truth is, all he said, and at all times, was solid and good; and had
not William thus, as it were, quieted my mind, I think, verily, I was so
alarmed at the just reason I had to expect vengeance from Heaven upon
me for my ill-gotten wealth, that I should have run away from it as the
devil's goods, that I had nothing to do with, that did not belong to
me, and that I had no right to keep, and was in certain danger of being
destroyed for.
However, William settled my mind to more prudent steps than these, and
I concluded that I ought, however, to proceed to a place of safety,
and leave the event to God Almighty's mercy. But this I must leave upon
record, that I had from this time no joy of the wealth I had got. I
looked upon it all as stolen, and so indeed the greatest part of it was.
I looked upon it as a hoard of other men's goods, which I had robbed the
innocent owners of, and which I ought, in a word, to be hanged for here,
and damned for hereafter. And now, indeed, I began sincerely to hate
myself for a dog; a wretch that had been a thief and a murderer; a
wretch that was in a condition which nobody was ever in; for I had
robbed, and though I had the wealth by me, yet it was impossible I
should ever make any restitution; and upon this account it ran in my
head that I could never repent, for that repentance could not be sincere
without restitution, and therefore must of necessity be damned. There
was no room for me to escape. I went about with my heart full of these
thoughts, little better than a distracted fellow; in short, running
headlong into the dreadfullest despair, and premeditating nothing but
how to rid myself out of the world; and, indeed, the devil, if such
things are of the devil's immediate doing, followed his work very close
with me, and nothing lay upon my mind for several days but to shoot
myself into the head with my pistol.
I was all this while in a vagrant life, among infidels, Turks, pagans,
and such sort of people. I had no minister, no Christian to converse
with but poor William. He was my ghostly father or confessor, and he was
all the comfort I had. As for my knowledge of religion, you have heard
my history. You may suppose I had not much; and as for the Word of
God, I do not remember that I ever read a chapter in the Bible in my
lifetime. I was little Bob at Bussleton, and went to school to learn my
Testament.
However, it pleased God to make William the Quaker everything to me.
Upon this occasion, I took him out one evening, as usual, and hurried
him away into the fields with me, in more haste than ordinary; and
there, in short, I told him the perplexity of my mind, and under what
terrible temptations of the devil I had been; that I must shoot myself,
for I could not support the weight and terror that was upon me.
"Shoot yourself!" says William; "why, what will that do for you?"
"Why," says I, "it will put an end to a miserable life."
"Well," says William, "are you satisfied the next will be better?"
"No, no," says I; "much worse, to be sure."
"Why, then," says he, "shooting yourself is the devil's motion, no
doubt; for it is the devil of a reason, that, because thou art in an ill
case, therefore thou must put thyself into a worse."
This shocked my reason indeed. "Well, but," says I, "there is no bearing
the miserable condition I am in."
"Very well," says William; "but it seems there is some bearing a worse
condition; and so you will shoot yourself, that you may be past remedy?"
"I am past remedy already," says I.
"How do you know that?" says he.
"I am satisfied of it," said I.
"Well," says he, "but you are not sure; so you will shoot yourself to
make it certain; for though on this side death you cannot be sure you
will be damned at all, yet the moment you step on the other side of time
you are sure of it; for when it is done, it is not to be said then that
you will be, but that you are damned."
"Well, but," says William, as if he had been between jest and earnest,
"pray, what didst thou dream of last night?"
"Why," said I, "I had frightful dreams all night; and, particularly, I
dreamed that the devil came for me, and asked me what my name was; and
I told him. Then he asked me what trade I was. 'Trade?' says I; 'I am a
thief, a rogue, by my calling: I am a pirate and a murderer, and ought
to be hanged.' 'Ay, ay,' says the devil, 'so you do; and you are the
man I looked for, and therefore come along with me.' At which I was most
horribly frighted, and cried out so that it waked me; and I have been in
horrible agony ever since."
"Very well," says William; "come, give me the pistol thou talkedst of
just now."
"Why," says I, "what will you do with it?"
"Do with it!" says William. "Why, thou needest not shoot thyself; I
shall be obliged to do it for thee. Why, thou wilt destroy us all."
"What do you mean, William?" said I.
"Mean!" said he; "nay, what didst thou mean, to cry out aloud in thy
sleep, 'I am a thief, a pirate, a murderer, and ought to be hanged'?
Why, thou wilt ruin us all. 'Twas well the Dutchman did not understand
English. In short, I must shoot thee, to save my own life. Come, come,"
says he, "give me thy pistol."
I confess this terrified me again another way, and I began to be
sensible that, if anybody had been near me to understand English, I had
been undone. The thought of shooting myself forsook me from that time;
and I turned to William, "You disorder me extremely, William," said I;
"why, I am never safe, nor is it safe to keep me company. What shall I
do? I shall betray you all."
"Come, come, friend Bob," says he, "I'll put an end to it all, if you
will take my advice."
"How's that?" said I.
"Why, only," says he, "that the next time thou talkest with the devil,
thou wilt talk a little softlier, or we shall be all undone, and you
too."
This frighted me, I must confess, and allayed a great deal of the
trouble of mind I was in. But William, after he had done jesting with
me, entered upon a very long and serious discourse with me about the
nature of my circumstances, and about repentance; that it ought to be
attended, indeed, with a deep abhorrence of the crime that I had to
charge myself with; but that to despair of God's mercy was no part of
repentance, but putting myself into the condition of the devil; indeed,
that I must apply myself with a sincere, humble confession of my crime,
to ask pardon of God, whom I had offended, and cast myself upon His
mercy, resolving to be willing to make restitution, if ever it should
please God to put it in my power, even to the utmost of what I had in
the world. And this, he told me, was the method which he had resolved
upon himself; and in this, he told me, he had found comfort.
I had a great deal of satisfaction in William's discourse, and it
quieted me very much; but William was very anxious ever after about my
talking in my sleep, and took care to lie with me always himself, and to
keep me from lodging in any house where so much as a word of English was
understood.
However, there was not the like occasion afterward; for I was much
more composed in my mind, and resolved for the future to live a quite
different life from what I had done. As to the wealth I had, I looked
upon it as nothing; I resolved to set it apart to any such opportunity
of doing justice as God should put into my hand; and the miraculous
opportunity I had afterwards of applying some parts of it to preserve
a ruined family, whom I had plundered, may be worth reading, if I have
room for it in this account.
With these resolutions I began to be restored to some degree of quiet
in my mind; and having, after almost three months' stay at Bassorah,
disposed of some goods, but having a great quantity left, we hired
boats according to the Dutchman's direction, and went up to Bagdad,
or Babylon, on the river Tigris, or rather Euphrates. We had a very
considerable cargo of goods with us, and therefore made a great
figure there, and were received with respect. We had, in particular,
two-and-forty bales of Indian stuffs of sundry sorts, silks, muslins,
and fine chintz; we had fifteen bales of very fine China silks, and
seventy packs or bales of spices, particularly cloves and nutmegs, with
other goods. We were bid money here for our cloves, but the Dutchman
advised us not to part with them, and told us we should get a better
price at Aleppo, or in the Levant; so we prepared for the caravan.
We concealed our having any gold or pearls as much as we could, and
therefore sold three or four bales of China silks and Indian calicoes,
to raise money to buy camels and to pay the customs which are taken at
several places, and for our provisions over the deserts.
I travelled this journey, careless to the last degree of my goods or
wealth, believing that, as I came by it all by rapine and violence, God
would direct that it should be taken from me again in the same manner;
and, indeed, I think I might say I was very willing it should be so.
But, as I had a merciful Protector above me, so I had a most faithful
steward, counsellor, partner, or whatever I might call him, who was my
guide, my pilot, my governor, my everything, and took care both of me
and of all we had; and though he had never been in any of these parts
of the world, yet he took the care of all upon him; and in about
nine-and-fifty days we arrived from Bassorah, at the mouth of the
river Tigris or Euphrates, through the desert, and through Aleppo to
Alexandria, or, as we call it, Scanderoon, in the Levant.
Here William and I, and the other two, our faithful comrades, debated
what we should do; and here William and I resolved to separate from the
other two, they resolving to go with the Dutchman into Holland, by the
means of some Dutch ship which lay then in the road. William and I told
them we resolved to go and settle in the Morea, which then belonged to
the Venetians.
It is true we acted wisely in it not to let them know whither we
went, seeing we had resolved to separate; but we took our old doctor's
directions how to write to him in Holland, and in England, that we might
have intelligence from him on occasion, and promised to give him an
account how to write to us, which we afterwards did, as may in time be
made out.
We stayed here some time after they were gone, till at length, not being
thoroughly resolved whither to go till then, a Venetian ship touched at
Cyprus, and put in at Scanderoon to look for freight home. We took the
hint, and bargaining for our passage, and the freight of our goods, we
embarked for Venice, where, in two-and-twenty days, we arrived safe,
with all our treasure, and with such a cargo, take our goods and our
money and our jewels together, as, I believed, was never brought into
the city by two single men, since the state of Venice had a being.
We kept ourselves here _incognito_ for a great while, passing for two
Armenian merchants still, as we had done before; and by this time we had
gotten so much of the Persian and Armenian jargon, which they talked at
Bassorah and Bagdad, and everywhere that we came in the country, as
was sufficient to make us able to talk to one another, so as not to be
understood by anybody, though sometimes hardly by ourselves.
Here we converted all our effects into money, settled our abode as for
a considerable time, and William and I, maintaining an inviolable
friendship and fidelity to one another, lived like two brothers; we
neither had or sought any separate interest; we conversed seriously and
gravely, and upon the subject of our repentance continually; we never
changed, that is to say, so as to leave off our Armenian garbs; and we
were called, at Venice, the two Grecians.
I had been two or three times going to give a detail of our wealth, but
it will appear incredible, and we had the greatest difficulty in the
world how to conceal it, being justly apprehensive lest we might be
assassinated in that country for our treasure. At length William told me
he began to think now that he must never see England any more, and
that indeed he did not much concern himself about it; but seeing we had
gained so great wealth, and he had some poor relations in England, if
I was willing, he would write to know if they were living, and to know
what condition they were in, and if he found such of them were alive
as he had some thoughts about, he would, with my consent, send them
something to better their condition.
I consented most willingly; and accordingly William wrote to a sister
and an uncle, and in about five weeks' time received an answer from them
both, directed to himself, under cover of a hard Armenian name that
he had given himself, viz., Signore Constantine Alexion of Ispahan, at
Venice.
It was a very moving letter he received from his sister, who, after the
most passionate expressions of joy to hear he was alive, seeing she had
long ago had an account that he was murdered by the pirates in the West
Indies, entreats him to let her know what circumstances he was in; tells
him she was not in any capacity to do anything considerable for him, but
that he should be welcome to her with all her heart; that she was left
a widow, with four children, but kept a little shop in the Minories, by
which she made shift to maintain her family; and that she had sent him
five pounds, lest he should want money, in a strange country, to bring
him home.
I could see the letter brought tears out of his eyes as he read it; and,
indeed, when he showed it to me, and the little bill for five pounds,
upon an English merchant in Venice, it brought tears out of my eyes too.
After we had been both affected sufficiently with the tenderness and
kindness of this letter, he turns to me; says he, "What shall I do for
this poor woman?" I mused a while; at last says I, "I will tell you what
you shall do for her. She has sent you five pounds, and she has four
children, and herself, that is five; such a sum, from a poor woman in
her circumstances, is as much as five thousand pounds is to us; you
shall send her a bill of exchange for five thousand pounds English
money, and bid her conceal her surprise at it till she hears from you
again; but bid her leave off her shop, and go and take a house somewhere
in the country, not far off from London, and stay there, in a moderate
figure, till she hears from you again."
"Now," says William, "I perceive by it that you have some thoughts of
venturing into England."
"Indeed, William," said I, "you mistake me; but it presently occurred to
me that you should venture, for what have you done that you may not be
seen there? Why should I desire to keep you from your relations, purely
to keep me company?"
William looked very affectionately upon me. "Nay," says he, "we have
embarked together so long, and come together so far, I am resolved I
will never part with thee as long as I live, go where thou wilt, or stay
where thou wilt; and as for my sister," said William, "I cannot send her
such a sum of money, for whose is all this money we have? It is most of
it thine."
"No, William," said I, "there is not a penny of it mine but what is
yours too, and I won't have anything but an equal share with you, and
therefore you shall send it to her; if not, I will send it."
"Why," says William, "it will make the poor woman distracted; she will
be so surprised she will go out of her wits."
"Well," said I, "William, you may do it prudently; send her a bill
backed of a hundred pounds, and bid her expect more in a post or two,
and that you will send her enough to live on without keeping shop, and
then send her more."
Accordingly William sent her a very kind letter, with a bill upon a
merchant in London for a hundred and sixty pounds, and bid her comfort
herself with the hope that he should be able in a little time to send
her more. About ten days after, he sent her another bill of five hundred
and forty pounds; and a post or two after, another for three hundred
pounds, making in all a thousand pounds; and told her he would send her
sufficient to leave off her shop, and directed her to take a house as
above.
He waited then till he received an answer to all the three letters, with
an account that she had received the money, and, which I did not expect,
that she had not let any other acquaintance know that she had received
a shilling from anybody, or so much as that he was alive, and would not
till she had heard again.
When he showed me this letter, "Well, William," said I, "this woman is
fit to be trusted with life or anything; send her the rest of the five
thousand pounds, and I'll venture to England with you, to this woman's
house, whenever you will."
In a word, we sent her five thousand pounds in good bills; and she
received them very punctually, and in a little time sent her brother
word that she had pretended to her uncle that she was sickly and could
not carry on the trade any longer, and that she had taken a large house
about four miles from London, under pretence of letting lodgings for
her livelihood; and, in short, intimated as if she understood that he
intended to come over to be _incognito_, assuring him he should be as
retired as he pleased.
This was opening the very door for us that we thought had been
effectually shut for this life; and, in a word, we resolved to venture,
but to keep ourselves entirely concealed, both as to name and every
other circumstance; and accordingly William sent his sister word how
kindly he took her prudent steps, and that she had guessed right that
he desired to be retired, and that he obliged her not to increase her
figure, but live private, till she might perhaps see him.
He was going to send the letter away. "Come, William," said I, "you
shan't send her an empty letter; tell her you have a friend coming with
you that must be as retired as yourself, and I'll send her five thousand
pounds more."
So, in short, we made this poor woman's family rich; and yet, when it
came to the point, my heart failed me, and I durst not venture; and for
William, he would not stir without me; and so we stayed about two years
after this, considering what we should do.
You may think, perhaps, that I was very prodigal of my ill-gotten goods,
thus to load a stranger with my bounty, and give a gift like a prince to
one that had been able to merit nothing of me, or indeed know me; but
my condition ought to be considered in this case; though I had money to
profusion, yet I was perfectly destitute of a friend in the world, to
have the least obligation or assistance from, or knew not either where
to dispose or trust anything I had while I lived, or whom to give it to
if I died.
When I had reflected upon the manner of my getting of it, I was
sometimes for giving it all to charitable uses, as a debt due to
mankind, though I was no Roman Catholic, and not at all of the opinion
that it would purchase me any repose to my soul; but I thought, as it
was got by a general plunder, and which I could make no satisfaction
for, it was due to the community, and I ought to distribute it for the
general good. But still I was at a loss how, and where, and by whom to
settle this charity, not daring to go home to my own country, lest some
of my comrades, strolled home, should see and detect me, and for the
very spoil of my money, or the purchase of his own pardon, betray and
expose me to an untimely end.
Being thus destitute, I say, of a friend, I pitched thus upon William's
sister; the kind step of hers to her brother, whom she thought to be in
distress, signifying a generous mind and a charitable disposition; and
having resolved to make her the object of my first bounty, I did not
doubt but I should purchase something of a refuge for myself, and a kind
of a centre, to which I should tend in my future actions; for really
a man that has a subsistence, and no residence, no place that has a
magnetic influence upon his affections, is in one of the most odd,
uneasy conditions in the world, nor is it in the power of all his money
to make it up to him.
It was, as I told you, two years and upwards that we remained at Venice
and thereabout, in the greatest hesitation imaginable, irresolute and
unfixed to the last degree. William's sister importuned us daily to come
to England, and wondered we should not dare to trust her, whom we had to
such a degree obliged to be faithful; and in a manner lamented her being
suspected by us.
At last I began to incline; and I said to William, "Come, brother
William," said I (for ever since our discourse at Bassorah I called him
brother), "if you will agree to two or three things with me, I'll go
home to England with all my heart."
Says William, "Let me know what they are."
"Why, first," says I, "you shall not disclose yourself to any of your
relations in England but your sister--no, not one; secondly, we will
not shave off our mustachios or beards" (for we had all along worn our
beards after the Grecian manner), "nor leave off our long vests, that we
may pass for Grecians and foreigners; thirdly, that we shall never speak
English in public before anybody, your sister excepted; fourthly, that
we will always live together and pass for brothers."
William said he would agree to them all with all his heart, but that the
not speaking English would be the hardest, but he would do his best for
that too; so, in a word, we agreed to go from Venice to Naples, where we
converted a large sum of money into bales of silk, left a large sum in a
merchant's hands at Venice, and another considerable sum at Naples, and
took bills of exchange for a great deal too; and yet we came with such
a cargo to London as few American merchants had done for some years,
for we loaded in two ships seventy-three bales of thrown silk, besides
thirteen bales of wrought silks, from the duchy of Milan, shipped at
Genoa, with all which I arrived safely; and some time after I married my
faithful protectress, William's sister, with whom I am much more happy
than I deserve.
And now, having so plainly told you that I am come to England, after I
have so boldly owned what life I have led abroad, it is time to leave
off, and say no more for the present, lest some should be willing to
inquire too nicely after your old friend CAPTAIN BOB.
[Transcriber's Note: The words "thae" (Scottish dialect for "those") and
"Geat Mogul" ("Great" may be meant) do occur as such in the print copy.]