, and when they came home
at night, the Spaniards provided their suppers for them.
The Spaniards would have been satisfied with this would the other but
have left them alone; which however, they could not find in their hearts
to do long; but, like the dog in the manger, they would not eat
themselves, and would not let others eat neither: the differences,
nevertheless, were at first but trivial and such as are not worth
relating: but at last it broke out into open war, and it began with all
the rudeness and insolence that can be imagined, without reason, without
provocation, contrary to nature, and indeed to common sense; and though,
it is true, the first relation of it came from the Spaniards themselves,
whom I may call the accusers, yet when I came to examine the fellows,
they could not deny a word of it.
But before I come to the particulars of this part, I must supply a
defect in my former relation; and this was, that I forgot to set down
among the rest, that just as we were weighing the anchor to set sail,
there happened a little quarrel on board our ship, which I was afraid
once would turn to a second mutiny; nor was it appeased till the
captain, rousing up his courage, and taking us all to his assistance,
parted them by force, and making two of the most refractory fellows
prisoners, he laid them in irons; and as they had been active in the
former disorders, and let fall some ugly dangerous words the second
time, he threatened to carry them in irons to England, and have them
hanged there for mutiny, and running away with the ship.
This, it seems, though the captain did not intend to do it, frighted
some other men in the ship; and some of them had put it in the heads of
the rest, that the captain only gave them good words for the present
till they should come to some English port, and that then they should
be all put into a gaol, and tried for their lives.
The mate got intelligence of this, and acquainted us with it; upon which
it was desired that I, who still passed for a great man among them,
should go down with the mate and satisfy the men, and tell them, that
they might be assured, if they behaved well the rest of the voyage, all
they had done for the time past should be pardoned. So I went, and after
passing my honour’s word to them they appeared easy, and the more so,
when I caused the two men who were in irons to be released and forgiven.
But this mutiny had brought us to an anchor for that night, the wind
also falling calm. Next morning we found that our two men who had been
laid in irons, had stole each of them a musket and some other weapons;
what powder or shot they had we knew not; and had taken the ship’s
pinnace, which was not yet haled up, and run away with her to their
companions in roguery on shore.
As soon as we found this, I ordered the long-boat on shore, with twelve
men and the mate, and away they went to seek the rogues; but they could
neither find them, nor any of the rest; for they all fled into the woods
when they saw the boat coming on shore. The mate was once resolved, in
justice to their roguery, to have destroyed their plantations, burnt all
their household stuff and furniture, and left them to shift without it;
but having no order, he let all alone, left every thing as they found
it, and bringing the pinnace away, came on board without them.
These two men made their number five: but the other three villains were
so much wickeder than these, that after they had been two or three days
together, they turned their two new-comers out of doors to shift for
themselves, and would have nothing to do with them; nor could they, for
a good while, be persuaded to give them any food: as for the Spaniards,
they were not yet come.
When the Spaniards came first on shore, the business began to go
forward; the Spaniards would have persuaded the three English brutes to
have taken in their two countrymen again, that, as they said, they might
be all one family; but they would not hear of it: so the two poor
fellows lived by themselves, and finding nothing but industry and
application would make them live comfortable, they pitched their tents
on the north shore of the island, but a little more to the west, to be
out of the danger of the savages, who always landed on the east parts of
the island.
Here they built two huts, one to lodge in, and the other to lay up their
magazines and stores in; and the Spaniards having given them some corn
for seed, and especially some of the peas which I had left them, they
dug and planted, and enclosed, after the pattern I had set for them all,
and began to live pretty well; their first crop of corn was on the
ground, and though it was but a little bit of land which they had dug up
at first, having had but a little time, yet it was enough to relieve
them, and find them with bread or other eatables; and one of the
fellows, being the cook’s mate of the ship, was very ready at making
soup, puddings, and such other preparations, as the rice and the milk,
and such little flesh as they got, furnished him to do.
They were going on in a little thriving posture, when the three
unnatural rogues, their own countrymen too, in mere humour, and to
insult them, came and bullied them, and told them the island was theirs;
that the governor, meaning me, had given them possession of it, and
nobody else had any right to it; and, damn them, they should build no
houses upon their ground, unless they would pay them rent for them.
The two men thought they had jested at first, and asked them to come and
sit down, and see what fine houses they were that they had built, and
tell them what rent they demanded: and one of them merrily told them, if
they were ground-landlords, he hoped if they built tenements upon the
land and made improvements, they would, according to the custom of all
landlords, grant them a long lease; and bid them go fetch a scrivener to
draw the writings. One of the three, damning and raging, told them they
should see they were not in jest; and going to a little place at a
distance, where the honest men had made a fire to dress their victuals,
he takes a firebrand and claps it to the outside of their hut, and very
fairly set it on fire; and it would have been all burnt down in a few
minutes, if one of the two had not run to the fellow, thrust him away,
and trod the fire out with his feet, and that not without some
difficulty too.
The fellow was in such a rage at the honest man’s thrusting him away,
that he turned upon him with a pole he had in his hand; and had not the
man avoided the blow very nimbly, and run into the hut, he had ended his
days at once. His comrade, seeing the danger they were both in, ran in
after him, and immediately they came both out with their muskets; and
the man that was first struck at with the pole knocked the fellow down
who began the quarrel with the stock of his musket, and that before the
other two could come to help him; and then seeing the rest come at them,
they stood together, and presenting the other ends of their pieces to
them, bade them stand off.
The others had fire-arms with them too; but one of the two honest men,
bolder than his comrade, and made desperate by his danger, told them if
they offered to move hand or foot they were all dead men, and boldly
commanded them to lay down their arms. They did not indeed lay down
their arms; but seeing him resolute, it brought them to a parley, and
they consented to take their wounded man with them, and be gone; and,
indeed, it seems the fellow was wounded sufficiently with the blow:
however, they were much in the wrong, since they had the advantage, that
they did not disarm them effectually, as they might have done, and have
gone immediately to the Spaniards, and given them an account how the
rogues treated them; for the three villains studied nothing but
revenge, and every day gave them some intimation that they did so.
But not to crowd this part with an account of the lesser part of their
rogueries, such as treading down their corn, shooting three young kids
and a she-goat, which the poor men had got to breed up tame for their
store; and in a word, plaguing them night and day in this manner, it
forced the two men to such a desperation, that they resolved to fight
them all three the first time they had a fair opportunity. In order to
this they resolved to go to the castle, as they called it, that was my
old dwelling, where the three rogues and the Spaniards all lived
together at that time, intending to have a fair battle, and the
Spaniards should stand by to see fair play. So they got up in the
morning before day, and came to the place, and called the Englishmen by
their names, telling a Spaniard that answered, that they wanted to speak
with them.
It happened that the day before two of the Spaniards, having been in the
woods, had seen one of the two Englishmen, whom, for distinction, I call
the honest men; and he had made a sad complaint to the Spaniards, of the
barbarous usage they had met with from their three countrymen, and how
they had ruined their plantation, and destroyed their corn, that they
had laboured so hard to bring forward, and killed the milch-goat, and
their three kids, which was all they had provided for their sustenance;
and that if he and his friends, meaning the Spaniards, did not assist
them again, they should be starved. When the Spaniards came home at
night, and they were all at supper, he took the freedom to reprove the
three Englishmen, though in gentle and mannerly terms, and asked them,
how they could be so cruel, they being harmless inoffensive fellows, and
that they were putting themselves in a way to subsist by their labour,
and that it had cost them a great deal of pains to bring things to such
perfection as they had?
One of the Englishmen returned very briskly, “What had they to do there?
That they came on shore without leave, and that they should not plant
or build upon the island; it was none of their ground.”—“Why,” says the
Spaniard, very calmly, “Seignior Inglese, they must not starve.” The
Englishman replied, like a true rough-hewn tarpaulin, “they might starve
and be d—ed, they should not plant nor build in that place.”—“But what
must they do then, Seignior?” says the Spaniard. Another of the brutes
returned, “Do! d—n them, they should be servants, and work for
them.”—“But how can you expect that of them? They are not bought with
your money; you have no right to make them servants.” The Englishman
answered, “The island was theirs, the governor had given it to them, and
no man had any thing to do there but themselves;” and with that swore by
his Maker, that he would go and burn all their new huts; they should
build none upon their land.
“Why, Seignior,” says the Spaniard, “by the same rule, we must be your
servants too.”—“Ay,” says the bold dog, “and so you shall too, before
we have done with you;” mixing two or three G—d d—mme’s in the proper
intervals of his speech. The Spaniard only smiled at that, and made him
no answer. However, this little discourse had heated them; and starting
up, one says to the other, I think it was he they called Will Atkins,
“Come, Jack, let us go and have the other brush with them; we will
demolish their castle, I will warrant you; they shall plant no colony in
our dominions.”