The life and strange adventures of Robinson Crusoe

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THE LIFE OF
ROBINSON CRUSOE

IN FOUR VOLUMES
VOLUME III

r

Plate X

THE FURTHER ADVENTURES

OF

Robinfon Crufoe

BY DANIEL DEFOE

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM THE
DESIGNS BY STOTHARD

VOL. Ill

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

MCMVIII

COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

ROBINSON CRUSOE

ROBINSON CRUSOE

CHAPTER I

THAT homely proverb used on so many occa-
sions 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* afflic-
tion, 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 In the
world to have been so predominant in my thoughts,
should be worn out, the volatile part be fully evacu-
ated, 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.

2 THE ADVENTURES OF

Nay, further, 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 chron-
ical distemper. In particular, 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 imper-
tinence , and I saw it in myself.

I have often heard persons of good judgment
say that all the stir people make in the world about

ROBINSON CRUSOE 3

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 con-
versation of their deceased friends so realises 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, spec-
tres, or walking of people after they are dead : or
whether there is anything 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 va-
pours, or what else I may call it, that I actually
supposed myself often upon the spot, at my old
castle, behind the trees ; saw my old Spaniard,
Friday's father, and the reprobate sailors I left
upon the island ; nay, I fancied I talked with them,
and looked at them 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 villainy of the three pirate sailors
so lively related to me by the first Spaniard and
Friday's father that it was surprising: they told

4 THE ADVENTURES OF

me how they barbarously attempted to murder all
the Spaniards, and that they set fire to the provi-
sions they had laid up, on purpose to distress and
starve them ; things that I had never heard of, and
that indeed were never all of them true in fact; but
it was so warm in my imagination, and so realised
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, much of it
true. I own, that this dream had nothing in it liter-
ally and specifically true ; but the general part was
so true, the base 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 after-
wards have punished them severely, so, if I had
hanged them all, I had been much in the right,
and even should have been justified both by the
laws of God and man. — But to return to my story.
In this kind of temper I 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 wholly bent upon it, told me very seriously
one night that she believed there was some secret

ROBINSON CRUSOE 5

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 re-
solved 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 per-
ceived that 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 would be the only hinderance, I will go with you :
for though I think it a most preposterous thing
for one of your years, and in your condition, yet,
if it must be," said she, again weeping, " I would
not leave you ; for If it be of Heaven you must
do it ; there is no resisting it : and if Heaven make
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's brought
me a little out of the vapours, and I began to con-
sider what I was doing: I corrected my wandering

6 THE ADVENTURES OF

fancy and began to argue with myself sedately what
business I had, after threescore years, and after such
a life of tedious suiferings and disasters, and closed
in so happy and easy a manner; I say, what busi-
ness had I to rush into new hazards, and put my-
self upon adventures fit only for youth and poverty
to run into ?

With those thoughts I considered my new en-
gagement; 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 hazard 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 cogita-
tions, I struggled with the power of my imagina-
tion, 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 that thing return upon me chiefly when
I was idle, and had nothing to do, nor anything of
moment immediately before me. To this purpose
I bought a little farm in the county of Bedford, and

ROBINSON CRUSOE 7

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 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 sailors, and
things relating to the remote parts of the world.

In a word, I went down to my farm, settled my
family, bought me ploughs, harrows, a cart, wag-
gon, horses, cows, and 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, en-
closing, planting, etc. ; 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 retreating to.

I farmed upon my own land; I had no rent to
pay, was limited by no articles; I could pull up or
cut down as I pleased; what I planted was for my-
self, and what I improved was for my family; and
having thus left off the thoughts of wandering, I
had not the least discomfort in any part of life as
to this world. Now I thought indeed that I enjoyed
the middle state of life which my father so earnestly
recommended to me, and lived a kind of heavenly
life, something like what is described by the poet,
upon the subject of a country life —

" Free from vices, free from care.
Age has no pain, and youth no snare.**

8 THE ADVENTURES OF

But, in the middle of all this felicity, one blow
from unseen Providence unhinged me at once; and
not only made a breach upon me inevitable and in-
curable, but drove me, by its consequences, into a
deep relapse of the wandering disposition, which,
as I may say, being born in my very blood, soon
recovered its hold of me, and, like the returns of
a violent distemper, came on with an irresistible
force upon me, so that nothing could make any
more impression upon me. This blow was the loss
of my wife. It is not my business here to write an
elegy upon my wife, give a character of her par-
ticular virtues, and make my court to the sex by
the flattery of a funeral sermon. She was, in a few
words, the stay of all my affairs, the centre of all
my enterprises, the engine that, by her prudence,
reduced me to that happy compass I was in, from
the most extravagant and ruinous project that
fluttered in my head, as above, and did more to
guide my rambling genius than a mother's tears,
a father's instructions, a friend's counsel, or all
my own reasoning powers, could do. I was happy
in listening to her tears, and in being moved by
her entreaties ; and to the last degree desolate and
dislocated in the world by the loss of her.

When she was gone the world looked awkwardly
round me. I was as much a stranger in it, in my
thoughts, as I was in the Brazils, when I first went
on shore there ; and as much alone, except as to
the assistance of servants, as I was in my island. I
knew neither what to think nor what to do. I saw

ROBINSON CRUSOE 9

the world busy around me : one part labouring for
bread, another part squandering in vile excesses or
empty pleasures, equally miserable, because the end
they proposed still fled from them: for the men
of pleasure every day surfeited of their vice, and
heaped up work for sorrow and repentance ; and
the men of labour spent their strength in daily
struggling for bread to maintain the vital strength
they laboured with : so living in a daily circula-
tion of sorrow, living but to work, and working
but to live, as if daily bread were the only end
of wearisome life, and a wearisome life the only
occasion of daily bread.

This put me in mind of the life I lived in my
kingdom, the island ; where I suff'ered no more corn
to grow, because I did not want it, and bred no more
goats, because I had no more use for them ; where
the money lay in the drawer till it grew mouldy,
and had scarce the favour to be looked upon in
twenty years.

All these things, had I improved them as I ought
to have done, and as reason and religion had dic-
tated to me, would have taught me to search farther
than human enjoyments for a full felicity ; and that
there was something which certainly was the rea-
son and end of life, superior to all these things, and
which was either to be possessed, or at least hoped
for, on this side the grave.

But my sage counsellor was gone ; I was like a
ship without a pilot, that could only run afore the
wind : my thoughts ran all away again into the old

lo THE ADVENTURES OF

affair ; my head was quite turned with the whim-
sies of foreign adventures ; and all the pleasant,
innocent amusements of my farm, my garden, my
cattle, and my family, which before entirely pos-
sessed me, were nothing to me, had no relish,
and were like music to one that has no ear, or food
to one that has no taste : in a word, I resolved to
leave off housekeeping, let my farm, and return
to London ; and in a few months after I did so.

When I came to London, I was still as uneasy
as I was before ; I had no relish for the place, no
employment in it, nothing to do but to saunter
about like an idle person, of whom it may be said
he is perfectly useless in God*s creation, and it is
not one farthing's matter to the rest of his kind
whether he be dead or alive. This also was the thing
which, of all circumstances of life, was the most
my aversion, who had been all my days used to an
active life ; and I would often say to myself : " A
state of idleness is the very dregs of life '' ; and
indeed I thought I was much more suitably em-
ployed when I was twenty-six days making a deal
board.

It was now the beginning of the year 1693, when
my nephew, whom, as I have observed before, I
had brought up to the sea, and had made him com-
mander of a ship, was come home from a short
voyage to Bilboa, being the first he had made. He
came to me, and told me that some merchants of
his acquaintance had been proposing to him to go
a voyage for them to the East Indies and to China,

ROBINSON CRUSOE ii

as private traders. " And now, uncle/* says he,
" if you will go to sea with me, I will engage to
land you upon your old habitation in the island ;
for we are to touch at the Brazils."

Nothing can be a greater demonstration of a
future state, and of the existence of an invisible
world, than the concurrence of second causes with
the ideas of things which we form in our minds,
perfectly reserved, and not communicated to any
in the world.

My nephew knew nothing how far my distem-
per of wandering was returned upon me, and I
knew nothing of what he had in his thought to say,
when that very morning, before he came to me,
I had, in a great deal of confusion of thought, and
revolving every part of my circumstances in my
mind, come to this resolution, viz., that I would
go to Lisbon, and consult with my old sea-captain ;
and so, if it was rational and practicable, I would go
and see the island again, and see what was become
of my people there. I had pleased myself with the
thoughts of peopling the place, and carrying in-
habitants from hence, getting a patent for the pos-
session, and I knew not what; when, in the middle
of all this, in comes my nephew, as I have said,
with his project of carrying me thither in his way
to the East Indies. **

I paused a while at his words, and, looking stead-
ily at him, " What devil," said I, " sent you on this
unlucky errand P " My nephew stared, as if he had
been frightened, at first; but perceiving that I was

12 THE ADVENTURES OF

not much displeased with the proposal, he recov-
ered himself. "I hope it may not be an unlucky
proposal, sir," says he; "I dare say you would be
pleased to see your new colony there, where you
once reigned with more felicity than most of your
brother-monarchs in the world."

In a word, the scheme hit so exactly with my tem-
per, that is to say, the prepossession I was under,
and of which I have said so much, that I told him,
in a few words, if he agreed with the merchants,
I would go with him : but I told him I would not
promise to go any farther than my own island.
"Why, sir," says he, "you don't want to be left
there again, I hope?" "Why," said I, "can you
not take me up again on your return?" He told
me it would not be possible to do so ; that the
merchants would never allow him to come that way
with a laden ship of such value, it being a month's
sail out of his way, and might be three or four.
" Besides, sir, if I should miscarry," said he, " and
not return at all, then you would be just reduced
to the condition you were in before."

This was very rational, but we both found out
a remedy for it ; which was to carry a framed sloop
on board the ship, which being taken in pieces, and
shipped on board the ship, might by the help of
some carpenters, whom we agreed to carry with us,
be set up again in the island, and finished, fit to
go to sea in a few days.

I was not long resolving; for indeed the impor-
tunities of my nephew joined so effectually with my

ROBINSON CRUSOE 13

inclination that nothing could oppose me: on the
other hand, my wife being dead, I had nobody con-
cerning themselves so much for me as to persuade
me to one way or the other, except my ancient good
friend the widow, who earnestly struggled with me
to consider my years, my easy circumstances, and
the needless hazards of a long voyage; and, above
all, my young children. But it was all to no pur-
pose; — I had an irresistible desire to the voyage;
and I told her I thought there was something so
uncommon in the impressions I had upon my mind
for the voyage that it would be a kind of resisting
Providence if I should attempt to stay at home :
after which she ceased her expostulations, and
joined with me, not only in making provision for
my voyage, but also in settling my family affairs
for my absence, and providing for the education of
my children.

In order to this, I made my will and settled the
estate I had in such a manner for my children, and
placed in such hands, that I was perfectly easy and
satisfied they would have justice done them, what-
ever might befal me ; and for their education, I
left it wholly to the widow, with a sufficient main-
tenance to herself for her care: all which she richly
deserved, for no mother could have taken more care
in their education, or understood it better ; and as
she lived till I came home, I also lived to thank
her for it.

My nephew was ready to sail about the begin-
ning of January 1694-5; and I, with my man Fri-

14 THE ADVENTURES OF

day, went on board in the Downs the 8 th; having,
besides that sloop which I mentioned above, a very
considerable cargo of all kinds of necessary things
for my colony ; which, if I did not find in good
condition, I resolved to leave so.

First, I carried with me some servants, whom I
proposed to place there as inhabitants, or at least
to set on work there, upon my account, while I
stayed, and either to leave them there, or to carry
them forward, as they would appear willing : par-
ticularly, I carried two carpenters, a smith, and a
very handy, ingenious fellow, who was a cooper by
trade, and was also a general mechanic ; for he was
dexterous at making wheels,and hand-mills to grind
corn, was a good turner, and a good pot-maker;
he also made anything that was proper to make of
earth, or of wood ; in a word, we called him our
Jack-of-all-trades. With these I carried a tailor, who
had offered himself to go a passenger to the East
Indies with my nephew, but afterwards consented
to stay on our new plantation ; and proved a most
necessary, handy fellow as could be desired, in many
other businesses besides that of his trade : for, as
I observed formerly, necessity arms us for all em-
ployments.

My cargo, as near as I can recollect, for I had
not kept account of the particulars, consisted of a
sufficient quantity of linen, and some English thin
stuffs, for clothing the Spaniards that I expected
to find there; and enough of them, as, by my cal-
culation, might comfortably supply them for seven

ROBINSON CRUSOE 15

years : if I remember right, the materials I carried
for clothing them, with gloves, hats, shoes, stock-
ings, and all such things as they could want for
wearing, amounted to above two hundred pounds,
including some beds, bedding, and household stuff,
particularly kitchen utensils, with pots, kettles, pew-
ter, brass, etc., and near a hundred pounds more in
iron-work, nails, tools of every kind, staples, hooks,
hinges, and every necessary thing I could think of.

I carried also a hundred spare arms, muskets,
and fusees; besides some pistols, a considerable
quantity of shot of all sizes, three or four tons of
lead, and two pieces of brass cannon ; and because
I knew not what time and what extremities I was
providing for, I carried a hundred barrels of pow-
der, besides swords, cutlasses, and the iron part of
some pikes and halberds : so that, in short, we had
a large magazine of all sorts of stores: and I made
my nephew carry two small quarter-deck guns more
than he wanted for his ship, to leave behind if there
was occasion ; that, when we came there, we might
build a fort and man it against all sorts of enemies;
and, indeed, I at first thought there would be need
enough for all, and much more, if we hoped to
maintain our possession of the island ; as shall be
seen in the course of that story.

I had not such bad luck in this voyage as 1 had
been used to meet with; and therefore shall have
the less occasion to interrupt the reader, who per-
haps may be impatient to hear how matters went
with my colony : yet some odd accidents, cross-

i6 ROBINSON CRUSOE

winds, and bad weather, happened on this first
setting-out, which made the voyage longer than I
expected it at first : and I, who had never made but
one voyage, viz., my first voyage to Guinea, in
which I might be said to come back again as the
voyage was at first designed, began to think the
same ill fate attended me; and that I was born to
be never contented with being on shore, and yet
to be always unfortunate at sea.

Contrary winds first put us to the northward,
and we were obliged to put in at Galway in Ireland,
where we lay wind-bound two-and-twenty days;
but we had this satisfaction with the disaster, that
provisions were here exceeding cheap, and in the
utmost plenty ; so that while we lay here, we never
touched the ship's stores, but rather added to them.
Here, also, I took in several live hogs, and two
cows, with their calves ; which I resolved, if I had
a good passage, to put on shore in my island ; but
we found occasion to dispose otherwise of them.

CHAPTER II

WE set out on the 5th of February from Ire-
land, and had a very fair gale of wind for
some days. As I remember it might be about the
aoth of February, in the evening late, when the
mate, having the watch, came into the round-house,
and told us he saw a flash of fire, and heard a gun
fired ; and while he was telling us of it, a boy came
in, and told us the boatswain heard another. This
made us all run out upon the quarter-deck, where,
for a while, we heard nothing; but in a few min-
utes we saw a very great light, and found that there
was some very terrible fire at a distance: immedi-
ately we had recourse to our reckonings, in which
we all agreed that there could be no land that way
in which the fire showed itself, no, not for five hun-
dred leagues, for it appeared at WN W. Upon this
we concluded it must be some ship on fire at sea;
and as, by our hearing the noise of guns just be-
fore, we concluded that it could not be far off, we
stood directly towards it, and were presently satis-
fied we should discover it, because, the farther we

i8 THE ADVENTURES OF

sailed, the greater the light appeared; though, the
weather being hazy, we could not perceive any-
thing but the light for a while. In about half an
hour's sailing, the wind being fair for us, though
not much of it, and the weather clearing-up a little,
we could plainly discern that it was a great ship on
fire in the middle of the sea.

I was most sensibly touched with this disaster,
though not at all acquainted with the persons en-
gaged in it : I presently recollected my former cir-
cumstances, and in what condition I was in, when
taken up by the Portuguese captain ; and how much
more deplorable the circumstances of the poor
creatures belonging to that ship must be, if they had
no other ship in company with them. Upon this,
I immediately ordered that five guns should be
fired, one soon after another; that, if possible, we
might give notice to them that there was help for
them at hand, and that they might endeavour to
save themselves in their boat : for though we could
see the flames of the ship, yet they, it being night,
could see nothing of us.

We lay by some time upon this, only driving
as the burning ship drove, waiting for daylight;
when, on a sudden, to our great terror, though we
had reason to expect it, the ship blew up in the
air; and immediately, that is to say, in a few min-
utes, all the fire was out, that is to say, the rest of
the ship sunk. This was a terrible and indeed an
afflicting sight for the sake of the poor men ; who,
I concluded, must be either all destroyed in the

ROBINSON CRUSOE 19

ship, or be in the utmost distress in their boat, in
the middle of the ocean; which, at present, by
reason it was dark, I could not see. However, to
direct them as well as I could, I caused lights
to be hung out in all the parts of the ship where
we could, and which we had lanterns for, and kept
firing guns all the night long; letting them know,
by this, that there was a ship not far off.

About eight o'clock in the morning we discov-
ered the ship's boats by the help of our perspect-
ive glasses; found there were two of them, both
thronged with people, and deep in the water. We
perceived they rowed, the wind being against them;
that they saw our ship, and did their utmost to
make us see them.

We immediately spread our ancient^ to let them
know we saw them, and hung a waft out, as a signal
for them to come on board ; and then made more
sail, standing directly to them. In little more than
half an hour we came up with them ; and, in a
word, took them all in, being no less than sixty-
four men, women, and children; for there were a
great many passengers.

Upon the whole, we found it was a French
merchant-ship of three hundred tons, home-bound
from Quebec, in the river of Canada. The master
gave us a long account of the distress of his ship;
how the fire began in the steerage, by the neglig-
ence of the steersman; but, on his crying out for
help, was, as everybody thought, entirely put out;
but they soon found that some sparks of the first

20 THE ADVENTURES OF

fire had gotten into some part of the ship so dif-
ficult to come at that they could not effectually
quench it; and afterwards getting in between the
timbers, and within the ceiling of the ship, it pro-
ceeded into the hold, and mastered all the skill and
all the application they were able to exert.

They had no more to do then but to get into
their boats, which, to their great comfort, were
pretty large; being their long-boat, and a great
shallop, besides a small skiff, which was of no great
service to them, other than to get some fresh water
and provisions into her, after they had secured
their lives from the fire. They had, indeed, small
hope of their lives by getting into these boats, at
that distance from any land; only, as they said well,
that they were escaped from the fire, and a pos-
sibility that some ship might happen to be at sea,
and might take them in. They had sails, oars, and
a compass ; and were preparing to make the best
of their way back to Newfoundland, the wind blow-
ing pretty fair, for it blew an easy gale at SE. by
E. They had as much provision and water as, with
sparing it so as to be next door to starving, might
support them about twelve days ; in which, if they
had no bad weather, and no contrary winds, the
captain said he hoped he might get to the Banks
of Newfoundland, and might perhaps take some
fish, to sustain them till they might go on shore.
But there were so many chances against them in
all these cases, such as storms, to overset and
founder them ; rains and cold, to benumb and per-

ROBINSON CRUSOE 21

ish their limbs ; contrary winds, to keep them out
and starve them, that it must have been next to
miraculous if they had escaped.

In the midst of their consternation, every one
being hopeless and ready to despair, the captain,
with tears in his eyes, told me they were on a sud-
den surprised with the joy of hearing a gun fire,
and after that four more ; these were the five guns
which I had caused to be fired at first seeing the
light. This revived their hearts, and gave them
the notice, which, as above, I desired it should,
viz., that there was a ship at hand for their help.
It was upon the hearing of these guns that they
took down their masts and sails: the sound com-
ing from the windward, they resolved to lie by till
morning. Some time after this, hearing no more
guns, they fired three muskets, one a considerable
while after another; but these, the wind being con-
trary, we never heard.

Some time after that again, they were still more
agreeably surprised with seeing our lights, and hear-
ing the guns which, as I have said, I caused to be
fired all the rest of the night : this set them to
work with their oars, to keep their boats ahead, at
least, that we might the sooner come up with them ;
and, at last, to their inexpressible joy, they found
we saw them.

It is impossible for me to express the several
gestures, the strange ecstasies, the variety of post-
ures, which these poor delivered people ran into,
to express the joy of their souls at so unexpected

22 THE ADVENTURES OF

a deliverance. Grief and fear are easily described ;
sighs, tears, groans, and a very few motions of the
head and hands, make up the sum of its variety ;
but an excess of joy, a surprise of joy, has a thou-
sand extravagances in it : there were some in tears ;
some raging and tearing themselves, as if they had
been in the greatest agonies of sorrow ; some stark
raving and downright lunatic; some ran about the
ship stamping with their feet, others wringing their
hands; some were dancing, some singing, some
laughing, more crying; many quite dumb, not able
to speak a word ; others sick and vomiting: several
swooning, and ready to faint ; and a few were cross-
ing themselves and giving God thanks.

I would not wrong them neither ; there might
be many that were thankful afterwards, but the pas-
sion was too strong for them at first, and they were
not able to master it : they were thrown into ecsta-
sies, and a kind of frenzy ; and it was but a very
few that were composed and serious in their joy.

Perhaps, also, the case may have some addition
to it from the particular circumstance of that na-
tion they belonged to ; I mean the French, whose
temper is allowed to be more volatile, more pas-
sionate, and more sprightly, and their spirits more
fluid, than in other nations. I am not philosopher
enough to determine the cause; but nothing I had
ever seen before came up to it. The ecstasies poor
Friday, my trusty savage, was in, when he found
his father in the boat, came the nearest to it; and
the surprise of the master and his two companions,

ROBINSON CRUSOE 23

whom I delivered from the villains that set them
on shore in the island, came a little way towards
it; but nothing was to compare to this, either that
I saw in Friday, or anywhere else in my life.

It is further observable that these extravagances
did not show themselves, in that different manner
I have mentioned, in different persons only ; but
all the variety would appear, in a short succession
of moments, in one and the same person. A man
that we saw this minute dumb, and as it were
stupid and confounded, would the next minute be
dancing and hallooing like an antic ; and the next
moment be tearing his hair, or pulling his clothes
to pieces, and stamping them under his feet, like
a madman ; in a few moments after that, we would
have him all in tears, then sick, swooning, and, had
not immediate help been had, he would in a few
moments have been dead; and thus it was, not with
one or two, or ten or twenty, but with the great-
est part of them: and if I remember right, our
surgeon was obliged to let blood of about thirty
of them.

There were two priests among them, one an old
man, and the other a young man; and that which
was strangest was, the oldest man was the worst. As
soon as he set his foot onboard our ship, and saw
himself safe, he dropped down stone-dead, to all
appearance; not the least sign of life could be per-
ceived in him : our surgeon immediately applied
proper remedies to recover him, and was the only
man in the ship that believed he was not dead.

24 THE ADVENTURES OF

At length he opened a vein in his arm, having first
chafed and rubbed the part, so as to warm it as
much as possible : upon this blood, which only-
dropped at first, flowing freely, in three minutes
after the man opened his eyes ; and a quarter of
an hour after that he spoke, grew better, and in a
little time quite well. After the blood was stopped,
he walked about ; told us he was perfectly well ;
took a dram of cordial which the surgeon gave him,
and was what we called come to himself. About
a quarter of an hour after this, they came running
into the cabin to the surgeon, who was bleeding a
Frenchwoman that had fainted, and told him the
priest was gone stark mad. It seems he had begun
to revolve the change of his circumstances in his
mind, and again this put him into an ecstasy of
joy; his spirits whirled about faster than the ves-
sels could convey them, the blood grew hot and
feverish, and the man was as fit for Bedlam as any
creature that ever was in it : the surgeon would not
bleed him again in that condition, but gave him
something to doze and put him to sleep, which,
after some time, operated upon him, and he awoke
next morning perfectly composed and well.

The younger priest behaved with great command
of his passions, and was really an example of a seri-
ous, well-governed mind: at his first coming on
board the ship, he threw himself flat on his face,
prostrating himself in thankfulness for his deliver-
ance, in which I unhappily and unseasonably dis-
turbed him, really thinking he had been in a swoon;

ROBINSON CRUSOE 25

but he spoke calmly, thanked me, told me he was
giving God thanks for his deliverance ; begged me
to leave him a few moments, and that, next to his
Maker, he would give me thanks also.

I was heartily sorry that I disturbed him, and
not only left him, but kept others from interrupt-
ing him also. He continued in that posture about
three minutes, or little more, after I left him ; then
came to me, as he had said he would, and, with a
great deal of seriousness and affection, but with
tears in his eyes, thanked me, that had, under God,
given him, and so many miserable creatures, their
lives. I told him I had no room to move him to
thank God for it, rather than me, for I had seen
that he had done that already ; but, I added, that
it was nothing but what reason and humanity dic-
tated to all men; and that we had as much reason
as he to give thanks to God, who had blessed us
so far as to make us the instruments of his mercy
to so many of his creatures.

After this, the young priest applied himself to
his countryfolks ; laboured to compose them ; per-
suaded, entreated, argued, reasoned with them, and
did his utmost to keep them within the exercise of
their reason ; and with some he had success, though
others were for a time out of all government of
themselves.

I cannot help committing this to writing, as per-
haps It may be useful to those into whose hands
it may fall, for the guiding themselves In all the
extravagances of their passions ; for if an excess of

a6 THE ADVENTURES OF

joy can carry men out to such a length beyond the
reach of their reason, what will not the extravagances
of anger, rage, and a provoked mind, carry us to ?
And indeed, here I saw reason for keeping an ex-
ceeding watch over our passions of every kind, as
well those of joy and satisfaction as those of sor-
row and anger.

We were something disordered, by these extra-
vagances among our new guests, for the first day ;
but when they had been retired, lodgings provided
for them as well as our ship would allow, and they
had slept heartily, — as most of them did, being
fatigued and frightened, — they were quite another
sort of people the next day.

Nothingof good manners, or civil acknowledg-
ments for the kindness shown them, was wanting;
the French, it is known, are naturally apt enough
to exceed that way. The captain and one of the
priests came to me the next day, and desired to
speak to me and my nephew: the commander
began to consult with us what should be done with
them ; and first, they told us that we had saved
their lives, so all they had was little enough for a
return to us for that kindness received. The cap-
tain said they had saved some money, and some
things of value, in their boats, catched hastily out
of the flames, and if we would accept it, they were
ordered to make an offer of it all to us : they only
desired to be set on shore somewhere in our way,
where, if possible, they might get a passage to
France. My nephew was for accepting their money

ROBINSON CRUSOE 27

at first word, and to consider what to do with them
afterwards ; but I overruled him in that part, for
I knew what it was to be set on shore in a strange
country: and if the Portuguese captain that took
me up at sea had served me so, and took all I had
for my deliverance, I must have starved, or have
been as much a slave at the Brazils as I had been
at Barbary, the mere being sold to a Mahometan
excepted ; and perhaps a Portuguese is not a much
better master than a Turk, if not, in some cases,
much worse.

I therefore told the French captain that we had
taken them up in their distress, it was true, but that
it was our duty to do so, as we were fellow crea-
tures ; and we would desire to be so delivered, if
we were in the like, or any other extremity ; that
we had done nothing for them but what we be-
lieved they would have done for us, if we had been
in their case, and they in ours ; but that we took
them up to save them, not to plunder them ; and
it would be a most barbarous thing to take that
little from them which they had saved out of the
fire, and then set them on shore and leave them ;
that this would be first to save them from death,
and then kill them ourselves ; save them from
drowning,and abandon them to starving; and there-
fore I would not let the least thing be taken from
them. As to setting them on shore, I told them,
indeed, that was an exceeding difficulty to us, for
that the ship was bound to the East Indies ; and
though we were driven out of our course to the

28 THE ADVENTURES OF

westward a very great way, and perhaps were di-
rected by Heaven on purpose for their deHver-
ance, yet it was impossible for us wilfully to change
our voyage on their particular account ; nor could
my nephew, the captain, answer it to the freighters,
with whom he was under charter-party to pursue
his voyage by the way of Brazil : and all I knew we
could do for them was to put ourselves in the way
of meeting with other ships homeward bound from
the West Indies, and get them a passage, if pos-
sible, to England or France.

Thefirstpartof the proposal was so generous and
kind, they could not but be very thankful for it ; but
they were in a very great consternation, especially
the passengers, at the notion of being carried away
to the East Indies: they then entreated me that,
seeing I was driven so far to the westward before
I met with them, I would at least keep on the same
course to the Banks of Newfoundland, where it was
probable I might meet with some ship or sloop that
they might hire to carry them back to Canada,
from whence they came.

I thought this was but a reasonable request on
their part, and therefore I inclined to agree to it ;
for, indeed, I considered that to carry this whole
company to the East Indies would not only be an
intolerable severity upon the poor people, but would
be ruining our whole voyage, by devouring all our
provisions ; so I thought it no breach of charter-
party but what an unforeseen accident made ab-
solutely necessary to us, and in which no one could

ROBINSON CRUSOE 29

say we were to blame ; for the laws of God and
nature would have forbid that we should refuse to
take up two boats' full of people in such a distressed
condition ; and the nature of the thing, as well re-
specting ourselves as the poor people, obliged us
to set them on shore somewhere or other for their
deliverance: so I consented that we would carry
them to Newfoundland, if wind and weather would
permit ; and if not, that I would carry them to
Martinico, in the West Indies.

CHAPTER III

THE wind continued fresh easterly, but the
weather pretty good; and as the winds had
continued in the points between NE. and SE. a
long time, we missed several opportunities of send-
ing them to France; for we met several ships
bound to Europe, whereof two were French, from
St. Christopher's; but they had been so long beat-
ing up against the wind that they durst take in no
passengers, for fear of wanting provisions for the
voyage, as well for themselves as for those they
should take in ; so we were obliged to go on. It was
about a week after this that we made the Banks of
Newfoundland; where, to shorten my story, we put
all our French people on board a bark, which they
hired at sea there, to put them on shore, and after-
wards to carry them to France, if they could get
provisions to victual themselves with. When I say
all the French went on shore, I should remember
that the young priest I spoke of, hearing we were
bound to the East Indies, desired to go the voyage
with us, and to be set on shore on the coast of Coro-

ROBINSON CRUSOE 31

mandel; which I readily agreed to, for I wonder-
fully liked the man, and had very good reason, as
will appear afterwards: also four of the seamen
entered themselves on our ship, and proved very
useful fellows.

From hence we directed our course to the West
Indies, steering away S. and S. by E. for about
twenty days together, sometimes little or no wind
at all, when we met with another subject for our
humanity to work upon, almost as deplorable as
that before.

It was in the latitude of twenty-seven degrees
five minutes north, on the 19th day of March,
1694-5, when we spied a sail, our course SE. and
by S. : we soon perceived it was a large vessel, and
that she bore up to us, but could not at first know
what to make of her, till, after coming a little nearer,
we found she had lost her main topmast, foremast,
and bowsprit; and presently she fired a gun, as a
signal of distress : the weather was pretty good,
wind at NNW., a fresh gale, and we soon came to
speak with her.

We found her a ship of Bristol, bound home
from Barbadoes, but had been blown out of the road
at Barbadoes a few days before she was ready to sail,
by a terrible hurricane, while the captain and chief
mate were both gone on shore; so that, besides the
terror of the storm, they were in an indifferent case
for good artists to bring the ship home. They had
been already nine weeks at sea, and had met with
another terrible storm, after the hurricane was over.

32 THE ADVENTURES OF

which had blown them quite out of their knowledge
to the westward, and in which they lost their masts,
as above. They told us they expected to have seen
the Bahama Islands, but were then driven away
again to the southeast, by a strong gale of wind at
NNW., the same that blew now: and having no
sails to work the ship with but a maincourse, and
a kind of square sail upon a jury foremast which
they had set up, they could not lie near the wind,
but were endeavouring to stand away for the Canar-
ies. But that which was worst of all was that they
were almost starved for want of provisions, besides
the fatigues they had undergone: their bread and
flesh were quite gone; they had not one ounce left
in the ship, and had had none for eleven days.
The only relief they had was, their water was not
all spent, and they had about half a barrel of flour
left; they had sugar enough; some succades, or
sweatmeats, they had at first, but they were de-
voured ; and they had seven casks of rum.

There were a youth and his mother, and a maid-
servant, on board, who were going passengers, and,
thinking the ship was ready to sail, unhappily came
on board the evening before the hurricane began ;
and having no provisions of their own left, they
were in a more deplorable condition than the rest :
for the seamen, being reduced to such an extreme
necessity themselves, had no compassion, we may
be sure, for the poor passengers ; and they were,
indeed, in a condition that their misery is very hard
to describe.

ROBINSON CRUSOE 33

I had perhaps not known this part if my curi-
osity had not led me (the weather being fair, and
the wind abated) to go on board the ship. The
second mate, who, upon this occasion, commanded
the ship, had been on board our ship, and he told
me, indeed, they had three passengers in the great
cabin that were in a deplorable condition. "Nay,*'
says he, " I believe they are dead, for I have heard
nothing of them for above two days ; and I was
afraid to inquire after them," said he, " for I had
nothing to relieve them with."

We immediately applied ourselves to give them
what relief we could spare; and, indeed, I had so
far overruled things with my nephew that I would
have victualled them, though we had gone away
to Virginia, or any other part of the coast of Amer-
ica, to have supplied ourselves; but there was no
necessity for that.

But now they were in a new danger ; for they
were afraid of eating too much, even of that little
we gave them. The mate or commander brought
six men with him in his boat, but these poor
wretches looked like skeletons, and were so weak
that they could hardly sit to their oars. The mate
himself was very ill, and half-starved : for he de-
clared he had reserved nothing from the men, and
went share and share alike with them in every bit
they ate.

I cautioned him to eat sparingly, but set meat
before him immediately; and he had not eaten three
mouthfuls before he began to be sick, and out of

j4 THE ADVENTURES OF

order ; so he stopped a while, and our surgeon
mixed him up something with some broth, which
he said would be to him both food and physic;
and after he had taken it, he grew better. In the
mean time, I forgot not the men ; I ordered vict-
uals to be given them, and the poor creatures
rather devoured than ate it; they were so exceed-
ing hungry that they were in a kind ravenous, and
had no command of themselves ; and two of them
ate with so much greediness that they were in
danger of their lives the next morning.

The sight of these people's distress was very
moving to me, and brought to mind what I had
a terrible prospect of at my first coming on shore
in my island, where I had never the least mouthful
of food or any prospect of procuring any, besides
the hourly apprehensions I had of being made the
food of other creatures. But all the while the mate
was thus relating to me the miserable condition of
the ship's company, I could not put out of my
thought the story he had told me of the three poor
creatures in the great cabin, viz., the mother, her
son, and the maid-servant, whom he had heard
nothing of for two or three days, and whom, he
seemed to confess, they had wholly neglected, their
own extremities being so great: by which I under-
stood that they had really given them no food at
all, and that therefore they must be perished, and
be all lying dead, perhaps, on the floor or deck
of the cabin.

As I therefore kept the mate, whom we then

ROBINSON CRUSOE 35

called captain, on board with his men, to refresh
them, so I also forgot not the starving crew that
were left on board; but ordered my own boat to
go on board the ship, and, with my mate and twelve
men, to carry them a sack of bread, and four or
five pieces of beef to boil. Our surgeon charged
the men to cause the meat to be boiled while they
stayed, and to keep guard in the cook-room to
prevent the men taking it to eat raw, or taking it
out of the pot before it was well boiled, and then
to give every man but a very little at a time: and
by this caution he preserved the men, who would
otherwise have killed themselves with that very
food that was given them on purpose to save their
lives.

At the same time, I ordered the mate to go into
the great cabin, and see what condition the poor
passengers were in; and if they were alive, to com-
fort them, and give them what refreshment was
proper: and the surgeon gave him a large pitcher,
with some of the prepared broth which he had
given the mate that was on board, and which he did
not question would restore them gradually.

I was not satisfied with this ; but, as I said above,
having a great mind to see the scene of misery
which I knew the ship itself would present me
with, in a more lively manner than I could have it
by report, I took the captain of the ship, as we
now called him, with me, and went myself, a little
after, in their boat.

I found the poor men on board almost in a

2,6 THE ADVENTURES OF

tumult, to get the victuals out of the boiler before
it was ready ; but my mate observed his orders,
and kept a good guard at the cook-room door; and
the man he placed there, after using all possible
persuasion to have patience, kept them ofFby force :
however, he caused some biscuit-cakes to be dipped
in the pot, and softened with the liquor of the
meat, which they called brewis, and gave them every
one some, to stay their stomachs, and told them
it was for their own safety that he was obliged to
give them but little at a time. But it was all in
vain ; and had I not come on board, and their own
commander and officers with me, and with good
words, and some threats also of giving them no
more, I believe they would have broken into the
cook-room by force, and torn the meat out of the
furnace ; for words are indeed of very small force
to a hungry belly : however, we pacified them, and
fed them gradually and cautiously for the first, and
the next time gave them more, and at last filled
their bellies, and the men did well enough.

But the misery of the poor passengers in the
cabin was of another nature, and far beyond the
rest; for as the ship's company had so little for
themselves, it was but too true that they had at first
kept them very low, and at last totally neglected
them ; so that for six or seven days it might be
said they had really no food at all, and for several
days before very little. The poor mother, who,
as the men reported, was a woman of sense and
good breeding, had spared all she could so aifec-

ROBINSON CRUSOE 37

tionately for her son that at last she entirely sunk
under it; and when the mate of our ship went in,
she sat upon the floor or deck, with her back up
against the sides, between two chairs, which were
lashed fast, and her head sunk between her shoul-
ders, like a corpse, though not quite dead. My
mate said all he could to revive and encourage her,
and with a spoon put some broth into her mouth.
She opened her lips, and lifted up one hand, but
could not speak ; yet she understood what he said,
and made signs to him, intimating that it was too
late for her, but pointed to her child, as if she
would have said they should take care of him.
However, the mate, who was exceedingly moved
with the sight, endeavoured to get some of the
broth into her mouth, and, as he said, got two or
three spoonfuls down; though I question whether
he could be sure of it or not: but it was too late,
and she died the same night.

The youth, who was preserved at the price of his
most affectionate mother's life, was not so far gone:
yet he lay in a cabin bed, as one stretched out, with
hardly any life left in him. He had a piece of an
old glove in his mouth, having eaten up the rest
of it : however, being young, and having more
strength than his mother, the mate got something
down his throat, and he began sensibly to revive;
though by giving him, some time after, but two or
three spoonfuls extraordinary, he was very sick,
and brought it up again.

But the next care was the poor maid : she lay all

38 THE ADVENTURES OF

along upon the deck, hard by her mistress, and
just like one that had fallen down with an apoplexy,
and struggled for life. Her limbs were distorted ;
one of her hands was clasped around the frame
of a chair, and she griped it so hard that we could
not easily make her let it go: her other arm lay
over her head, and her feet lay both together, set
fast against the frame of the cabin-table : in short,
she lay just like one in the agonies of death, and
yet she was alive too.

The poor creature was not only starved with
hunger, and terrified with the thoughts of death,
but, as the men told us afterwards, was broken-
hearted for her mistress, whom she saw dying for
two or three days before, and whom she loved most
tenderly.

We knew not what to do with this poor girl ; for
when our surgeon, who was a man of very great
knowledge and experience, had with great applica-
tion recovered her as to life, he had her upon his
hands as to her senses ; for she was little less than
distracted for a considerable time after, as shall
appear presently.

Whoever shall read these memorandums must
be desired to consider that visits at sea are not like
a journey into the country, where sometimes peo-
ple stay a week or a fortnight at a place : our busi-
ness was to relieve this distressed ship's crew, but
not lie by for them ; and though they were willing
to steer the same course with us for some days, yet
we could carry no sail, to keep pace with a ship

ROBINSON CRUSOE 39

that had no masts : however, as their captain begged
of us to help him to set up a main topmast, and a
kind of a topmast to his jury foremast, we did, as
it were, lie by him for three or four days ; and then,
having given him five barrels of beef, a barrel of
pork, two hogsheads of biscuit, and a proportion
of peas, flour, and what other things we could spare,
and taking three casks of sugar, some rum, and
some pieces-of-eight from them for satisfaction, we
left them, taking on board with us, at their own
earnest request, the youth and the maid, and all
their goods.

The young lad was about seventeen years of age,
a pretty, well-bred, modest, and sensible youth,
greatly dejected with the loss of his mother, and,
as it seems, had lost his father but a few months
before, at Barbadoes : he begged of the surgeon to
speak to me to take him out of the ship, for he said
the cruel fellows had murdered his mother : and,
indeed, so they had, that is to say, passively, for
they might have spared a small sustenance to the
poor helpless widow, that might have preserved
her life, though it had been but just enough to keep
her alive : but hunger knows no friends, no rela-
tion, no justice, no right ; and therefore is remorse-
less, and capable of no compassion.

The surgeon told him how far we were going,
and that it would carry him away from all his
friends, and put him in as bad circumstances al-
most as those we found him in, that is to say,
starving in the world. He said it mattered not

40 THE ADVENTURES OF

whither he went, if he was but delivered from the
terrible crew that he was among; that the captain
(by which he meant me, for he could know no-
thing of my nephew) had saved his life, and he was
sure would not hurt him ; and as for the maid, he
was sure, if she came to herself, she would be very
thankful for it, let us carry them where we would.
The surgeon represented the case so affectionately
to me that I yielded, and we took them both on
board, with all their goods, except eleven hogsheads
of sugar, which could not be removed or come at ;
and as the youth had a bill of lading for them, I
made his commander sign a writing, obliging him-
self to go, as soon as he came to Bristol, to one
Mr. Rogers, a merchant there, to whom the youth
said he was related, and to deliver a letter which I
wrote to him, and all the goods he had belonging
to the deceased widow ; which I suppose was not
done, for I could never learn that the ship came to
Bristol, but was, as is most probable, lost at sea ;
being in so disabled a condition, and so far from
any land, that I am of opinion the first storm she
met with afterwards she might founder in the sea;
for she was leaky and had damage in her hold,
when we met with her. .

I was now in the latitude of nineteen degrees
thirty-two minutes, and had hitherto a tolerable
voyage as to weather, though, at first, the winds
had been contrary. I shall trouble nobody with
the little incidents of wind, weather, currents, etc.,
on the rest of our voyage; but to shorten my story.

ROBINSON CRUSOE 41

for the sake of what is to follow, shall observe, that
I came to my old habitation, the island, on the
loth of April, 1695. ^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^ small difficulty
that I found the place ; for as I came to it, and went
from it, before, on the south and east side of the
island, as coming from the Brazils, so now, com-
ing in between the main and the island, and hav-
ing no chart for the coast, nor any landmark, I did
not know it when I saw it, or know whether I saw
it or not.

We beat about a great while, and went on shore
on several islands in the mouth of the great river
Oronoco, but none for my purpose; only this I
learned, by my coasting the shore, that I was under
one great mistake before, viz., that the continent
which I thought I saw from the island I lived in was
really no continent, but a long island, or rather a
ridge of islands, reaching from one to the other side
of the extended mouth of that great river ; and that
the savages who came to my island were not pro-
perly those which we call Caribbees, but islanders,
and other barbarians of the same kind, who inhab-
ited something nearer to our side than the rest.

In short, I visited several of these islands to no
purpose; some I found were inhabited, and some
were not ; on one of them I found some Spaniards,
and thought they had lived there; but speaking
with them, found they had a sloop lay in a small
creek hard by, and came thither to make salt and
to catch some pearl mussels, if they could ; but
that they belonged to the Isle de Trinidad, which

42 ROBINSON CRUSOE

lay farther north, in the latitude of ten and eleven
degrees.

Thus coasting from one island to another, some-
times with the ship, sometimes with the French-
men's shallop, which we had found a convenient
boat, and therefore kept her with very good will,
at length I came fair on the south side of my
island, and presently knew the very countenance
of the place ; so I brought the ship safe to an anchor,
broadside with the little creek where my old hab-
itation was.

CHAPTER IV

As soon as I saw the place, I called for Friday,
and asked him if he knew where he was ; he
looked about a little, and presently clapping his
hands, cried, " O yes, O there, O yes, O there,"
pointing to our old habitation, and fell dancing and
capering like a mad fellow ; and I had much ado
to keep him from jumping into the sea, to swim
ashore to the place.

" Well, Friday," says I, " do you think we shall
find anybody here or no ? and do you think we
shall 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 plen-
tifully. " What is the matter, Friday," says I ; " are
you troubled because you may see your father ? "
'' No, no," says he, shaking his head, " no see him
more : no, never more see him 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," says I, " Friday,

44 THE ADVENTURES OF

you don't know ; but shall we see any one else,
then ? " The fellow, it seems, had better eyes than
I, and he points to the hill just above my old house ;
and though we lay half a league off, he cries out,
" We see, we see, yes, yes, we see much man there,
and there, and there/* I looked, but I saw nobody,
no, not with a perspective glass, which was, I sup-
pose, 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,
who stood to look at the ship, not knowing what
to think of us.

As soon as Friday 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 in about half a quarter of an hour after, we per-
ceived a smoke arise from the side of the creek; so
I immediately ordered the 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
story of my living there, and the manner of it, and
every particular both of myself and those I left
there ; and who was, on that account, extremely
desirous to go with me. We had besides about
sixteen men well armed, if we had found any new
guests 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

ROBINSON CRUSOE 45

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 the Span-
iards, where indeed I saw nothing of him ; and if
they had not let him go ashore, 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 up 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 to-
gether; then lay down on 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 the next day to see how his passion ran 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 he would come
to the boat to fetch something or other for him,
either a lump of sugar, a dram, a biscuit-cake, or
something or other that was good. In the afternoon
his frolics ran another way ; for then he would set

46 THE ADVENTURES OF

the old man down upon the ground and dance
about him, and make 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 other 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 part of the world, one would
be tempted to say there would hardly have been
any need of the fifth commandment.

But this is a digression: I return to my landing.
It would be needless to take notice of all the cere-
monies and civilities that the Spaniards received
me with. The first Spaniard, who, as I said, I
knew very well, was he whose life I had saved : he
came towards the boat, attended by one more,
carrying a flag of truce also: and he not only did not
know me at first, but he had no thoughts, no no-
tion of its being me that was come, till I spoke to
him. "Senhor," 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, 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 if 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

ROBINSON CRUSOE 47

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 they had made
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, and
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 fort-
ifications: he told me I would say there was need
enough of it, when they had given me an account
how they had passed their time since their arriving
in the island, especially after they had the misfor-
tune 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

48 THE ADVENTURES OF

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
on 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 pre-
servation, to disarm them, and make them our sub-
jects, who would not be content with being mod-
erately 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 part-
ing from the island but that they were not come
back, that I might have put them in possession of
everything first, and left the others in a state of sub-
jection, 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, ungoverned villains,
and were fit for any manner of mischief.

While I was thus saying this, the man came
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 sail-
ors and ordinary fellows, and the like, but really
as if they had been ambassadors of noblemen, and

/

ROBINSON CRUSOE 49

I a monarch or 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 very remark-
able, 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 the
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 rela-
tion in the first person, which will put me to the
expense of ten thousand "said Fs,'* and "said
he's," and " he told me's," and " I told him\"
and the like; but I shall collect the facts historic-
ally, as near as I can gather them out of my mem-
ory, 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 circumstances in
which I left the island, and in which the persons
were of whom I am to speak. And first, it is nec-
essary to repeat, that I had sent away Friday's
father and the Spaniard (the two whose lives I had
rescued from the savages), in a large canoe, to the

50 THE ADVENTURES OF

main, as I then thought it, to fetch over the
Spaniard's companions that he 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 afterwards.

When I sent them away I had no visible ap-
pearance 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
afterwards happened. I mean, of an English ship
coming on shore there to fetch me 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, pos-
sessed 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 par-
ticular account of his voyage back to his country-
men 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, having had very calm weather and a
smooth sea. As 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 ship-
wrecked in having been dead some time); they
were, he said, the more surprised to see him, because

ROBINSON CRUSOE 51

they knew that he was fallen into the hands of the
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 his deliver-
ance, and in what manner he was furnished for
carrying them away, it was like a dream to them,
and their astonishment, he said, was somewhat 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 showed them the
arms, the powder, the ball, and 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 pre-
pared 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 tliese they came away the next
morning. It seems they wanted no time to get
themselves ready; for they had no baggage, neither
clothes nor provisions, nor anything 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 of-
fered 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, dis-

52 THE ADVENTURES OF

agreeable 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 ashore, they gave my let-
ter 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 tame goats,
and planted my corn ; how I cured my grapes,
made my pots, and, in a word, everything I did ;
all this being written down, they gave to the Span-
iards (two of them understood English well enough):
nor did they refuse to accommodate the Spaniards
with anything 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 methods, and Friday's father
together, managed all their affairs : but 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 had the others but let them alone ; which, how-
ever, they could not find in their hearts to do long,
but, like the dog in the manger, they would not eat
themselves, neither would they let the others eat.

ROBINSON CRUSOE 53

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 ac-
cusers, 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, 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 of our ship,
which I was once afraid would have turned to a
second mutiny; nor was it appeased till the cap-
tain, 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, frightened some other men in the ship ; and some
of them had put it into the heads of the rest that
the captain only gave them good words for the pre-
sent, till they should come to some English port,
and that then they should be all put into gaol, and

54 THE ADVENTURES OF

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 par-
doned. So 1 went, and after passing my honour's
word to them, they appeared easy, and the more
so when I caused the two men that 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 pin-
nace, 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 or 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, burned
all their household-stuff and furniture, and left
them to shift without it ; but having no orders, he
let it all alone, left everything as he found it, and,
bringing the pinnace away, came on board without
them. These two men made their number five ; but

ROBINSON CRUSOE 55

the other three villains were so much more wicked
than they that, after they had been two or three
days together, they turned the 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 comfortably, they
pitched their tents on the north shore of the island,
but a little more to the west, to be out of danger of
the savages, who always landed on the east parts
of the island.

Here they built them 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, 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 and other eatables ; and one of
the fellows, being the cook's mate of the ship, was

56 ROBINSON CRUSOE

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.

CHAPTER V

THEY were going on in this little thriving post-
ure, when the three unnatural rogues, their
own countrymen too, in mere humour, and to in-
sult them, came and bullied them, and told them
the island was theirs ; that the governor, meaning
me, had given them the possession of it, and no-
body else had any right to it ; and that they should
build no houses upon their ground unless they
would pay rent for them.

The two men, thinking they were jesting at first,
asked them to come in and sit down, and see what
fine houses they were that they had built, and to
tell them what rent they demanded ; and one of
them merrily said, if they were the ground-land-
lords, he hoped, if they built tenements upon their
land, and made improvements, they would, accord-
ing to the custom of landlords, grant along lease;
and desired they would get a scrivener to draw
the writings. One of the three, cursing and raging,
told them they should see they were not in jest;
and going to a little place at a distance, where the

58 THE ADVENTURES OF

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 burned all down in a few min-
utes, 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 returned 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 that had
begun 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 oflTered to move hand or foot they were dead
men, and boldly commanded them to lay down
their arms. They did not, indeed, lay down their
arms, but seeing him so 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 bounded sufficiently with

ROBINSON CRUSOE 59

the blow. However, they were much in the wrong,
since they had the advantage, that they did not dis-
arm them effectually, as they might have done, and
have gone immediately to the Spaniards, and given
them an account how the rogues had 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 the 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 oppor-
tunity. In order to this, they resolved to go to
the castle, as they called it (that was, my old dwell-
ing), 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 English-
men by their names, telling a Spaniard that an-
swered that they wanted to speak with them.

It happened that the day before two of the Span-
iards, having been in the woods, had seen one of
the two Englishmen,whom, for distinction, I called
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

6o THE ADVENTURES OF

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 sus-
tenance ; 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, one of them
took the freedom to reprove the three Englishmen,
though in very gentle and mannerly terms, and
asked them how they could be so cruel, they being
harmless, inoffensive fellows ; that they were put-
ting 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 were then
in. 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, " Senhor Inglese, they must not starve."
The Englishman replied, like a rough-hewn tar-
pauling, " They might starve and be d — d ; they
should not plant nor build in that place." " But
what must they do then, senhor ? " said the Span-
iard. 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?" says the
Spaniard; " they are not bought with your money:
you have no right to make them servants." The
Englishman answered, the island was theirs ; the

ROBINSON CRUSOE 6i

governor had given it to them, and no man had
anything to do there but themselves ; and with
that, swore by his Maker that they would go and
burn all their new huts ; they should build none
upon their land. " Why, senhor," says the Span-
iard, " by the same rule, we must be your servants
too." "Aye," says the bold dog, "and so you
shall too, before we have done with you " (mixing
two or three " G — d d — n me's " in the proper in-
tervals 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*s go, and have t'
other brush with *em ; we '11 demolish their castle,
I *11 warrant you ; they shall plant no colony in
our dominions."

Upon this they went all trooping away, with
every man a gun, a pistol, and a sword, and mut-
tered some insolent things among themselves, of
what they would do to the Spaniards too, when
opportunity offered ; but the Spaniards, it seems,
did not so perfectly understand them as to know
all the particulars, only that, in general, they threat-
ened them hard for taking the two Englishmen's
part.

Whither they went, or how they bestowed their
time that evening, the Spaniards said they did not
know; but it seems they wandered about the coun-
try part of the night, and then, lying down in the
place which I used to call my bower, they were weary.

62 THE ADVENTURES OF

and overslept themselves. The case was this: they
had resolved to stay till midnight, and so take the
two poor men when they were asleep, and, as they
acknowledged afterwards, intended to set fire to
their huts while they were in them, and either burn
them there, or murder them as they came out ; as
malice seldom sleeps very sound, it was very strange
they should not have been kept awake.

However, as the two men had also a design upon
them, as I have said, though a much fairer one than
that of burning and murdering, it happened, and
very luckily for them all, that they were up, and
gone abroad,before the bloody-minded rogues came
to their huts.

When they came there, and found the men gone,
Atkins, who, it seems, was the forwardest man,
called out to his comrade, " Ha, Jack, here 's the
nest, but, d — n them, the birds are flown." They
mused a while, to think what should be the occa-
sion of their being gone abroad so soon, and sug-
gested presently that the Spaniards had given them
notice of it ; and with that they shook hands, and
swore to one another that they would be revenged
of the Spaniards. As soon as they had made this
bloody bargain they fell to work with the poor
men's habitation : they did not set fire, indeed, to
anything, but they pulled down both their houses,
and pulled them so limb from limb that they left
not the least stick standing or scarce any sign on
the ground where they stood ; they tore all their
little collected household-stuff in pieces, and threw

ROBINSON CRUSOE 63

everything about in such a manner that the poor
men afterwards found some of their things a mile
off their habitation. When they had done this,
they pulled up all the young trees which the poor
men had planted ; pulled up an enclosure they had
made to secure their cattle and their corn ; and, in
a word, sacked and plundered everything as com-
pletely as a horde of Tartars would have done.

The two men were, at this juncture, gone to find
them out, and had resolved to fight them wherever
they had been, though they were but two to three;
so that, had they met, there certainly would have
been bloodshed among them ; for they were all very
stout, resolute fellows, to give them their due.

But Providence took more care to keep them
asunder than they themselves could do to meet ;
for, as if they had dogged one another, when the
three were gone thither, the two were here ; and
afterwards, when the two went back to find them,
the three were come to the old habitation again :
we shall see their different conduct presently.
When the three came back like furious creatures,
flushed with the rage which the work they had been
about had put them into, they came up to the
Spaniards, and told them what they had done, by
way of scoff and bravado ; and one of them, step-
ping up to one of the Spaniards, as if they had been
a couple of boys at play, takes hold of his hat as it
was upon his head, and giving it a twirl about, fleer-
ing in his face, says to him, " And you, Senhor
Jack Spaniard, shall have the same sauce, if you

64 THE ADVENTURES OF

do not mend your manners.'* The Spaniard, who,
though a quiet civil man, was as brave a man as
could be, and withal a strong, well-made man,
looked at him for a good while, and then, having
no weapon in his hand, stepped gravely up to him,
and with one blow of his fist knocked him down,
as an ox is felled with a pole-axe ; at which one of
the rogues, as insolent as the first, fired his pistol
at the Spaniard immediately : he missed his body,
indeed, for the bullets went through his hair, but
one of them touched the tip of his ear, and he bled
pretty much. The blood made the Spaniard be-
lieve he was more hurt than he really was, and that
put him into some heat, for before he acted all in
a perfect calm ; but now, resolving to go through
with his work, he stooped, and took the fellow's
musket whom he had knocked down, and was just
going to shoot the man who had fired at him, when
the rest of the Spaniards, being in the cave, came
out, and, calling to him not to shoot, they stepped
in, secured the other two, and took their arms
from them.

When they were thus disarmed, and found they
had made all the Spaniards their enemies, as well
as their own countrymen, they began to cool, and,
giving the Spaniards better words, would have 'their
arms again; but the Spaniards, considering the feud
that was between them and the other two English-
men, and that it would be the best method they
could take to keep them from killing one another,
told them they would do them no harm, and if they

ROBINSON CRUSOE 65

would live peaceably, they would be very willing
to assist and associate with them as they did before :
but that they could not think of giving them their
arms again while they appeared so resolved to do
mischief with them to their own countrymen, and
had even threatened them all to make them their
servants.

The rogues were now no more capable to hear
reason than to act with reason ; but being refused
their arms, they went raving away, and raging like
madmen, threatening what they would do, though
they had no fire-arms. But the Spaniards, despis-
ing their threatening, told them they would take
care how they offered any injury to their plantation
or cattle, for if they did, they should shoot them as
they would ravenous beasts, wherever they found
them ; and if they fell into their hands alive, they
should certainly be hanged. However, this was far
from cooling them, but away they went, raging and
swearing like furies of hell. As soon as they were
gone, the two men came back, in passion and rage
enough also, though of another kind ; for having
been at their plantation, and finding it all demol-
ished and destroyed, as above, it will easily be
supposed they had provocation enough. They could
scarce have room to tell their tale, the Spaniards
were so eager to tell them theirs; and it was strange
enough to find that three men should thus bully
nineteen, and receive no punishment at all.

The Spaniards, indeed, despised them, and
especially, having thus disarmed them, made light

66 THE ADVENTURES OF

of their threatenings: but the two Englishmen
resolved to have their remedy against them, what
pains soever it cost to find them out. But the Span-
iards interposed here too, and told them that, as
they had disarmed them, they could not consent that
they (the two) should pursue them with fire-arms,
and perhaps kill them. " But," said the grave Span-
iard, who was their governor, "we will endeavour
to make them do you justice, if you will leave it
to us ; for there is no doubt but they will come to
us again, when their passion is over, being not able
to subsist without our assistance : we promise you
to make no peace with them without having a full
satisfaction for you ; and upon this condition we
hope you will promise to use no violence with them
other than in your own defence." The two Eng-
lishmen yielded to this very awkwardly, and with
great reluctance ; but the Spaniards protested that
they did it only to keep them from bloodshed, and
to make all easy at last. " For," said they, " we are
not so many of us ; here is room enough for us
all, and it is a great pity we should not be all good
friends." At length they did consent, and waited
for the issue of the thing, living for some days
with the Spaniards, for their own habitation was
destroyed.

In about five days' time the three vagrants, tired
with wandering, and almost starved with hunger,
having chiefly lived on turtles' eggs all that while,
came back to the grove ; and finding my Spaniard,
who, as I have said, was the governor, and two

ROBINSON CRUSOE 67

more with him walking by the side of the creek,
they came up in a very submissive, humble man-
ner, and begged to be received again into the family.
The Spaniards used them civilly, but told them
they had acted so unnaturally by their countrymen,
and so very grossly by them (the Spaniards), that
they could not come to any conclusion without
consulting the two Englishmen and the rest ; but,
however, they would go to them, and discourse
about it, and they should know in half an hour.
It may be guessed that they were very hard put
to it : for, it seems, as they were to wait this half-
hour for an answer, they begged they would send
them out some bread in the mean time, which they
did ; sending at the same time a large piece of
goat's flesh, and a boiled parrot, which they ate
very heartily, for they were hungry enough.

After half an hour's consultation, they were
called in, and a long debate ensued ; their two coun-
trymen charging them with the ruin of all their
labour, and a design to murder them ; all which
they owned before, and therefore could not deny
now. Upon the whole, the Spaniards actedthe mod-
erator between them ; and as they had obliged the
two Englishmen not to hurt the three while they
were naked and unarmed, so they now obliged the
three to go and rebuild their fellows* two huts, one
to be of the same, and the other of larger dimen-
sions than they were before; to fence their ground
again where they had pulled up their fences, plant
trees in the room of those pulled up, dig up the

68 THE ADVENTURES OF

land again for planting corn where they had spoiled
it, and, in a word, to restore everything in the same
state as they found it, as near as they could ; for
entirely it could not be, the season for the corn,
and the growth of the trees and hedges, not being
possible to be recovered.

Well, they submitted to all this ; and as they had
plenty of provisions given them all the while, they
grew very orderly, and the whole society began to
live pleasantly and agreeably together again ; only,
that these three fellows could never be persuaded
to work, I mean for themselves, except now and
then a little, just as they pleased : however, the
Spaniards told them plainly that if they would but
live sociably and friendly together, and study the
good of the whole plantation, they would be con-
tent to work for them, and let them walk about and
be as idle as they pleased: and thus, having lived
pretty well together for a month or two, the Span-
iards gave them arms again, and gave them liberty
to go abroad with them as before.

It was not above a week after they had these
arms, and went abroad, but the ungrateful creatures
began to be as insolent and troublesome as before:
but, however, an accident happened presently upon
this which endangered the safety of them all ; and
they were obliged to lay by all private resentments,
and look to the preservation of their lives.

It happened one night that the Spanish gov-
ernor, as I call him, that is to say, the Spaniard
whose life I had saved, who was now the captain, or

ROBINSON CRUSOE 69

leader, or governor of the rest, found himself very-
uneasy in the night, and could by no means get
any sleep : he was perfectly well in body, as he told
me the story, only found his thoughts tumultuous;
his mind ran upon men fighting and killing of one
another, but he was broad awake, and could not by
any means get any sleep: in short, he lay a great
while; but growing more and more uneasy, he re-
solved to rise. As they lay, being so many of them,
upon goats' skinslaid thick upon such couches and
pads as they made for themselves, and not in ham-
mocks and ship beds, as I did, who was but one,
so they had little to do, when they were willing to
rise, but to get up upon their feet, and perhaps put
on a coat, such as it was, and their pumps, and they
were ready for going any way that their thoughts
guided them. Being thus got up, he looked out :
but, being dark, he could see little or nothing; and
besides, the trees which I had planted, as in my
former account is described, and which were now
grown tall, intercepted his sight, so that he could
only look up, and see that it was a clear starlight
night, and hearing no noise, he returned and laid
him down again: but it was all one; he could not
sleep, nor could he compose himself to anything
like rest; but his thoughts were to the last degree
uneasy, and he knew not for what.

Having made some noise with rising and walk-
ing about, going out and coming in, another of
them waked, and calling, asked who it was that was
up. The governor told him how it had been with

70 THE ADVENTURES OF

him. "Say you so?" says the other Spaniard;
"such things are not to be slighted, I assure you;
there is certainly some mischief working near us";
and presently he asked him, "Where are the Eng-
lishmen?" "They are all in their huts," says he,
"safe enough." It seems the Spaniards had kept
possession of the main apartment, and had made
a place for the three Englishmen, who, since their
last mutiny, were always quartered by themselves,
and could not come at the rest. "Well," says the
Spaniard, " there is something in it, I am persuaded,
from my own experience. I am satisfied our spirits
embodied have a converse with, and receive intel-
ligence from, the spirits unembodied, and inhabit-
ing the invisible world ; and this friendly notice is
given for our advantage, if we knew how to make
use of it. Come," says he, "let us go and look
abroad; and if we find nothing at all in it to justify
the trouble, I '11 tell you a story to the purpose that
shall convince you of the justice of my proposing
it."

In a word, they went out, to go up to the top of
the hill where I used to go ; but they being strong,
and a good company, not alone, as I was, used none
of my cautions, to go up by the ladder, and, pull-
ing it up after them, to go up a second stage to
the top, but were going round through the grove,
unconcerned and unwary ,when they were surprised
with seeing a light, as of fire, a very little way off
from them, and hearing the voices of men, not one
or two, but of a great number.

ROBINSON CRUSOE 71

In all the discoveries I had made of the savages
landing on the island, it was my constant care to
prevent them making the least discovery of there
being any inhabitant upon the place; and when by
any occasion they came to know it, they felt it so
effectually that they that got away were scarce able
to give any account of it; for we disappeared as
soon as possible; nor did ever any that had seen
me escape to tell any one else, except it was the
three savages in our last encounter, who jumped
into the boat; of whom I mentioned I was afraid
they should go home and bring more help.
Whether it was the consequence of the escape of
those men that so great a number came now together,
or whether they came ignorantly, and by accident,
on their usual bloody errand, the Spaniards could
not, it seems, understand; but whatever it was, it
had been their business either to have concealed
themselves, or not to have seen them at all, much
less to have let the savages have seen that there
were any inhabitants in the place; or to have fallen
upon them so effectually as that not a man of them
should have escaped, which could only have been
by getting in between them and their boats: but
this presence of mind was wanting to them, which
was the ruin of their tranquillity for a great while.

We need not doubt but that the governor and
the man with him, surprised with this sight, ran
back immediately, and raised their fellows, giving
them an account of the imminent danger they were
all in, and they again as readily took the alarm ;

72 THE ADVENTURES OF

but it was impossible to persuade them to stay
close within, where they were, but they must all
run out to see how things stood.

While it was dark, indeed, they were well enough,
and they had opportunity enough, for some hours,
to view them by the light of three fires they had
made at a distance from one another ; what they
were doing they knew not, and what to do them-
selves they knew not. For, first, the enemy were
too many; and, secondly, they did not keep to-
gether, but were divided into several parties, and
were on shore in several places.

The Spaniards were in no small consternation
at this sight ; and when they found that the fellows
ran straggling all over the shore, they made no
doubt but, first or last, some of them would chop
in upon their habitation, or upon some other place
where they would see the token of inhabitants;
and they were in great perplexity also for fear of
their flock of goats, which would have been little
less than starving them, if they should have been
destroyed: so the first thing they resolved upon
was to despatch three men away before it was light,
two Spaniards and one Englishman, to drive all
the goats away to the great valley where the cave
was, and, if need were, to drive them into the very
cave itself. Could they have seen the savages all
together in one body, and at a distance from their
canoes, they resolved, if there had been a hundred
of them, to have attacked them ; but that could not
be obtained; for they were some of them two miles

ROBINSON CRUSOE 73

off from the other; and, as it appeared afterwards,
were of two different nations.

After having mused a great while on the course
they should take, and beating their brains in con-
sidering their present circumstances, they resolved,
at last, while it was still dark, to send the old
savage, Friday's father, out as a spy, to learn, if
possible, something concerning them ; as what they
came for, what they intended to do, and the like.
The old man readily undertook it; and stripping
himself quite naked, as most of the savages were,
away he went. After he had been gone an hour or
two, he brings word that he had been among them
undiscovered ; that he found they were two parties,
and of two several nations, who had war with one
another, and had a great battle in their own coun-
try : and that both sides having had several prison-
ers taken in the fight, they were, by mere chance,
landed all on the same island, for the devouring their
prisoners and making merry; but their coming so
by chance to the same place had spoiled all their
mirth; that they were in a great rage at one an-
other, and were so near that he believed they would
fight again as soon as daylight began to appear;
but he did not perceive that they had any notion
of anybody being on the island but themselves.
He had hardly made an end of telling his story
when they could perceive, by the unusual noise
they made, that the two little armies were engaged
in a bloody fight.

Friday's father used all the arguments he could

74 THE ADVENTURES OF

to persuade our people to lie close, and not be seen:
he told them their safety consisted in it, and that
they had nothing to do but lie still and the savages
would kill one another to their hands, and then
the rest would go away ; and it was so to a tittle.
But it was impossible to prevail, especially upon
the Englishmen; their curiosity was so importunate
upon their prudentials that they must run out and
see the battle : however, they used some caution
too, viz., they did not go openly, just by their own
dwelling, but went farther into the woods, and
placed themselves to advantage, where they might
securely see them manage the fight, and, as they
thought, not be seen by them; but it seems the
savages did see them, as we shall find hereafter.
The battle was very fierce; and, if I might be-
lieve the Englishmen, one of them said he could
perceive that some of them were men of great brav-
ery, of invincible spirits, and of great policy in
guiding the fight. The battle, they said, held two
hours before they could guess which party would
be beaten ; but then, that party which was nearest
our people's habitation began to appear weakest,
and, after some time more, some of them began to
fly ; and this put our men again into a great conster-
nation, lest any one of those that fled should run
into the grove before their dwelling for shelter, and
thereby involuntarily discover the place; and that,
by consequence, the pursuers would do the like in
search of them. Upon this they resolved that they
would stand armed within the wall, and whoever

ROBINSON CRUSOE 75

came into the grove, they resolved to sally out
over the wall and kill them : so that, if possible,
not one should return to give an account of it:
they ordered also that it should be done with their
swords, or by knocking them down with the stocks
of their muskets, but not by shooting them, for fear
of raising an alarm by the noise.

As they expected, it fell out: three of the routed
army fled for life, and, crossing the creek, ran
directly into the place, not in the least knowing
whither they went, but running as into a thick
wood for shelter. The scout they kept to look
abroad gave notice of this within, with this addition,
to our men's great satisfaction, viz., that the con-
querors had not pursued them, or seen which way
they were gone ; upon this, the Spaniard governor,
a man of humanity, would not suffer them to kill
the three fugitives, but, sending three men out by
the top of the hill, ordered them to go round, come
in behind them, and surprise and take them pris-
oners; which was done. The residue of the con-
quered people fled to their canoes, and got off to
sea; the victors retired, made no pursuit, or very
little, but, drawing themselves into a body to-
gether, gave two great screaming shouts, which they
supposed was by way of triumph, and so the fight
ended: and the same day, about three o'clock in
the afternoon, they also marched to their canoes.
And thus the Spaniards had their island again free
to themselves, their fright was over, and they saw
no savages in several years after.

76 THE ADVENTURES OF

After they were all gone, the Spaniards came out
of their den, and viewing the field of battle, they
found about two-and-thirty men dead on the spot:
some were killed with great long arrows, some of
which were found sticking in their bodies; but
most of them were killed with great wooden swords,
sixteen or seventeen of which they found on the
field of battle, and as many bows, with a great
many arrows. These swords were strange, great,
unwieldy things, and they must be very strong men
that used them : most of those men that were killed
with them had their heads mashed to pieces, as we
may say, or, as we call it in English, their brains
knocked out, and several their arms and legs
broken ; so that it is evident they fight with in-
expressible rage and fury. We found not one man
that was not stone-dead, for either they stay by
their enemy till they have quite killed him, or they
carry all the wounded men that are not quite dead
away with them.

This deliverance tamed our Englishmen'for a great
while ; the sight had filled them with horror, and
the consequences appeared terrible to the last degree,
especially upon supposing that some time or other
they should fall into the hands of those creatures,
who would not only kill them as enemies, but kill
them for food, as we kill our cattle ; and they pro-
fessed to me that the thoughts of being eaten up
like beef or mutton, though it was supposed it
was not to be till they were dead, had something
in it so horrible that it nauseated their very stom-

ROBINSON CRUSOE 77

achs, made them sick when they thought of it, and
filled their minds with such unusual terror that
they were not themselves for some weeks after.
This, as I said, tamed even the three English brutes
I have been speaking of, and, for a great while after,
they were tractable, and went about the common
business of the whole society well enough; planted,
sowed, reaped, and began to be all naturalised to
the country. But some time after this they fell into
such simple measures again, as brought them into
a great deal of trouble.

They had taken three prisoners, as I observed;
and these three being lusty, stout young fellows,
they made them servants, and taught them to work
for them ; and, as slaves, they did well enough ; but
they did not take their measures with them as I
did by my man Friday, viz., to begin with them
upon the principle of having saved their lives, and
then instruct them in the rational principles of life ;
much less of religion, civilising, and reducing them
by kind usage and affectionate arguings ; but as
they gave them their food every day, so they gave
them their work too, and kept them fully employed
in drudgery enough ; but they failed in this, by it,
that they never had them to assist them, and fight
for them, as I had my man Friday, who was as
true to me as the very flesh upon my bones.

But to come to the family part. Being all now
good friends, for common danger, as I said above,
had effectually reconciled them, they began to con-
sider their general circumstances; and the first thing

78 THE ADVENTURES OF

that came under their consideration was, whether,
seeing the savages particularly haunted that side of
the island, and that there were more remote and
retired parts of it equally adapted to their way of
living, and manifestly to their advantage, they
should not rather move their habitation, and plant
in some more proper place for their safety, and
especially for the security of their cattle and corn.
Upon this, after long debate, it was concluded
that they would not remove their habitation ; be-
cause that, some time or other, they thought they
might hear from their governor again, meaning me,
and if I should send anyone to seek them, I should
be sure to direct them to that side ; where, if they
should find the place demolished, they would con-
clude the savages had killed us all, and we were
gone; and so our supply would go too. But as to
their corn and cattle, they agreed to remove them
into the valley where my cave was, where the land
was as proper for both, and where, indeed, there was
land enough : however, upon second thoughts, they
altered one part of their resolution too, and resolved
only to remove part of their cattle thither, and
plant part of their corn there ; and so if one part
was destroyed, the other might be saved. And one
part of prudence they used, which it was very well
they did, viz., that they never trusted those three
savages, which they had prisoners, with knowing
anything of the plantation they had made in that
valley, or of any cattle they had there, much less
of the cave there, which they kept, in case of ne-

ROBINSON CRUSOE 79

cessity,as a safe retreat; and thither they carried
also the two barrels of powder which I had sent
them at my coming away. But, however they re-
solved not to change their habitation, yet they
agreed that as I had carefully covered It first with
a wall or fortification, and then with a grove of trees,
so seeing their safety consisted entirely In their
being concealed, of which they were now fully
convinced, they set to work to cover and conceal
the place yet more effectually than before. For this
purpose, as I planted trees, or rather thrust In
stakes, which In time all grew up to be trees, for
some good distance before the entrance into my
apartments, they went on in the same manner, and
filledup the rest of that whole space of ground,from
the trees I had set, quite down to the side of the
creek, where, as I said, I landed my floats, and
even into the very ooze where the tide flowed, not
so much as leaving any place to land, or any sign
that there had been any landing thereabout: these
stakes also being of a wood very forward to grow,
as I have noted formerly, they took care to have
them generally much larger and taller than those
which I had planted ; and as they grew apace, so
they planted them so very thick and close to-
gether that, when they had been three or four
years grown, there was no piercing with the eye
any considerable way Into the plantation; and, as
for that part which I had planted, the trees were
grown as thick as a man's thigh, and among them
they placed so many other short ones, and so thick,

8o THE ADVENTURES OF

that, In a word, it stood like a palisade a quarter
of a mile thick, and it was next to impossible to
penetrate it but with a little army to cut it all
down ; for a little dog could hardly get between
the trees, they stood so close.

But this was not all ; for they did the same by
all the ground to the right hand and to the left,
and round even to the top of the hill, leaving no
way, not so much as for themselves, to come out
but by the ladder placed up to the side of the hill,
and then lifted up, and placed again from the first
stage up to the top ; and when the ladder was taken
down, nothing but what had wings or witchcraft to
assist it could come at them. This was excellently
well contrived ; nor was it less than what they after-
wards found occasion for; which served to convince
me that as human prudence has the authority of
Providence to justify it, so it has doubtless the
direction of Providence to set it to work, and if we
listened carefully to the voice of it, I am persuaded
we might prevent many of the disasters which our
lives are now, by our own negligence, subjected to :
but this by the way.

I return to the story. — They lived two years
after this in perfect retirement, and had no more
visits from the savages. They had indeed an alarm
given them one morning, which put them into
a great consternation ; for some of the Spaniards
being out early one morning on the west side, or
rather end, of the island (which was that end where
I never went, for fear of being discovered), they were

ROBINSON CRUSOE 8i

surprised with seeing above twenty canoes of Indi-
ans just coming on shore. They made the best of
their way home, in hurry enough; and giving the
alarm to their comrades, they kept close all that day
and the next, going out only at night to make their
observation : but they had the good luck to be mis-
taken ; for wherever the savages went, they did not
land that time on the island, but pursued some
other designs.

And now they had another broil with the three
Englishmen ; one of whom, a most turbulent fel-
low, being in a rage at one of the three slaves, which
I mentioned they had taken, because the fellow had
not done something right which he bid him do,
and seemed a little untractable in his showing him,
drew a hatchet out of a frog-belt, in which he wore
it by his side, and fell upon the poor savage, not
to correct him, but to kill him. One of the Span-
iards, who was by, seeing him give the fellow a bar-
barous cut with the hatchet, which he aimed at his
head, but struck into his shoulders, so that he
thought he had cut the poor creature's arm off, ran
to him, and, entreating him not to murder the poor
man, placed himself between him and the savage,
to prevent the mischief. The fellow, being enraged
the more at this, struck at the Spaniard with his
hatchet, and swore he would serve him as he in-
tended to serve the savage; which the Spaniard
perceiving, avoided the blow, and with a shovel
which he had in his hand (for they were all work-
ing in the field about their cornland) knocked the

82 THE ADVENTURES OF

brute down. Another of the Englishmen, running
at the same time to help his comrade, knocked the
Spaniard down ; and then two Spaniards more came
in to help their man, and a third Englishman fell
in upon them. They had none of them any fire-
arms, or any other weapons but hatchets and other
tools, except this third Englishman ; he had one
of my rusty cutlasses, with which he made at the
two last Spaniards, and wounded them both. This
fray set the whole family in an uproar, and more
help coming in, they took the three Englishmen
prisoners. The next question was, what should be
done with them ? They had been so often muti-
nous, and were so very furious, so desperate, and
so idle withal, they knew not what course to take
with them, for they were mischievous to the high-
est degree, and valued not what hurt they did to
any man ; so that, in short, it was not safe to live
with them.

The Spaniard who was governor told them, in
so many words, that if they had been of his own
country, he would have hanged them ; for all laws
and all governors were to preserve society, and those
who were dangerous to the society ought to be ex-
pelled out of it ; but as they were Englishmen, and
that it was to the generous kindness of an English-
man that they all owed their preservation and de-
liverance, he would use them with all possible len-
ity, and would leave them to the judgment of the
other two Englishmen, who were their countrymen.

One of the two honest Englishmen stood up,

ROBINSON CRUSOE 83

and said they desired it might not be left to them ;
" For," says he, " I am sure we ought to sentence
them to the gallows " : and with that he gives an
account how Will Atkins, one of the three, had pro-
posed to have all the five Englishmen join together,
and murder all the Spaniards when they were in
their sleep.

When the Spanish governor heard this, he calls
to Will Atkins, " How, Senhor Atkins, would you
murder us all ? What have you to say to that? "
The hardened villain was so far from denying it
that he said it was true : and, G — d d — n him, they
would do it still, before they had done with them.
" Well, but Senhor Atkins," says the Spaniard,
" what have we done to you, that you will kill us?
And what would you get by killing us ? And what
must we do to prevent your killing us ? Must we
kill you, or you kill us ? Why will you put us to
the necessity of this, Senhor Atkins?" says the
Spaniard, very calmly and smiling. Senhor Atkins
was in such a rage at the Spaniard's making a jest
of it that, had he not been held by three men, and
withal had no weapon near him, it was thought he
would have attempted to have killed the Spaniard
in the middle of all the company. This hairbrain
carriage obliged them to consider seriously what
was to be done: the two Englishmen and the Span-
iard who saved the poor savage were of the opinion
that they should hang one of the three, for an ex-
ample to the rest; and that particularly it should
be he that had twice attempted to commit murder

84 THE ADVENTURES OF

with his hatchet ; and, indeed, there was some rea-
son to believe he had done it, for the poor savage
was in such a rf?iserable condition with the wound
he had received that it was thought he could not
live. But the governor Spaniard still said no; it
was an Englishman that had saved all their lives,
and he would never consent to put an Englishman
to death, though he had murdered half of them;
nay, he said, if he had been killed himself by an
Englishman, and had time left to speak, it should
be that they should pardon him.

This was so positively insisted on by the gov-
ernor Spaniard that there was no gainsaying it ; and
as merciful counsels are most apt to prevail, where
they are so earnestly pressed, so they all came into
it: but then it was to be considered what should be
done to keep them from doing the mischief they
designed; for all agreed, governor and all, that
means were to be used for preserving the society
from danger. After a long debate, it was agreed,
first, that they should be disarmed, and not per-
mitted to have either gun, powder, shot, sword,
or any weapon ; and should be turned out of the
society, and left to live where they would, and how
they would, by themselves ; but that none of the
rest, either Spaniards or English, should converse
with them, speak with them, or have anything to
do with them : that they should be forbid to come
within a certain distance of the place where the rest
dwelt ; and if they offered to commit any disorder,
so as to spoil, burn, kill, or destroy any of the corn,

ROBINSON CRUSOE 85

plantings, buildings, fences, or cattle belonging to
the society, they should die without mercy, and
they would shoot them wherever they could find
them.

The governor, a man of great humanity, musing
upon the sentence, considered a little upon it; and
turning to the two honest Englishmen, said, " Hold ;
you must reflect that it will be long ere they can
raise corn and cattle of their own, and they must
not starve ; we must therefore allow them provi-
sions " : so he caused to be added that they should
have a proportion of corn given them to last them
eight months, and for seed to sow, by which time
they might be supposed to raise some of their own;
that they should have six milch-goats, four he-
goats, and six kids given them, as well for present
subsistence as for a store; and that they should
have tools given them for their work in the fields,
such as six hatchets, an adze, a saw, and the like ;
but they should have none of these tools or pro-
visions, unless they would swear solemnly that
they would not hurt or injure any of the Spaniards
with them, or of their fellow Englishmen.

Thus they dismissed them the society, and turned
them out to shift for themselves. They went away
sullen and refractory, as neither content to go away
nor to stay ; but as there was no remedy, they went,
pretending to go and choose a place where they
would settle themselves ; and some provisions were
given them, but no weapons.

About four or five days after, they came again

86 THE ADVENTURES OF

for some victuals, and gave the governor an ac-
count where they had pitched their tents, and
marked themselves out a habitation and planta-
tion ; and it was a very convenient place, indeed,
on the remotest part of the island, NE., much
about the place where I providentially landed in
my first voyage, when I was driven out to sea, the
Lord alone knows whither, in my foolish attempt
to sail round the island.

Here they built themselves two handsome huts,
and contrived them in a manner like my first hab-
itation, being close under the side of a hill, having
some trees growing already on three sides of it, so
that, by planting others, it would be very easily
covered from the sight, unless narrowly searched
for. They desired some dried goats'-skins, for beds
and covering, which were given them ; and upon
giving their words that they would not disturb the
rest, or injure any of their plantations, they gave
them hatchets, and what other tools they could
spare ; some peas, barley, and rice, for sowing ;
and, in a word, anything they wanted, except arms
and ammunition.

They lived in this separate condition about six
months, and had got in their first harvest, though
the quantity was but small, the parcel of land they
had planted being but little ; for, indeed, having
all their plantation to form, they had a great deal
of work upon their hands ; and when they came
to make boards and pots, and such things, they
were quite out of their element, and could make

ROBINSON CRUSOE 87

nothing of It : and when the rainy season came on,
for want of a cave in the earth they could not keep
their grain dry, and it was in great danger of spoil-
ing ; and this humbled them much : so they came
and begged the Spaniards to help them, which they
very readily did ; and in four days worked a great
hole in the side of the hill for them, big enough
to secure their corn and other things from the rain ;
but it was but a poor place, at best, compared to
mine, and especially as mine was then, for the
Spaniards had greatly enlarged it, and made several
new apartments in it.

About three quarters of a year after this separa-
tion, a new frolic took these rogues, which, to-
gether with the former villainy they had committed,
brought mischief enough upon them, and had very
near been the ruin of the whole colony. The three
new associates began, it seems, to be weary of the
laborious life they led, and that without hope of
bettering their circumstances ; and a whim took
them that they would make a voyage to the con-
tinent from whence the savages came, and would
try if they could seize upon some prisoners among
the natives there, and bring them home, so to
make them do the laborious part of their work for
them.

The project was not so preposterous, if they had
gone no farther : but they did nothing, and pro-
posed nothing, but had either mischief in the de-
sign, or mischief in the event: and, if I may give
my opinion, they seemed to be under a blast from

88 ROBINSON CRUSOE

Heaven ; for if we will not allow a visible curse to
pursue visible crimes, how shall we reconcile the
events of things with the divine justice? It was
certainly an apparent vengeance on their crime of
mutiny and piracy that brought them to the state
they were in ; and they showed not the least re-
morse for the crime, but added new villainies to it,
such as the piece of monstrous cruelty of wound-
ing a poor slave, because he did not, or perhaps
could not, understand to do what he was directed,
and to wound him in such a manner as made him
a cripple all his life, and in a place where no sur-
geon or medicine could be had for his cure.: and
what was still worse, the murderous intent, or, to
do justice to the crime, the intentional murder, for
such to be sure it was, as was afterwards the formed
design they all laid, to murder the Spaniards in
cold blood, and in their sleep.

CHAPTER VI

BUT I leave observing, and return to the story.
The three fellows came down to the Span-
iards one morning, and in very humble terms de-
sired to be admitted to speak with them ; the
Spaniards very readily heard what they had to say,
which was this: That they were tired of living in
the manner they did ; and that they were not handy
enough to make the necessaries they wanted, and
that having no help, they found they should be
starved ; but if the Spaniards would give them leave
to take one of the canoes which they came over in,
and give them arms and ammunition proportioned
to their defence, they would go over to the main
and seek their fortunes, and so deliver them from
the trouble of supplying them with any other pro-
visions.

The Spaniards were glad enough to get rid of
them, but very honestly represented to them the
certain destruction they were running into ; told
them they had suffered such hardships upon that
very spot that they could, without any spirit of

90 THE ADVENTURES OF

prophecy, tell them they would be starved, or mur-
dered, and bade them consider of it.

The men replied, audaciously, they should be
starved if they stayed here, for they could not work,
and would not work, and they could but be starved
abroad ; and if they were murdered, there was an
end of them ; they had no wives or children to cry
after them : and, in short, insisted importunately
upon their demand ; declaring they would go,
whether they would give them any arms or no.

The Spaniards told them, with great kindness,
that if they were resolved to go, they should not
go like naked men, and be in no condition to de-
fend themselves: and that though they could ill
spare their fire-arms, having not enough for them-
selves, yet they would let them have two muskets,
a pistol and a cutlass, and each man a hatchet,
which they thought was sufficient for them. In a
word, they accepted the offer ; and having baked
them bread enough to serve them a month, and
given them as much goat's-flesh as they could eat
while it was sweet, and a great basket of dried
grapes, a pot of fresh water, and a young kid alive,
they boldly set out in the canoe for a voyage over
the sea, where it was at least forty miles broad.

The boat, indeed, was a large one, and would
very well have carried fifteen or twenty men, and
therefore was rather too big for them to manage;
but as they had a fair breeze, and flood tide with
them, they did well enough. They had made a
mast of a long pole, and a sail of four large goats'-

ROBINSON CRUSOE 91

skins dried, which they had sewed or laced to-
gether; and away they went merrily enough: the
Spaniards called after them, "Buenviage'' ; and no
man ever thought of seeing them any more.

The Spaniards were often saying to one another,
and to the two honest Englishmen who remained
behind, how quietly and comfortably they lived,
now these three turbulent fellows were gone: as
for their coming again, that was the remotest thing
from their thoughts that could be imagined; when,
behold, after two-and-twenty days' absence, one of
the Englishmen, being abroad upon his planting
work, sees three strange men coming towards him
at a distance, with guns upon their shoulders.

Away runs the Englishman, as if he was be-
witched, comes frightened and amazed to the gov-
ernor Spaniard, and tells him they were all undone,
for there were strangers landed upon the island,
but could not tell who. The Spaniard, pausing a
while, says to him, "How do you mean, you can-
not tell who? They are the savages, to be sure.*'
"No, no," says the Englishman; "they are men
in clothes, with arms." " Nay, then," says the
Spaniard, "why are you concerned? If they are
not savages, they must be friends; for there is no
Christian nation upon earth but will do us good
rather than harm."

While they were debating thus, came the three
Englishmen, and, standing without the wood, which
was new planted, hallooed to them : they presently
knew their voices, and so all the wonder of that

92 THE ADVENTURES OF

kind ceased. But now the admiration was turned
upon another question, viz., What could be the
matter, and what made them come back again ?

It was not long before they brought the men
in, and inquiring where they had been, and what
they had been doing, they gave them a full account
of their voyage in a few words, viz., that they
reached the land in two days, or something less ;
but finding the people alarmed at their coming,
and preparing with bows and arrows to fight them,
they durst not go on shore, but sailed on to the
northward six or seven hours, till they came to a
great opening, by which they perceived that the
land they saw from our island was not the main,
but an island ; upon entering that opening of the
sea, they saw another island on the right hand,
north, and several more west; and being resolve4
to land somewhere, they put over to one of the
islands which lay west, and went boldly on shore :
that they found the people very courteous and
friendly to them ; and that they gave them several
roots and some dried fish, and appeared very so-
ciable ; and the women as well as the men were
very forward to supply them with anything they
could get for them to eat, and brought it to them
a great way upon their heads.

They continued here four days ; and inquired,
as well as they could of them, by signs, what na-
tions were this way, and that way ; and were told
of several fierce and terrible people that lived al-
most every way, who, as they made known by signs

ROBINSON CRUSOE 93

to them, used to eat men; but as for themselves,
they said, they never ate men or women, except
only such as they took in the wars ; and then, they
owned, they made a great feast, and ate their pris-
oners.

The Englishmen inquired when they had had
a feast of that kind; and they told them about two
moons ago, pointing to the moon, and to two fin-
gers; and that their great king had two hundred
prisoners now, which he had taken in his war, and
they were feeding them to make them fat for the
next feast. The Englishmen seemed mighty de-
sirous of seeing those prisoners ; but the others,
mistaking them, thought they were desirous to
have some of them to carry away for their own eat-
ing: so they beckoned to them, pointing to the
setting of the sun, and then to the rising; which
was to signify that the next morning at sun-rising
they would bring some for them ; and, accordingly,
the next morning, they brought down five women
and eleven men, and gave them to the English-
men, to carry with them on their voyage, just as
we would bring so many cows and oxen down to
a seaport town to victual a ship.

As brutish and barbarous as these fellows were
at home, their stomachs turned at this sight, and
they did not know what to do. To refuse the pris-
oners would have been the highest affront to the
savage gentry that could be offered them, and
what to do with them they knew not. However,
after some debate, they resolved to accept of them;

94 THE ADVENTURES OF

and, In return, they gave the savages that brought
them one of their hatchets, an old key, a knife,
and six or seven of their bullets ; which, though
they did not understand their use, they seemed par-
ticularly pleased with; and then, tying the poor
creatures' hands behind them, they dragged the
prisoners into the boat for our men.

The Englishmen were obliged to come away as
soon as they had them, or else they that gave them
this noble present would certainly have expected
that they should have gone to work with them,
have killed two or three of them the next morning,
and perhaps have invited the donors to dinner.
But having taken their leave, with all the respect
and thanks that could well pass between people,
where, on either side, they understood not one
word they could say, they put off with their boat,
and came back towards the first island ; where, when
they arrived, they set eight of their prisoners at
liberty, there being too many of them for their
occasion.

In their voyage, they endeavoured to have some
communication with their prisoners; but it was
impossible to make them understand anything; no-
thing they could say to them, or give them, or do
for them, but was looked upon as going to murder
them. They first of all unbound them ; but the poor
creatures screamed at that, especially the women, as
if they had just felt the knife at their throats; for
they immediately concluded they were unbound on
purpose to be killed. If they gave them anything

ROBINSON CRUSOE 95

to eat, it was the same thing ; they then concluded
it was for fear they should sink in flesh, and so not
be fat enough to kill. If they looked at one of
them more particularly, the party presently con-
cluded it was to see whether he or she was fattest,
and fittest to kill first; nay, after they had brought
them quite over, and begun to use them kindly,
and treat them wel.l, still they expected every day
to make a dinner or supper for their new mas-
ters.

When the three wanderers had given this unac-
countable history or journal of their voyage, the
Spaniard asked them where their new family was;
and being told that they had brought them on
shore, and put them into one of their huts, and were
come up to beg some victuals for them, they (the
Spaniards) and the other two Englishmen, that is
to say, the whole colony, resolved to go all down
to the place and see them; and did so, and Fri-
day's father with them.

When they came into the hut, there they sat all
bound ; for when they had brought them on shore,
they bound their hands, that they might not take
the boat and make their escape ; there, I say, they
sat, all of them stark naked. First, there were three
men, lusty, comely fellows, well-shaped, straight
and fair limbs, about thirty to thirty-five years of
age; and fivQ women, whereof two might be from
thirty to forty ; two more not above four- or five-
and-twenty; and the iifth, a tall comely maiden,
about sixteen or seventeen. The women were well-

96 THE ADVENTURES OF

favoured, agreeable persons, both in shape and fea-
tures, only tawny ; and two of them, had they been
perfect white, would have passed for very hand-
some women, even in London itself, having pleas-
ant, agreeable countenances, and of a very modest
-behaviour; especially when they came afterwards
to be clothed and dressed, as they called it, though
that dress was very indifferent, it must be con-
fessed; of which hereafter.

The sight, you may be sure, was something
uncouth to our Spaniards, who were, to give them
a just character, men of the best behaviour, of the
most calm, sedate tempers, and perfect good hu-
mour, that ever I met with ; and, in particular, of
the most modest, as will presently appear: I say,
the sight was very uncouth, to see three naked men
and five naked women, all together bound, and in
the most miserable circumstances that human na-
ture could be supposed to be, viz., to be expecting
every moment to be dragged out, and have their
brains knocked out, and then to be eaten up like
a calf that is killed for a dainty.

The first thing they did was to cause the old In-
dian, Friday's father, to go in, and see, first, if he
knew any of them, and then if he understood any
of their speech. As soon as the old man came in,
he looked seriously at them, but knew none of
them; neither could any of them understand a
word he said, or a sign he could make, except one
of the women. However, this was enough to
answer the end, which was to satisfy them that

ROBINSON CRUSOE 97

the men into whose hands they were fallen were
Christians; that they abhorred eating men or wo-
men; and that they might be sure they would not
be killed. As soon as they were assured of this,
they discovered such a joy, and by such awkward
gestures, several ways, as is hard to describe ; for,
it seems, they were of several nations.

The woman who was their interpreter was bid,
in the next place, to ask them if they were willing
to be servants, and to work for the men who had
brought them away, to save their lives ; at which
they all fell a-dancing; and presently one fell to
taking up this, and another that, anything that lay
next, to carry on their shoulders, to intimate that
they were willing to work.

The governor, who found that the having women
among them would presently be attended with
some inconvenience, and might occasion some
strife, and perhaps blood, asked the three men what
they intended to do with these women, and how
they intended to use them, whether as servants or
as women ? One of the Englishmen answered, very
boldly and readily, that they would use them as
both; to which the governor said, " I am not going
to restrain you from it; you are your own masters
as to that; but this I think is but just, for avoiding
disorders and quarrels among you, and I desire it
of you for that reason only, viz., that you will all
engage that if any of you take any of these women,
as a woman or wife, that he shall take but one : and
that having taken one, none else shall touch her;

98 THE ADVENTURES OF

for though we cannot marry any one of you, yet
it Is but reasonable that while you stay here, the
woman any of you takes should be maintained by
the man that takes her, and should be his wife; I
mean,*' says he, "while he continues here, and that
none else shall have anything to do with her." All
this appeared so just that every one agreed to it
without any difficulty.

Then the Englishmen asked the Spaniards' if
they designed to take any of them ? But every
one of them answered no : some of them said they
had wives in Spain, and the others did not like
women that were not Christians : and all together
declared that they would not touch one of them :
which was an instance of such virtue as I have not
met with in all my travels. On the other hand, to
be short, the five Englishmen took them every
one a wife, that is to say, a temporary wife : and
so they set up a new form of living ; for the Span-
iards and Friday's father lived in my old habita-
tion, which they had enlarged exceedingly within.
The three servants which were taken in the late
battle of the savages lived with them, and these
carried on the main part of the colony, supplied
all the rest with food, and assisted them in any-
thing as they could, or as they found necessity
required.

But the wonder of the story was how ^ve such
refractory, ill-matched fellows should agree about
these women, and that two of them should not
pitch upon the same woman, especially seeing two

ROBINSON CRUSOE 99

or three of them were, without comparison, more
agreeable than the others : but they took a good
way enough to prevent quarrelling among them-
selves ; for they set the five women by themselves
in one of their huts, and they went all into the
other hut, and drew lots among them who should
choose first.

He that drew to choose first went away by him-
self to the hut where the poor naked creatures
were, and fetched out her he chose ; and it was
worth observing that he that chose first took her
that was reckoned the homeliest and oldest of the
five, which made mirth enough among the rest;
and even the Spaniards laughed at it : but the
fellow considered better than any of them that it
was application and business they were to expect
assistance in as much as in anything else ; and she
proved the best wife of all the parcel.

When the poor women saw themselves set in a
row thus, and fetched out one by one, the terrors
of their condition returned upon them again, and
they firmly believed they were now going to be
devoured. Accordingly, when the English sailor
came in and fetched out one of them, the rest set
up a most lamentable cry, and hung about her,
and took their leave of her with such agonies and
affection as would have grieved the hardest heart
in the world ; nor was it possible for the English-
men to satisfy them that they were not to be im-
mediately murdered till they fetched the old man,
Friday's father, who immediately let them know

loo THE ADVENTURES OF

that the five men, who had fetched them out one
by one, had chosen them for their wives.

When they had done, and the fright the women
were in was a little over, the men went to work,
and the Spaniards came and helped them ; and in
a few hours they had built them every one a new
hut or tent for their lodging apart ; for those they
had already were crowded with their tools, house-
hold stuff, and provisions. The three wicked ones
had pitched farthest off, and the two honest ones
nearer, but both on the north shore of the island, so
that they continued separated as before ; and thus
my island was peopled in three places ; and, as I
might say, three towns were begun to be built.

And here it is very well worth observing that,
as it often happens in the world (what the wise
ends of God's providence are, in such a disposi-
tion of things, I cannot say), the two honest fel-
lows had the two worst wives ; and the three repro-
bates, that were scarce worth hanging, that were
fit for nothing, and neither seemed born to do
themselves good, nor any one else, had three clever,
diligent, careful, and ingenious wives: not that the
first two were bad wives, as to their temper or
humour, for all the five were most willing, quiet,
passive, and subjected creatures, rather like slaves
than wives ; but my meaning is they were not alike
capable, ingenious, or industrious, or alike cleanly
and neat.

Another observation I must make, to the hon-
our of a diligent application, on one hand, and to

ROBINSON CRUSOE loi

the disgrace of a slothful, negligent, idle temper,
on the other, that when I came to the place, and
viewed the several improvements, plantings, and
management of the several little colonies, the two
men had so far outgone the three that there was
no comparison. They had, indeed, both of them
as much ground laid out for corn as they wanted,
and the reason was, because, according to my rule,
nature dictated that it was to no purpose to sow
more corn than they wanted ; but the difference
of the cultivation, of the planting, of the fences,
and, indeed, of everything else, was easy to be seen
at first view.

The two men had innumerable young trees
planted about their huts, so that when you came
to the place, nothing was to be seen but wood :
and though they had twice had their plantation
demohshed, once by their own countrymen, and
once by the enemy, as shall be shown in its place,
yet they had restored all again, and everything
was thriving and flourishing about them : they had
grapes planted in order, and managed like a vine-
yard, though they had themselves never seen any-
thing of that kind ; and by their good ordering
their vines, their grapes were as good again as any
of the others. They had also found themselves out
a retreat in the thickest part of the woods ; where,
though there was not a natural cave, as I had found,
yet they made one with incessant labour of their
hands, and where, when the mischief which fol-
lowed happened, they secured their wives and

I02 THE ADVENTURES OF

children, so as they could never be found ; they
having, by sticking innumerable stakes and poles of
the wood which, as I said, grew so readily, made
the grove unpassable, except in some places where
they climbed up to get over the outside part, and
then went on by ways of their own leaving.

As to the three reprobates, as I justly call them,
though they were much civilised by their settle-
ment, compared to what they were before, and
were not so quarrelsome, having not the same op-
portunity ; yet one of the certain companions of a
profligate mind never left them, and that was their
idleness. It is true they planted corn, and made
fences ; but Solomon's words were never better
verified than in them, " I went by the vineyard of
the slothful, and it was all overgrown with thorns " ;
for when the Spaniards came to view their crop,
they could not see it in some places for weeds, the
hedge had several gaps in it, where the wild goats
had got in and eaten up the corn ; perhaps here
and there a dead bush was crammed in, to stop
them out for the present, but it was only shutting
the stable-door after the steed was stolen : whereas,
when they looked on the colony of the other two,
there was the very face of industry and success upon
all they did ; there was not a weed to be seen in
all their corn, or a gap in any of their hedges ; and
they, on the other hand, verified Solomon's words
in another place, "that the diligent hand maketh
rich"; for everything grew and thrived, and they
had plenty within and without ; they had more tame

rLAl L Xl

ROBINSON CRUSOE 103

cattle than the others, more utensils and necessa-
ries within-doors, and yet more pleasure and di-
version too.

It is true the wives of the three were very handy
and cleanly within-doors, and having learned the
English ways of dressing and cooking from one of
the other Englishmen, who, as I said, was a cook's
mate on board the ship, they dressed their hus-
bands' victuals very nicely and well ; whereas the
others could not be brought to understand it : but
then the husband, who, as I say, had been cook's
mate, did it himself. But as for the husbands of
the three wives, they loitered about, fetched turtles'
eggs, and caught fish and birds ; in a word, any-
thing but labour, and they fared accordingly. The
diligent lived well and comfortably ; and the sloth-
ful lived hard and beggarly; and so, I believe, gen-
erally speaking, it is all over the world.

But now I come to a scene different from all that
had happened before, either to them or to me; and
the original of the story was this : Early one morn-
ing, there came on shore five or six canoes of In-
dians or savages, call them which you please, and
there is no room to doubt they came upon the old
errand of feeding upon their slaves; but that part
was now so familiar to the Spaniards, and to our
men too, that they did not concern themselves
about it, as I did ; but having been made sensible,
by their experience, that their only business was to
lie concealed, and that if they were not seen by any
of the savages, they would go off again quietly, when

I04 THE ADVENTURES OF

their business was done, having, as yet, not the least
notion of there being any inhabitants in the island ;
I say, having been made sensible of this, they had
nothing to do but give notice to all the three
plantations to keep within-doors, and not show
themselves, only placing a scout in a proper place,
to give notice when the boats went to sea again.

This was, without doubt, very right ; but a dis-
aster spoiled all these measures, and made it known
among the savages that there were inhabitants
there ; which was, in the end, the desolation of al-
most the whole colony. After the canoes with the
savages were gone off, the Spaniards peeped abroad
again ; and some of them had the curiosity to go
to the place where they had been, to see what they
had been doing. Here, to their great surprise, they
found three savages left behind, and lying fast
asleep upon the ground. It was supposed they had
either been so gorged with their inhuman feast that,
like beasts, they were fallen asleep, and would not
stir when the others went, or they had wandered
into the woods, and did not come back in time to
be taken in.

The Spaniards were greatly surprised at this
sight, and perfectly at a loss what to do. The Span-
ish governor, as it happened, was with them, and
his advice was asked, but he professed he knew
not what to do. As for slaves, they had enough
already ; and as to killing them, they were none of
them inclined to that: the Spanish governor told
me they could not think of shedding innocent

ROBINSON CRUSOE 105

blood : for as to them the poor creatures had done
them no wrong, invaded none of their property,
and they thought they had no just quarrel against
them, to take away their lives. And here I must,
in justice to these Spaniards, observe that, let the
accounts of Spanish cruelty in Mexico and Peru
be what they will, I never met with seventeen men
of any nation whatsoever, in any foreign country,
who were so universally modest, temperate, virtu-
ous, so very good-humoured, and so courteous, as
these Spaniards ; and as to cruelty, they had no-
thing of it in their very nature ; no inhumanity, no
barbarity, no outrageous passions ; and yet all of
them men of great courage and spirit. Their tem-
per and calmness had appeared in their bearing the
insufferable usage of the three Englishmen ; and
their justice and humanity appeared now in the
case of the savages, as above. After some con-
sultation they resolved upon this: that they would
lie still a while longer, till, if possible, these three
men might be gone. But then the governor Span-
iard recollected, that the three savages had no boat;
and if they were left to rove about the island, they
would certainly discover that there were inhabitants
in it ; and so they should be undone that way.
Upon this they went back again, and there lay the
fellows fast asleep still, and so they resolved to waken
them, and take them prisoners ; and they did so.
The poor fellows were strangely frightened when
they were seized upon and bound ; and afraid, like
the women, that they should be murdered and eaten ;

io6 THE ADVENTURES OF

for It seems those people think all the world does
as they do, eating men's flesh ; but they were soon
made easy as to that, and away they carried them.

It was very happy for them that they did not
carry them home to their castle, I mean to my
palace under the hill; but they carried them first
to the bower, where was the chief of their country
work, such as the keeping the goats, the planting
the corn, etc. ; and afterwards they carried them to
the habitation of the two Englishmen.

Here they were set to work, though it was not
much they had for them to do; and whether it
was by negligence in guarding them, or that they
thought the fellows could not mend themselves, I
know not, but one of them run away, and, taking
to the woods, they could never hear of him any
more.

They had good reason to believe he got home
again soon after, in some other boats or canoes
of savages who came on shore three or four weeks
afterwards; and who, carrying on their revels as
usual, went off in two days' time. This thought
terrified them exceedingly ; for they concluded, and
that not without good cause indeed, that if this fel-
low came home safe among his comrades, he would
certainly give them an account that there were
people in the island, and also how few and weak they
were: for this savage, as I observed before, had
never been told, and it was very happy he had not,
how many there were, or where they lived ; nor
had he ever seen or heard the fire of any of their

ROBINSON CRUSOE 107

guns, much less had they shown him any of their
other retired places ; such as the cave in the valley,
or the new retreat which the two Englishmen had
made, and the like.

The first testimony they had that this fellow had
given intelligence of them was that, about two
months after this, six canoes of savages, with about
seven, eight, or ten men in a canoe, came rowing
along the north side of the island, where they never
used to come before, and landed, about an hour
after sunrise, at a convenient place, about a mile
from the habitation of the two Englishmen, where
this escaped man had been kept. As the Spaniard
governor said, had they been all there, the damage
would not have been so much, for not a man of
them would have escaped : but the case differed
now very much, for two men to fifty was too much
odds. The two men had the happiness to discover
them about a league off, so that it was above an
hour before they landed ; and as they landed a mile
from their huts, it was some time before they could
come at them. Now, having great reason to be-
lieve that they were betrayed, the first thing they
did was to bind the two slaves which were left, and
cause two of the three men whom they brought
with the women (who, it seems, proved very faith-
ful to them) to lead them, with their two wives,
and whatever they could carry away with them, to
their retired places in the woods, which I have
spoken of above, and there to bind the two fellows
hand and foot, till they heard further.

io8 THE ADVENTURES OF

In the next place, seeing the savages were all
come on shore, and that they had bent their course
directly that way, they opened the fences where the
milch-goats were kept, and drove them all out;
leaving their goats to straggle in the woods, whither
they pleased, that the savages might think they
were all bred wild; but the rogue who came with
them was too cunning for that, and gave them an
account of it all, for they went directly to the place.

When the two poor frightened men had secured
their wives and goods, they sent the other slave
they had of the three who came with the women,
and who was at their place by accident, away to
the Spaniards with all speed, to give them the
alarm, and desire speedy help ; and, in the mean time,
they took their arms and what ammunition they
had, and retreated towards the place in the wood
where their wives were sent; keeping at a distance,
yet so that they might see, if possible, which way
the savages took.

They had not gone far, but that from a rising
ground they could see the little army of their ene-
mies come on directly to their habitation, and, in
a moment more, could see all their huts and house-
hold stuff flaming up together, to their great grief
and mortification ; for they had a very great loss,
to them irretrievable, at least for some time. They
kept their station for a while, till they found the
savages, like wild beasts, spread themselves all over
the place, rummaging every way and every place
they could think of, in search of prey ; and in par-

ROBINSON CRUSOE 109

ticular for the people, of whom, now, it plainly-
appeared they had intelligence.

The two Englishmen seeing this, thinking them-
selves not secure where they stood, because it was
likely some of the wild people might come that
way, and they might come too many together,
thought it proper to make another retreat about
half a mile farther; believing, as it afterwards hap-
pened, that the farther they strolled the fewer
would be together.

CHAPTER VII

THEIR next halt was at the entrance into a very
thick-grown part of the woods, and where an
old trunk of a tree stood, which was hollow and
vastly large ; and in this tree they both took their
standing, resolving to see there what might offer.
They had not stood there long, before two of the
savages appeared running directly that way, as if
they already had notice where they stood, and
were coming up to attack them ; and a little way
farther they espied three more coming after them,
and five more beyond them, all coming the same
way : besides which, they saw seven or eight more
at a distance, running another way ; for, in a word,
they ran every way, like sportsmen beating for their
game.

The poor men were now in great perplexity
whether they should stand and keep their posture,
or fly ; but, after a very short debate with them-
selves, they considered that, if the savages ranged
the country thus before help came, they might per-
haps find out their retreat in the woods, and then

ROBINSON CRUSOE iii

all would be lost: so they resolved to stand them
there ; and if they were too many to deal with,
then they would get up to the top of the tree, from
whence they doubted not to defend themselves,
fire excepted, as long as their ammunition lasted,
though all the savages that were landed, which was
near fifty, were to attack them.

Having resolved upon this, they next considered
whether they should fire at the first two, or wait
for the three, and so take the middle party, by
which the two and the five that followed would be
separated : at length they resolved to let the first
two pass by, unless they should spy them in the
tree, and come to attack them. The first two sav-
ages confirmed them also in this resolution by turn-
ing a little from them towards another part of the
wood ; but the three, and the five after them, came
forward directly to the tree, as if they had known the
Englishmen were there. Seeingthemcomesostraight
toward them, they resolved to take them in a line
as they came ; and as they resolved to fire but one at
a time, perhaps the first shot might hit them all
three : for which purpose the man who was to fire
put three or four small bullets into his piece ; and
having a fair loophole, as it were, from a broken
hole in the tree, he took a sure aim, without being
seen, waiting till they were within about thirty yards
of the tree, so that he could not miss.

While they were thus waiting, and the savages
came on, they plainly saw that one of the three was
the runaway savage that had escaped from them ;

112 THE ADVENTURES OF

and they both knew him distinctly, and resolved
that, if possible, he should not escape, though they
should both fire; so the other stood ready with his
piece, that if he did not drop at the first shot, he
should be sure to have a second. But the first was
too good a marksman to miss his aim; for as
the savages kept near one another, a little behind,
in a line, he fired, and hit two of them directly:
the foremost was killed outright, being shot in the
head ; the second, which was the runaway Indian,
was shot through the body, and fell, but was not
quite dead ; and the third had a little scratch in
the shoulder, perhaps by the same ball that went
through the body of the second ; and being dread-
fully frightened, though not so much hurt, sat down
upon the ground, screaming and yelling in a hide-
ous manner.

The five that were behind, more frightened with
the noise than sensible of the danger, stood still at
first : for the woods made the sound a thousand
times bigger than it really was, the echoes rattling
from one side to another, and the fowls rising from
all parts, screaming, and every sort making a dif-
ferent noise according to their kind ; just as it was
when I fired the first gun that perhaps was ever
shot off in the island.

However, all being silent again, and they, not
knowing what the matter was, came on uncon-
cerned, till they came to the place where their com-
panions lay, in a condition miserable enough ; and,
here the poor ignorant creatures, not sensible that

ROBINSON CRUSOE 113

they were within reach of the same mischief, stood
all of a huddle over the wounded man, talking, and
as may be supposed, inquiring of him how he came
to be hurt; and who, it is very rational to believe,
told them that a flash of fire first, and immediately
after that thunder from their gods, had killed those
two and wounded him : this, I say, is rational ; for
nothing is more certain than that, as they saw no
man near them, so they had never heard a gun in
all their lives, nor so much as heard of a gun;
neither knew they anything of killing and wound-
ing at a distance with fire and bullets : if they had,
one might reasonably believe they would not have
stood so unconcerned in viewing the fate of their
fellows, without some apprehensions of their own.

Our two men, though, as they confessed to me,
it grieved them to be obliged to kill so many poor
creatures, who, at the same time, had no notion
of their danger; yet, having them all thus in their
power, and the first having loaded his piece again,
resolved to let fly both together among them ; and
singling out, by agreement, which to aim at, they
shot together, and killed, or very much wounded,
four of them ; the fifth, frightened even to death,
though not hurt, fell with the rest; so that our men,
seeing them all fall together, thought they had killed
them all.

The belief that the savages were all killed made
our two men come boldly out from the tree before
they had charged their guns, which was a wrong
step ; and they were under some surprise when they

114 THE ADVENTURES OF

came to the place, and found no less than four of
them alive, and of them two very little hurt, and
one not at all : this obliged them to fall upon them
with the stocks of their muskets; and first they
made sure of the runaway savage, that had been
the cause of all the mischief, and of another that
was hurt in the knee, and put them out of their
pain : then the man that was hurt not at all came
and kneeled down to them, with his two hands held
up, and made piteous moans to them, by gestures
and signs, for his life, but could not say one word
to them that they could understand. However,
they made signs to him to sit down at the foot of
a tree hard by; and one of the Englishmen, with a
piece of rope twined, which he had by great chance
in his pocket, tied his two hands behind him, and
there they left him : and with what speed they could
made after the other two, which were gone before,
fearing they, or any more of them, should find the
way to their covered place in the woods, where their
wives, and the few goods they had left, lay. They
came once in sight of the two men, but it was at
a great distance ; however, they had the satisfaction
to see them cross over a valley towards the sea,
quite the contrary way from that which led to their
retreat, which they were afraid of; and being satis-
fied with that, they went back to the tree where
they left their prisoner, who, as they supposed, was
delivered by his comrades, for he was gone, and the
two pieces of rope-yarn, with which they had bound
him, lay just at the foot of the tree.

ROBINSON CRUSOE 115

They were now in as great concern as before,
not knowing what course to take, or how near the
enemy might be, or in what numbers: so they
resolved to go away to the place where their wives
were, to see if all was well there, and to make them
easy, who were in fright enough, to be sure ; for
though the savages were their own countryfolk, yet
they were most terribly afraid of them, and perhaps
the more for the knowledge they had of them.

When they came there, they found the savages
had been in the wood, and very near that place,
but had not found it: for it was indeed inaccessible,
by the trees standing so thick, as before, unless the
persons seeking it had been directed by those that
knew it, which these did not: they found, there-
fore, everything very safe, only the women in a ter-
rible fright. While they were here, they had the
comfort to have seven of the Spaniards come to
their assistance: the other ten, with their servants,
and old Friday, I mean Friday's father, were gone
in a body to defend their bower, and the corn
and cattle that was kept there, in case the savages
should have roved over to that side of the country ;
but they did not spread so far. With the seven
Spaniards came one of the three savages who, as I
said, were their prisoners formerly ; and with them
also came the savage whom the Englishmen had
left bound hand and foot at the tree: for it seems
they came that way, saw the slaughter of the seven
men, and unbound the eighth, and brought him
along with them ; where, however, they were obliged

ii6 THE ADVENTURES OF

to bind him again, as they had the two others who
were left when the third ran away.

The prisoners now began to be a burthen to
them ; and they were so afraid of their escaping that
they were once resolving to kill them all, believing
they were under an absolute necessity to do so for
their own preservation. However, the Spaniard
governor would not consent to it; but ordered, for
the present, that they should be sent out of the way,
to my old cave in the valley, and be kept there,
with two Spaniards to guard them, and give them
food for their subsistence, which was done ; and
they were bound there hand and foot for that night.

When the Spaniards came, the two Englishmen
were so encouraged that they could not satisfy them-
selves to stay any longer there; but taking five of
the Spaniards and themselves, with four muskets
and a pistol among them, and two stout quarter-
staves, away they went in quest of the savages. And
first they came to the tree where the men lay that
had been killed; but it was easy to see that some
more of the savages had been there, for they had
attempted to carry their dead men away, and had
dragged two of them a good way, but had given it
over. From thence they advanced to the first rising
ground, where they had stood and seen their camp
destroyed, and where they had the mortification
still to see some of the smoke: but neither could
they here see any of the savages. They then re-
solved, though with all possible caution, to go for-
ward towards their ruined plantation ; but a little

ROBINSON CRUSOE 117

before they came thither, coming in sight of the
sea-shore, they saw plainly the savages all embarked
again in their canoes, in order to be gone. They
seemed sorry, at first, that there was no way to come
at them to give them a parting blow; but, upon the
whole, they were very well satisfied to be rid of
them.

The poor Englishmen being now twice ruined,
and all their improvements destroyed, the rest all
agreed to come and help them to rebuild, and to
assist them with needful supplies. Their three coun-
trymen, who were not yet noted for having the
least inclination to do any good, yet as soon as they
heard of it (for they living remote eastward, knew
nothing of the matter till all was over), came and
ofl^ered their help and assistance, and did, very
friendly, work for several days, to restore their hab-
itation, and make necessaries for them. And thus,
in a little time, they were set upon their legs
again.

About two days after this they had the further
satisfaction of seeing three of the savages* canoes
come driving on shore, and, at some distance from
them, two drowned men: by which they had rea-
son to believe that they had met with a storm at
sea, which had overset some of them; for It had
blown very hard the night after they went off.

However, as some might miscarry, so, on the
other hand, enough of them escaped to Inform the
rest, as well of what they had done as of what had
happened to them, and to whet them on to another

ii8 THE ADVENTURES OF

enterprise of the same nature ; which they, it seems,
resolved to attempt, with sufficient force to carry
all before them : for except what the first man had
told them of inhabitants, they could say little of
it of their own knowledge, for they never saw one
man; and the fellow being killed that had affirmed
it, they had no other witness to confirm it to them.

It was five or six months after this before they
heard any more of the savages, in which time our
men were in hopes they had either forgot their
former bad luck or given over hopes of better ;
when, on a sudden, they were invaded with a most
formidable fleet of no less than eight-and-twenty
canoes, full of savages, armed with bows and ar-
rows, great clubs, wooden swords, and such-like
engines of war; and they brought such numbers
with them that, in short, it put all our people into
the utmost consternation.

As they came on shore in the evening, and at
the easternmost side of the island, our men had
that night to consult and consider what to do ; and,
in the first place, knowing that their being entirely
concealed was their only safety before, and would
be much more so now, while the number of their
enemies was so great, they therefore resolved, first
of all, to take down the huts which were built for
the two Englishmen, and drive away their goats
to the old cave ; because they supposed the sav-
ages would go directly thither, as soon as it was
day, to play the old game over again, though they
did not now land within two leagues of it. In the

ROBINSON CRUSOE 119

next place, they drove away all the flocks of goats
they had at the old bower, as I called it, which
belonged to the Spaniards; and, in short, left as
little appearance of inhabitants anywhere as was
possible: and the next morning early they posted
themselves, with all their force, at the plantation
of the two men, to wait for their coming. As they
guessed, so it happened : these new invaders, leav-
ing their canoes at the east end of the island, came
ranging along the shore, directly towards the place,
to the number of two hundred and fifty, as near
as our men could judge. Our army was but small,
indeed ; but that which was worse, they had not
arms for all their number neither. The whole ac-
count, it seems, stood thus : first, as to men, seven-
teen Spaniards, five Englishmen, old Friday, or
Friday's father, the three slaves taken with the
women, who proved very faithful, and three other
slaves, who lived with the Spaniards. To arm
these, they had eleven muskets, five pistols, three
fowling-pieces, five muskets or fowling-pieces
which were taken by me from the mutinous sea-
men whom I reduced, two swords, and three old
halberds.

To their slaves they did not give either musket
or fusee, but they had every one a halberd, or a
long staff, like a quarter-staff, with a great spike of
iron fastened into each end of it, and by his side
a hatchet ; also every one of our men had a hatchet.
Two of the women could not be prevailed upon
but they would come into the fight, and they had

I20 THE ADVENTURES OF

bows and arrows, which the Spaniards had taken
from the savages when the first action happened,
which I have spoken of, where the Indians fought
with one another ; and the women had hatchets too.

The Spaniard governor, whom I have described
so often, commanded the whole; and Will Atkins,
who, though a dreadful fellow for wickedness, was
a most daring, bold fellow, commanded under him.
The savages came forward like lions; and our men,
which was the worst of their fate, had no advant-
age in their situation; only that Will Atkins, who
now proved a most useful fellow, with six men,
was planted just behind a small thicket of bushes,
as an advanced guard, with orders to let the first
of them pass by, and then fire into the middle of
them, and as soon as he had fired, to make his
retreat as nimbly as he could round a part of the
wood, and so come in behind the Spaniards, where
they stood, having a thicket of trees before them.

When the savages came on they ran straggling
about every way in heaps, out of all manner of
order, and Will Atkins let about fifty of them pass
by him ; then seeing the rest come in a very thick
throng, he orders three of his men to fire, having
loaded their muskets with six or seven bullets
apiece, about as big as large pistol-bullets. How
many they killed or wounded they knew not, but
the consternation and surprise was inexpressible
among the savages; they were frightened to the
last degree to hear such a dreadful noise, and see
their men killed, and others hurt, but see nobody

ROBINSON CRUSOE 121

that did it; when, in the middle of their fright.
Will Atkins and his other three let fly again
among the thickest of them ; and in less than a min-
ute the first three being loaded again, gave them
a third volley.

Had Will Atkins and his men retired immedi-
ately, as soon as they had fired, as they were ordered
to do, or had the rest of the body been at hand, to
have poured in their shot continually, the savages
had been effectually routed; for the terror that was
among them came principally from this, viz., that
they were killed by the gods with thunder and
lightning, and could see nobody that hurt them ;
but Will Atkins, staying to load again, discovered
the cheat ; some of the savages, who were at a dis-
tance spying them, came upon them behind; and
though Atkins and his men fired at them also,
two or three times,and killed above twenty, retiring
as fast as they could, yet they wounded Atkins
himself, and killed one of his fellow-Englishmen,
with their arrows, as they did afterwards one Span-
iard, and one of the Indian slaves who came with
the women. This slave was a most gallant fellow,
and fought most desperately, killing five of them
with his own hand, having no weapon but one of
the armed staves and a hatchet.

Our men being thus hard laid at, Atkins wound-
ed, and two other men killed, retreated to a rising
ground in the wood ; and the Spaniards, after firing
three volleys upon them, retreated also ; for their
number was so great, and they were so desperate,

122 THE ADVENTURES OF

that though above fifty of them were killed, and
more than as many wounded, yet they came on in
the teeth of our men, fearless of danger, and shot
their arrows like a cloud ; and it was observed that
their wounded men, who were not quite disabled,
were made outrageous by their wounds, and fought
like madmen.

When our men retreated, they left the Spaniard
and the Englishman that were killed behind them ;
and the savages, when they came up to them,
killed them over again in a wretched manner,
breaking their arms, legs, and heads, with their
clubs and wooden swords, like true savages; but
finding our men were gone, they did not seem to
pursue them, but drew themselves up in a ring,
which is, it seems, their custom, and shouted twice,
in token of their victory ; after which they had the
mortification to see several of their wounded men
fall, dying with the mere loss of blood.

The Spaniard governor having drawn his little
body up together upon a rising ground, Atkins,
though he was wounded, would have had them
march and charge again all together at once ; but
the Spaniard replied, "Senhor Atkins, you see how
their wounded men fight; let them alone till morn-
ing ; all the wounded men will be stiff and sore with
their wounds, and faint with the loss of blood ; and
so we shall have the fewer to engage." This advice
was good ; but Will Atkins replied merrily, " That
is true, senhor, and so shall I too, and that is the
reason I would go on while I am warm." " Well,

ROBINSON CRUSOE 123

Senhor Atkins," says the Spaniard, " you have be-
haved gallantly, and done your part : we will fight
for you, if you cannot come on ; but I think it best
to stay till morning " : so they waited.

But as it was a clear moonlight night, and they
found the savages in great disorder about their dead
and wounded men, and a great noise and hurry
among them where they lay, they afterwards re-
solved to fall upon them in the night ; especially
if they could come to give them but one volley
before they were discovered, which they had a fair
opportunity to do ; for one of the Englishmen, in
whose quarter it was where the fight began, led them
round between the woods and the seaside westward,
and then turning short south, they came so near
where the thickest of them lay that, before they
were seen or heard, eight of them fired in among
them, and did dreadful execution upon them ; in
half a minute more eight others fired after them,
pouring in their small shot in such quantity that
abundance were killed and wounded ; and all this
while they were not able to see who hurt them or
which way to fly.

The Spaniards charged again with the utmost
expedition, and then divided themselves in three
bodies, and resolved to fall in among them all to-
gether. They had in each body eight persons, that
is to say, twenty-two and the two women, who, by
the way, fought desperately. They divided the
fire-arms equally in each party, and so the halberds
and staves. They would have had the women kept

124 THE ADVENTURES OF

back, but they said they were resolved to die with
their husbands. Having thus formed their little
army, they marched out from among the trees, and
came up to the teeth of the enemy, shouting and
hallooing as loud as they could ; the savages stood
all together, but were in the utmost confusion, hear-
ing the noise of our men shouting from three quar-
ters together : they would have fought if they had
seen us ; for as soon as we came near enough to
be seen, some arrows were shot, and poor old Fri-
day was wounded, though not dangerously ; but
our men gave them no time, but, running up to
them, fired among them three ways, and then fell
in with the butt-ends of their muskets, their swords,
armed staves, and hatchets, and laid about them so
well that, in a word, they set up a dismal scream-
ing and howling, flying to save their lives which
way soever they could.

Our men were tired with the execution, and
killed or mortally wounded in the two fights about
one hundred and eighty of them ; the rest, being
frightened out of their wits, scoured through the
woods and over the hills, with all the speed fear
and nimble feet could help them to ; and as we did
not trouble ourselves much to pursue them, they
got all together to the seaside where they landed,
and where their canoes lay. But their disasters
were not at an end yet ; for it blew a terrible storm
of wind that evening from the sea, so that it was
impossible for them to go off; nay, the storm
continuing all night, when the tide came up, their

ROBINSON CRUSOE 125

canoes were most of them driven by the surge of
the sea so high upon the shore that it required in-
finite toil to get them off; and some of them were
even dashed to pieces against the beach, or against
one another.

Our men, though glad of their victory, yet got
little rest that night; but having refreshed them-
selves as well as they could, they resolved to march
to that part of the island where the savages were fled,
and see what posture they were in. This necessarily
led them over the place where the fight had been,
and where they found several of the poor creatures
not quite dead, and yet past recovering life ; a sight
disagreeable enough to generous minds; for a truly
great man, though obliged by the law of battle to
destroy his enemy, takes no delight in his misery.
However, there was no need to give any orders
in this case, for their own savages, who were their
servants, dispatched these poor creatures with their
hatchets.

At length they came in view of the place where
the more miserable remains of the savages* army
lay, where there appeared about a hundred still :
their posture was generally sitting upon the ground,
with their knees up towards their mouth, and the
head put between the two hands, leaning down upon
the knees.

When our men came within two musket-shots of
them, the Spaniard governor ordered two muskets
to be fired, without ball, to alarm them : this he
did, that by their countenance he might know what

126 THE ADVENTURES OF

to expect, viz., whether they were still in heart to
fight, or were so heartily beaten as to be dispirited
and discouraged, and so he might manage accord-
ingly. This stratagem took ; for as soon as the sav-
ages heard the first gun and saw the flash of the
second, they started up upon their feet in the great-
est consternation imaginable : and as our men ad-
vanced swiftly toward them, they all ran screaming
and yelling away, with a kind of howling noise,
which our men did not understand, and had never
heard before : and thus they ran up the hills into
the country.

At first our men had much rather the weather
had been calm, and they had all gone away to sea ; but
they did not then consider that this might probably
have been the occasion of their coming again in such
multitudes as not to be resisted, or, at least, to come
so many, and so often, as would quite desolate the
island, and starve them. Will Atkins, therefore,
who, notwithstanding his wound, kept always with
them, proved the best counsellor in this case : his
advice was to take the advantage that offered, and
clap in between them and their boats and so de-
prive them of the capacity of ever returning any
more to plague the island.

They consulted long about this ; and some were
against it, for fear of making the wretches fly to the
woods and live there desperate, and so they should
have them to hunt like wild beasts, be afraid to stir
out about their business, and have their plantation
continually rifled, all their tame goats destroyed,

ROBINSON CRUSOE 127

and, in short, be reduced to a life of continual dis-
tress.

Will Atkins told them they had better have to
do with a hundred men than with a hundred na-
tions : that as they must destroy their boats, so they
must destroy the men, or be all of them destroyed
themselves. In a word, he showed them the neces-
sity of it so plainly that they all came into it : so
they went to work immediately with the boats, and,
getting some dry wood together from a dead tree,
they tried to set some of them on fire, but they were
so wet that they would not burn ; however, the fire
so burned the upper part that it soon made them
unfit for swimming in the sea as boats. When the
Indians saw what they were about, some of them
came running out of the woods, and, coming as near
as they could to our men, kneeled down and cried,
" Oa, Oa, Waramokoa," and some other words of
their language, which none of the others understood
anything of; but as they made pitiful gestures and
strange noises, it was easy to understand they begged
to have their boats spared, and that they would be
gone, and never come there again. But our men
were now satisfied that they had no way to preserve
themselves, or to save their colony, but effectually to
prevent any of these people from ever going home
again : depending upon this, that if even so much
as one of them got back into their country to tell
the story, the colony was undone : so that, letting
them know that they should not have any mercy,
they fell to work with their canoes, and destroyed

128 THE ADVENTURES OF

them every one that the storm had not destroyed
before ; at the sight of which the savages raised a
hideous cry in the woods, which our people heard
plain enough, after which they ran about the island
like distracted men ; so that, in a word, our men
did not really know at first what to do with them.
Nor did the Spaniards, with all their prudence,
consider that, while they made those people thus
desperate, they ought to have kept a good guard at
the same time upon their plantations ; for though,
it is true, they had driven away their cattle, and the
Indians did not find out their main retreat, I mean
my old castle at the hill, nor the cave in the valley,
yet they found out my plantation at the bower, and
pulled it all to pieces, and all the fences and plant-
ing about it; trod all the corn underfoot, tore up the
vines and grapes, being just then almost ripe, and
did our men an inestimable damage, though to
themselves not one farthing's worth of service.

Though our men were able to fight them upon
all occasions, yet they were in no condition to pursue
them, or hunt them up and down ; for as they were
too nimble of foot for our men, when they found
them single, so our men durst not go abroad single,
for fear of being surrounded with their numbers.
The best was, they had no weapons ; for though
they had bows, they had no arrows left, nor any
materials to make any ; nor had they any edge-tool
or weapon among them.

The extremity and distress they were reduced to
was great and indeed deplorable; but, at the same

Plate XIII

ROBINSON CRUSOE 129

time, our men were also brought to very bad cir-
cumstances by them : for though their retreats were
preserved, yet their provision was destroyed, and
their harvest spoiled; and what to do, or which way
to turn themselves, they knew not. The only re-
fuge they had now was the stock of cattle they had
in the valley by the cave, and some little corn which
grew there, and the plantation of the three Eng-
lishmen, Will Atkins and his comrades, who were
now reduced to two; one of them being killed by
an arrow, which struck him on the side of his head,
just under the temples, so that he never spoke
more: and it was very remarkable that this was the
same barbarous fellow that cut the poor savage
slave with his hatchet, and who afterwards intended
to have murdered the Spaniards.

I looked upon their case to have been worse at
this time than mine was at any time, after I first
discovered the grains of barley and rice, and got
into the manner of planting and raising my corn,
and my tame cattle: for now they had, as I may
say, a hundred wolves upon the island, which would
devour everything they could come at, yet could
be hardly come at themselves.

When they saw what their circumstances were,
the first thing they concluded was that they would,
if possible, drive them up to the farther part of the
island, south-west, that if any more savages came
on shore they might not find one another: then
that they would daily hunt and harass them, and
kill as many of them as they could come at, till they

ijo THE ADVENTURES OF

had reduced their number; and if they could at last
tame them, and bring them to anything, they would
give them corn, and teach them how to plant, and
live upon their daily labour.

In order to this, they so followed them, and so
terrified them with their guns, that in a few days,
if any of them fired a gun at an Indian, if he did
not hit him, yet he would fall down for fear ; and so
dreadfully frightened they were that they kept out
of sight farther and farther; till, at last, our men
following them, and almost every day killing or
wounding some of them, they kept up in the woods
or hollow places so much that it reduced them to
the utmost misery for want of food ; and many
were afterwards found dead in the woods, without
any hurt, absolutely starved to death.

When our men found this, it made their hearts
relent, and pity moved them, especially the Span-
iard governor, who was the most gentleman-like,
generous-minded man that I ever met with in my
life; and he proposed, if possible, to take one of
them alive, and bring him to understand what they
meant, so far as to be able to act as interpreter, and
go among them, and see if they might be brought
to some conditions that might be depended upon,
to save their lives and do us no harm.

It was some while before any of them could be
taken ; but being weak and half-starved, one of
them was at last surprised and made a prisoner. He
was sullen at first, and would neither eat nor drink;
but finding himself kindly used, and victuals given

ROBINSON CRUSOE 131

him, and no violence offered him, he at last grew
tractable, and came to himself. They brought old
Friday to him, who talked often with him, and told
him how kind the others would be to them all;
that they would not only save their lives, but would
give them part of the island to live in, provided
they would give satisfaction that they would keep
in their own bounds and not come beyond it to
injure or prejudice others ; and that they should
have corn given them to plant and make it grow
for their bread, and some bread given them for
their present subsistence; and old Friday bade the
fellow go and talk with the rest of his countrymen,
and see what they said to it ; assuring them that if
they did not agree immediately they should be all
destroyed.

The poor wretches, thoroughly humbled, and
reduced in number to about thirty-seven, closed
with the proposal at the first offer, and begged to
have some food given them ; upon which twelve
Spaniards and two Englishmen, well armed, with
three Indian slaves and old Friday, marched to the
place where they were. The three Indian slaves
carried them a large quantity of bread, some rice
boiled up to cakes and dried in the sun, and three
live goats; and they were ordered to go to the side
of a hill, where they sat down, ate their provisions
very thankfully, and were the most faithful fellows
to their words that could be thought of; for, except
when they came to beg victuals and directions, they
never came out of their bounds: and there they

132 THE ADVENTURES OF

lived when I came to the Island, and I went to see
them.

They had taught them both to plant Corn, make
bread, breed tame goats, and milk them; they
wanted nothing but wives, and they soon would
have been a nation. They were confined to a neck
of land, surrounded with high rocks behind them,
and lying plain towards the sea before them, on the
south-east corner of the island. They had land
enough, and it was very good and fruitful ; about
a mile and a half broad, and three or four miles in
length.

Our men taught them to make wooden spades,
such as I made for myself, and gave among them
twelve hatchets and three or four knives ; and there
they lived the most subjected innocent creatures
that ever were heard of.

After this the colony enjoyed a perfect tranquil-
ity with respect to the savages till I came to re-
visit them, which was about two years after; not
but that, now and then, some canoes of savages
came on shore for their triumphal, unnatural feasts ;
but as they were of several nations, and perhaps
had never heard of those that came before, or the
reason of it, they did not make any search or in-
quiry after their countrymen ; and if they had, it
would have been very hard to have found them out.

Thus, I think, I have given a full account of all
that happened to them till my return, at least, that
was worth notice. The Indians or savages were
wonderfully civilised by them, and they frequently

ROBINSON CRUSOE 133

went among them ; but forbade, on pain of death,
any one of the Indians coming to them, because
they would not have their settlement betrayed
again. One thing was very remarkable, viz., that
they taught the savages to make wicker-work, or
baskets, but they soon outdid their masters; for
they made abundance of most ingenious things
in wicker-work, particularly all sorts of baskets,
sieves, bird-cages, cupboards, etc. ; as also chairs to
sit on, stools, beds, couches, and abundance of other
things, being very ingenious at such work, when
they were once put in the way of it.

My coming was a particular relief to these
people, because we furnished them with knives,
scissors, spades, shovels, pick-axes, and all things
of that kind which they could want. With the help
of those tools they were so very handy that they
came at last to build up their huts, or houses, very
handsomely, raddling or working it up like basket-
work all the way round : which was a very extraor-
dinary piece of ingenuity, and looked very odd, but
was an exceeding good fence, as well against heat
as against all sorts of vermin; and our men were
so taken with it that they got the wild savages to
come and do the like for them; so that when I
came to see the two Englishmen's colonies, they
looked, at a distance, as if they all lived like bees in
a hive. As for Will Atkins, who was now become
a very industrious, useful, and sober fellow, he had
made himself such a tent of basket-work as, I
believe, was never seen ; it was one hundred and

134 THE ADVENTURES OF

twenty paces round on the outside, as I measured
by my steps ; the walls were as close-worked as a
basket, in panels or squares of thirty-two in num-
ber, and very strong, standing about seven feet
high ; in the middle was another not above twenty-
two paces round, but built stronger, being octagon
in its form, and in the eight corners stood eight
very strong posts ; round the top of which he laid
strong pieces, pinned together with wooden pins,
from which he raised a pyramid for a roof of eight
rafters, very handsome, I assure you, and joined
together very well, though he had no nails, and only
a few iron spikes, which he made himself too, out
of the old iron that I had left there ; and, indeed,
this fellow showed abundance of ingenuity in sev-
eral things which he had no knowledge of: he
made him a forge, with a pair of wooden bellows
to blow the fire; he made himself charcoal for his
work ; and he formed out of the iron crows a mid-
dling good anvil to hammer upon: in this manner
he made many things, but especially hooks, staples
and spikes, bolts and hinges.

But, to return to the house. After he had pitched
the roof of his innermost tent, he worked it up
between the rafters with basket-work, so firm, and
thatched that over again so ingeniously with rice-
straw, and over that a large leaf of a tree, which
covered the top, that his house was as dry as if it
had been entiled or slated. Indeed, he owned
that the savages had made the basket-work for
him. The outer circuit was covered as a lean-to, all

ROBINSON CRUSOE 135

round this inner apartment, and long rafters lay
from the thirty-two angles to the top posts of the
inner house, being about twenty feet distant; so
that there was a space like a walk within the outer
wicker wall and without the inner, near twenty
feet wide.

The inner place he partitioned off with the same
wicker-work, but much fairer, and divided into six
apartments, so that he had six rooms on a floor,
and out of every one of these there was a door; first
into the entry, or coming into the main tent, and
another door into the space or walk that was round
it: so that walk was also divided into six equal
parts, which served not only for a retreat, but to
store up any necessaries which the family had occa-
sion for. These six spaces not taking up the whole
circumference, what other apartments the outer
circle had were thus ordered : As soon as you were
in at the door of the outer circle, you had a short
passage straight before you to the door of the inner
house : but on either side was a wicker partition,
and a door in it, by which you went first into
a large room, or storehouse, twenty feet wide,
and about thirty feet long, and through that into
another, not quite so long: so that in the outer
circle were ten handsome rooms, six of which were
only to be come at through the apartments of the
inner tent, and served as closets or retiring-rooms
to the respective chambers of the inner circle; and
four large warehouses, or barns, or what you please
to call them, which went through one another, two

136 THE ADVENTURES OF

on either hand of the passage, that led through
the outer door to the inner tent.

Such a piece of basket-work, I believe, was never
seen in the world, nor a house or tent so neatly-
contrived, much less so built. In this great bee-hive
lived the three families, that is to say. Will Atkins
and his companion ; the third was killed, but his
wife remained, with three children, for she was, it
seems, big with child when he died: and the other
two were not at all backward to give the widow her
full share of everything, I mean as to their corn,
milk, grapes, etc., and when they killed a kid, or
found a turtle on the shore; so that they all lived
well enough ; though it was true, they were not so
industrious as the other two, as has been observed
already.

One thing, however, cannot be omitted, viz.,
that, as for religion, I do not know that there was
anything of that kind among them: they often,
indeed, put one another in mind that there was
a God, by the very common method of seamen,
viz., swearing by his name : nor were their poor
ignorant savage wives much better for having been
married to Christians, as we must call them : for as
they knew very little of God themselves, so they
were utterly incapable of entering into any dis-
course with their wives about a God, or to talk
anything to them concerning religion.

The utmost of all the improvement which I can
say the wives had made from them was, that they
had taught them to speak English pretty well ; and

ROBINSON CRUSOE 137

most of their children, which were near twenty in all,
were taught to speak English too, from their first
learning to speak, though they at first spoke it in
a very broken manner, like their mothers. There
was none of these children above six years old when
I came thither, for it was not much above seven
years that they had fetched these five savage ladies
over; but they had all been pretty fruitful, for they
had all children, more or less ; I think the cook's
mate's wife was big of her sixth child: and the
mothers were all a good sort of well-governed,
quiet, laborious women, modest and decent, help-
ful to one another, mighty observant and subject
to their masters (I cannot call them husbands),
and wanted nothing but to be well instructed in the
Christian religion, and to be legally married ; both
which were happily brought about afterwards by
my means, or, at least, in consequence of my
coming among them.

CHAPTER VIII

HAVING thus given an account of the colony
in general, and pretty much of my runagate
English, I must say something of the Spaniards,
who were the main body of the family, and in whose
story there are some incidents also remarkable
enough.

I had a great many discourses with them about
their circumstances when they were among the
savages. They told me readily that they had no
instances to give of their application or ingenuity
in that country ; that they were a poor, miserable,
dejected handful of people; that if means had been
put into their hands, yet they had so abandoned
themselves to despair, and so sunk under the weight
of their misfortunes, that they thought of nothing
but starving. One of them, a grave and sensible
man, told me he was convinced they were in the
wrong; that it was not the part of wise men to give
themselves up to their misery, but always to take
hold of the helps which reason offered, as well for
present support as for future deliverance : he told

ROBINSON CRUSOE 139

me that grief was the most senseless insignificant
passion in the world, for that it regarded only things
past, which were generally impossible to be recalled,
or to be remedied, but had no views of things to
come, and had no share in anything that looked
like deliverance, but rather added to the affliction
than proposed a remedy; and upon this he re-
peated a Spanish proverb, which, though I cannot
repeat in just the same words that he spoke it in,
yet I remember I made it into an English proverb
of my own, thus :

In trouble to be troubled.

Is to have your trouble doubled.

He ran on then in remarks upon all the little
improvements I had made in my solitude ; my un-
wearied application, as he called it; and how I had
made a condition which in its circumstances was
at first much worse than theirs, a thousand times
more happy than theirs was, even now when they
were all together. He told me it was remarkable
that Englishmen had a greater presence of mind,
in their distress, than any people that ever he met
with : that their unhappy nation and the Portu-
guese were the worst men in the world to struggle
with misfortunes ; for that their first step in dan-
gers, after the common efforts were over, was to
despair, lie down under it, and die, without rous-
ing their thoughts up to proper remedies for
escape.

I told him their case and mine differed exceed-
ingly ; that they were cast upon the shore without

I40 THE ADVENTURES OF

necessaries, without supply of food, or present sus-
tenance till they could provide it ; that, it was true,
I had this disadvantage and discomfort, that I was
alone; but then the supplies I had providentially
thrown into my hands, by the unexpected driving
of the ship on shore, was such a help as would
have encouraged any creature in the world to have
applied himself as I had done. "Senhor," says the
Spaniard, "had we poor Spaniards been in your
case, we should never have got half those things
out of the ship, as you did: nay," says he, "we
should never have found means to have got a raft
to carry them, or to have got the raft on shore
without boat or sail; and how much less should
we have done if any of us had been alone ! " Well,
I desired him to abate his compliment, and go on
with the history of their coming on shore, where
they landed. He told me they unhappily landed
at a place where there were people without pro-
visions ; whereas, had they had the common sense
to have put off to sea again, and gone to another
island a little farther, they had found provisions,
though without people ; there being an island that
way, as they had been told, where there were pro-
visions, though no people; that is to say, that the
Spaniards of Trinidad had frequently been there,
and had filled the island with goats and hogs at
several times, where they had bred in such multi-
tudes, and where turtle and sea-fowls were in such
plenty, that they could have been in no want of
flesh, though they had found no bread; whereas

ROBINSON CRUSOE 141

here they were only sustained with a few roots and
herbs, which they understood not and which had
no substance in them, and which the inhabitants
gave them sparingly enough; and who could treat
them no better, unless they would turn cannibals,
and eat men's flesh, which was the great dainty of
their country.

They gave me an account how many ways they
strove to civilize the savages they were with, and
to teach them rational customs in the ordinary way
of living, but in vain; and how they retorted it
upon them, as unjust, that they, who came there
for assistance and support, should attempt to set up
for instructors of those that gave them food; inti-
mating, it seems, that none should set up for the
instructors of others but those who could live
without them.

They gave me dismal accounts of the extremities
they were driven to; how sometimes they were
many days without any food at all, the island they
were upon being inhabited by a sort of savages that
lived more indolent, and for that reason were less
supplied with the necessaries of life, than they had
reason to believe others were in the same part of
the world ; and yet they found that these savages
were less ravenous and voracious than those who
had better supplies of food. Also, they added, they
could not but see with what demonstrations of wis-
dom and goodness the governing providence of God
directs the events of things in the world; which,
they said, appeared in their circumstances; for if,

142 THE ADVENTURES OF

pressed by the hardships they were under, and the
barrenness of the country where they were, they
had searched after a better to live in, they had then
been out of the way of the relief that happened to
them by my means.

They then gave me an account how the savages
whom they lived among expected them to go out
with them into their wars ; and, it was true, that
as they had fire-arms with them, had they not had
the disaster to lose their ammunition, they should
have been serviceable not only to their friends, but
have made themselves terrible both to friends and
enemies'; but being without powder and shot, and
yet in a condition that they could not in reason
deny to go out with their landlords to their wars,
so, when they came into the field of battle, they
were in a worse condition than the savages them-
selves ; for they had neither bows nor arrows, nor
could they use those the savages gave them: so
they could do nothing but stand still, and be
wounded with arrows, till they came up to the teeth
of their enemy ; and then, indeed, the three hal-
berds they had were of use to them; and they would
often drive a whole little army before them with
those halberds, and sharpened sticks put into the
muzzles of their muskets: but that, for all this,
they were sometimes surrounded with multitudes,
and in great danger from their arrows, till at last
they found the way to make themselves large tar-
gets of wood, which they covered with skins of
wild beasts, whose names they knew not, and these

ROBINSON CRUSOE 143

covered them from the arrows of the savages : yet,
notwithstanding these, they were sometimes in
great danger; and five of them were once knocked
down together with the clubs of the savages, which
was the time when one of them was taken prisoner,
that is to say, the Spaniard whom I had relieved;
that at first they thought he had been killed ; but
when they afterwards heard he was taken prisoner,
they were under the greatest grief imaginable, and
would willingly have all ventured their lives to
have rescued him.

They told me that when they were so knocked
down, the rest of their company rescued them, and
stood over them fighting till they were come to
themselves, ail but him who they thought had been
dead ; and then they made their way with their hal-
berds and pieces, standing close together in a line,
through a body of above a thousand savages, beat-
ing down all that came in their way, got the victory
over their enemies, but to their great sorrow, be-
cause it was with the loss of their friend, whom the
other party, finding him alive, carried off, with
some others, as I gave an account before.

They described most affectionately how they
were surprised with joy at the returnof their friend
and companion in misery, who, they thought, had
been devoured by wild beasts of the worst kind,
viz., by wild men ; and yet how more and more
they were surprised with the account he gave them
of his errand, and that there was a Christian in any
place near, much more one that was able, and had

144 THE ADVENTURES OF

humanity enough, to contribute to their deliver-
ance.

They described how they were astonished at the
sight of the relief I sent them, and at the appear-
ance of loaves of bread, things they had not seen
since their coming to that miserable place ; how
often they crossed it and blessed it as bread sent
from Heaven; and what a reviving cordial it was
to their spirits to taste it, as also the other things
I had sent for their supply; and, after all, they
would have told me something of the joy they
were in at the sight of a boat and pilots, to carry
them away to the person and place from whence
all these new comforts came, but it was impossible
to express it by words, for their excessive joy nat-
urally driving them to unbecoming extravagances,
they had no way to describe them but by telling
me they bordered upon lunacy, having no way to
give vent to their passions suitable to the sense
that was upon them; that in some it worked one
way, and in some another; and that some of them,
through a surprise of joy, would burst into tears,
others be stark mad, and others immediately faint.
This discourse extremely affected me, and called
to my mind Friday's ecstasy when he met his father,
and the poor people's ecstasy when I took them up
at sea after their ship was on fire; the joy of the
mate of the ship when he found himself delivered
in the place where he expected to perish; and my
own joy, when, after twenty-eight years' captivity,
I found a good ship ready to carry me to my own

ROBINSON CRUSOE 145

country. All these things made me more sensible
of the relation of these poor men, and more affected
with it.

Having thus given a view of the state of things
as I found them, I must relate the heads of what
I did for these people, and the condition in which
I left them. It was their opinion, and mine too,
that they would be troubled no more with the
savages, or, if they were, they would be able to cut
them off if they were twice as many as before ; so
they had no concern about that. Then I entered
into a serious discourse with the Spaniard, whom I
call governor, about their stay in the island ; for as
I was not come to carry any of them off, so it would
not be just to carry off some and leave others, who,
perhaps, would be unwilling to stay if their strength
was diminished. On the other hand, I told them I
came to establish them there, not to remove them ;
and then I let them know that I had brought with
me relief of sundry kinds for them ; that I had been
at a great charge to supply them with all things
necessary as well for their convenience as their
defence; and that I had such and such particular
persons with me as well to increase and recruit their
number as by the particular necessary employments
which they were bred to, being artificers, to assist
them in those things in which at present they were
in want.

They were all together when I talked thus to
them ; and before I delivered to them the stores I
had brought, I asked them, one by one, if they had

146 THE ADVENTURES OF

entirely forgot and buried the first animosities that
had been among them, and would shake hands with
one another, and engage in a strict friendship and
union of interest, that so there might be no more
misunderstandings and jealousies.

Will Atkins, with abundance of frankness and
good humour, said they had met with affliction
enough to make them all sober, and enemies enough
to make them all friends; that, for his part, he
would live and die with them; and was so far
from designing anything against the Spaniards that
he owned they had done nothing to him but what
his own mad humour made necessary, and what he
would have done, and perhaps worse, in their case ;
and that he would ask them pardon, if I desired
it, for the foolish and brutish things he had done
to them, and was very willing and desirous of liv-
ing in terms of entire friendship and union with
them, and would do anything that lay in his power
to convince them of it : and as for going to Eng-
land, he cared not if he did not go thither these
twenty years.

The Spaniards said they had, indeed, at first dis-
armed and excluded Will Atkins and his two coun-
trymen for their ill conduct, as they had let me
know, and they appealed to me for the necessity
they were under to do so ; but that Will Atkins
had behaved himself so bravely in the great fight
they had with the savages, and on several occasions
since, and had showed himself so faithful to, and
concerned for, the general interest of them all, that

ROBINSON CRUSOE 147

they had forgotton all that was past, and thought
he merited as much to be trusted with arms, and
supplied with necessaries, as any of them : and they
had testified their satisfaction in him, by commit-
ting the command to him, next to the governor
himself; and as they had entire confidence in him,
and all his countrymen, so they acknowledged they
had merited that confidence by all the methods
that honest men could merit to be valued and
trusted ; and they most heartily embraced the occa-
sion of giving me this assurance, that they would
never have any interest separate from one another.
Upon these frank and open declarations of
friendship, we appointed the next day to dine all
together; and, indeed, we made a splendid feast.
I caused the ship's cook and his mate to come on
shore and dress our dinner, and the old cook's
mate we had on shore assisted. We brought on
shore six pieces of good beef, and four pieces of
pork, out of the ship's provision, with our punch-
bowl, and materials to fill it ; and, in particular, I
gave them ten bottles of French claret, and ten
bottles of English beer : things that neither the
Spaniards nor the English had tasted for many
years, and which, it may be supposed, they were
very glad of. The Spaniards added to our feast
five whole kids, which the cooks roasted : and three
of them were sent, covered up close, on board the
ship to the seamen, that they might feast on fresh
meat from on shore, as we did with their salt meat
from on board.

148 THE ADVENTURES OF

After this feast, at which we were very innocently-
merry, I brought out my cargo of goods : wherein,
that there might be no dispute about dividing, I
showed them that there was a sufficiency for them
all, desiring that they might all take an equal quan-
tity of the goods that were for wearing: that is to
say, equal when made up. As, first, I distributed
linen sufficient to make every one of them four
shirts, and, at the Spaniards' request, afterwards
made them up six; these were exceedingly comfort-
able to them, having been what, as I may say, they
had long since forgot the use of, or what it was to
wear them. I allotted the thin English stuffs, which
I mentioned before, to make everyone a light coat
like a frock, which I judged fittest for the heat of
the season, cool and loose ; and ordered that when-
ever they decayed they should make more, as they
thought fit: the like for pumps, shoes, stockings,
hats, etc.

I cannot express what pleasure, what satisfaction,
sat upon the countenances of all these poor men
when they saw the care I had taken of them, and how
well I had furnished them. They told me I was a fa-
ther to them ; and that, having such a correspondent
as I was in so remote a part of the world, it would
make them forget that they were left in a desolate
place ; and they all voluntarily engaged to me not
to leave the place without my consent.

Then I presented to them the people I had
brought with me, particularly the tailor, the smith,
and the two carpenters, all of them most necessary

ROBINSON CRUSOE 149

people ; but, above all, my general artificer, than
whom they could not name anything that was more
useful to them : and the tailor, to show his concern
for them, went to work immediately, and, with my
leave, made them every one a shirt, the first thing
he did ; and, which was still more, he taught the
women not only how to sew and stitch, and use
the needle, but made them assist to make the shirts
for their husbands, and for all the rest.

As to the carpenters, I scarce need mention how
useful they were; for they took to pieces all my
clumsy, unhandy things, and made them clever con-
venient tables, stools, bedsteads, cupboards, lockers,
shelves, and everything they wanted of that kind.
But, to let them see how nature made artifiters at
first, I carried the carpenter to see Will Atkins's
basket-house, as I called it: and they both owned
they never saw an instance of such natural ingenu-
ity before, nor anything so regular and so hand-
ily built, at least of its kind: and one of them,
when he saw it, after musing a good while, turning
about to me, " I am sure," says he, " that man has
no need of us ; you need do nothing but give him
tools/'

Then I brought them out all my store of tools,
and gave every man a digging-spade, a shovel, and
a rake, for we had no harrows or ploughs; and to
every separate place a pick-axe, a crow, a broadaxe,
and a saw ; also appointing that, as often as any
were broken or worn out, they should be supplied,
without grudging, out of the general stores that I

•150 THE ADVENTURES OF

left behind. Nails, staples, hinges, hammers, chisels,
knives, scissors, and all sorts of iron-work, they
had without tale, as they required: for no man
would take more than he wanted, and he must be
a fool that would waste or spoil them on any
account whatever; and, for the use of the smith,
I left two tons of unwrought iron for a supply.

My magazine of powder and arms which I
brought them was such, even to profusion, that
they could not but rejoice at them ; for now they
could march as I used to do, with a musket upon
each shoulder, if there was occasion; and were able
to fight a thousand savages, if they had but some
little advantages of situation, which also they could
not miss, if they had occasion.

I carried on shore with me the young man whose
mother was starved to death, and the maid also:
she was a sober, well-educated, religious young
woman, and behaved so inoffensively, that every
one gave her a good word; she had, indeed, an un-
happy life with us, there being no woman in the
ship but herself, but she bore it with patience. After
a while, seeing things so well ordered, and in so
fine a way of thriving upon my island, and consid-
ering that they had neither business nor acquaint-
ance in the East Indies, or reason for taking so
long a voyage ; I say, considering all this, both of
them came to me, and desired I would give them
leave to remain on the island, and be entered
among my family, as they called it. I agreed to this
readily ; and they had a little plot of ground allot-

.-LATE XIV

ROBINSON CRUSOE 151

ted to them, where they had three tents or houses
set up, surrounded with a basket-work, pallisadoed
like Atkinses, adjoining to his plantation. Their
tents were contrived so that they had each of them
a room apart to lodge in, and a middle tent, like a
great storehouse, to lay their goods in, and to eat
and drink in. And now the other two Englishmen
removed their habitation to the same place ; and so
the island was divided into three colonies, and no
more, viz., the Spaniards, with old Friday, and the
first servants, at my old habitation under the hill,
which was, in a word, the capital city ; and where
they had so enlarged and extended their works, as
well under as on the outside of the hill, that they
lived, though perfectly concealed, yet full at large.
Never was there such a little city in a wood, and
so hid, in any part of the world ; for I verily be-
lieve a thousand men might have ranged the island
a month, and, if they had not known there was such
a thing, and looked on purpose for it, they would
not have found it; for the trees stood so thick and
so close, and grew so fast-woven one into another,
that nothing but cutting them down first could dis-
cover the place, except the only two narrow en-
trances where they went in and out could be found,
which was not very easy: one of them was close
down at the water's edge, on the side of the creek,
and it was afterwards above two hundred yards to
the place; and the other was up a ladder at twice,
as I have already formerly described it ; and they
had also a large wood thick-planted on the top of

152 THE ADVENTURES OF

the hill, containing above an acre, which grew
apace, and concealed the place from all discovery
there, with only one narrow place between two
trees, not easily to be discovered, to enter on that
side.

The other colony was that of Will Atkins, where
there were four families of Englishmen, I mean those
I had left there, with their wives and children ; three
savages that were slaves ; the widow and the children
of the Englishman that was killed; the young man
and the maid ; and, by the way, we made a wife of
her before we went away. There was also the two
carpenters and the tailor, whom I brought with me
for them; also the smith, who was a very necessary
man to them, especially as a gunsmith, to take care
of their arms ; and my other man, whom I called
"Jack-of-all-trades," who was in himself as good
almost as twenty men ; for he was not only a very
ingenious fellow, but a very merry fellow ; and be-
fore I went away we married him to the honest maid
that came with the youth in the ship I mentioned
before.

And now I speak of marrying, it brings me nat-
urally to say something of the French ecclesiastic
that I had brought with me out of the ship's crew
whom I took up at sea. It is true, this man was a
Roman, and perhaps it may give offence to some
hereafter if I leave anything extraordinary upon
record of a man whom, before I begin, I must (to
set him out in just colours) represent in terms very
much to his disadvantage, in the account of Pro-

ROBINSON CRUSOE 153

testants : as, first, that he was a Papist ; secondly, a
Popish priest; and thirdly, a French Popish priest.
But justice demands of me to give him a due char-
acter ; and I must say he was a grave, sober, pious,
and most religious person; exact in his life, extensive
in his charity, and exemplary in almost everything
he did. What then can any one say against being
very sensible of the value of such a man, notwith-
standing his profession ? though it may be my opin-
ion, perhaps, as well as the opinion of others who
shall read this, that he was mistaken.

The first hour that I began to converse with him
after he had agreed to go with me to the East Indies,
I found reason to delight exceedingly in his conver-
sation ; and he first began with me about religion in
the most obliging manner imaginable. " Sir," says
he, " you have not only under God [and at that he
crossed his breast] saved my life, but you have ad-
mitted me to go this voyage in your ship, and by your
obliging civility have taken me into your family, giv-
ing me an opportunity of free conversation. Now,
sir, you see by my habit what my profession is, and
I guess by your nation what yours is ; I may think
it is my duty, and doubtless it Is so, to use my
utmost endeavours, on all occasions, to bring all
the souls I can to the knowledge of the truth, and
to embrace the Catholic doctrine; but as I am here
under your permission, and in your family, I am
bound, in justice to your kindness, as well as in
decency and good manners, to be under your
government ; and therefore I shall not, without

154 THE ADVENTURES OF

your leave, enter Into any debate on the points of
religion in which we may not agree, farther than
you shall give me leave."

I told him his carriage was so modest that I could
not but acknowledge it ; that it was true we were
such people as they called heretics, but that he was
not the first Catholic I had conversed with without
falling into inconveniences, or carrying the questions
to any height in debate ; that he should not find him-
self the worse used for being of a different opinion
from us ; and if we did not converse without any
dislike on either side, it should be his fault, not
ours.

He replied that he thought all our conversation
might be easily separated from disputes ; that it was
not his business to cap principles with every man
he conversed with ; and that he rather desired me
to converse with him as a gentleman than as a re-
ligionist ; and that, if I would give him leave at any
time to discourse upon religious subjects, he would
readily comply with it, and that he did not doubt
but I would allow him also to defend his own
opinions as well as he could ; but that, without my
leave, he would not break in upon me with any such
thing. He told me farther that he would not cease
to do all that became him, in his office as a priest
as well as a private Christian, to procure the good
of the ship, and the safety of all that was in her ;
and though, perhaps, we would not join with him,
and he could not pray with us, he hoped he might
pray for us, which he would do upon all occasions.

ROBINSON CRUSOE 155

In this manner we conversed ; and, as he was of
the most obliging, gentleman-like behaviour, so he
was, if I may be allowed to say so, a man of good
sense, and, as I believe, of great learning.

He gave me a most diverting account of his life,
and of the many extraordinary events of it ; of
many adventures which had befallen him in the
few years that he had been abroad in the world ; and
particularly this was very remarkable, viz., that in
the voyage he was now engaged in he had the mis-
fortune to be five times shipped and unshipped,
and never to go to the place whither any of the
ships he was in were at first designed. That his
first intent was to have gone to Martinico, and that
he went on board a ship bound thither at St. Malo :
but, being forced into Lisbon by bad weather, the
ship received some damage by running aground in
the mouth of the river Tagus, and was obliged to
unload her cargo there ; but finding a Portuguese
ship -there bound to the Madeiras, and ready to
sail, and supposing he should easily meet with a
vessel there bound to Martinico, he went on board,
in order to sail to the Madeiras ; but the master
of the Portuguese ship, being but an indifferent
mariner, had been out of his reckoning, and they
drove to Fayal ; where, however, he happened to
find a very good market for his cargo, which was
corn, and therefore resolved not to go to the Ma-
deiras, but to load salt at the Isle of May, and to
go away to Newfoundland. He had no remedy in
this exigence but to go with the ship, and had a

156 ROBINSON CRUSOE

pretty good voyage as far as the Banks (so they call
the place where they catch the fish) ; where, meet-
ing with a French ship bound from France to
Quebec, in the river of Canada, and from thence
to Martinico, to carry provisions, he thought he
should have an opportunity to complete his first
design ; but when he came to Quebec the master
of the ship died, and the vessel proceeded no
farther: so the next voyage he shipped himself for
France, in the ship that was burned when we took
them up at sea; and then shipped with us for the
East Indies, as I have already said. Thus he had
been disappointed in five voyages, all, as I may call
it, in one voyage, besides what I shall have occa-
sion to mention farther of the same person.

But I shall not make digression into other
men's stories, which have no relation to my own :
I return to what concerns our affairs in the island.

CHAPTER IX

HE came to me one morning, for he lodged
among us all the while we were upon the
island, and it happened to be just when I was going
to visit the Englishmen's colony, at the farthest
part of the island; I say, he came to me, and told
me with a very grave countenance that he had for
two or three days desired an opportunity of some
discourse with me, which he hoped would not be
displeasing to me, because he thought it might in
some measure correspond with my general design,
which was the prosperity of my new colony, and
perhaps might put it, at least more than he thought
it was, in the way of God's blessing.

I looked a little surprised at the last part of his
discourse, and, turning a little short, " How, sir,"
said I, "can it be said that we are not in the way
of God's blessing, after such visible assistances and
wonderful deliverances as we have seen here, and
of which I have given you a large account ? " " If
you had pleased sir," said he, with a world of mod-
esty, and yet with great readiness, " to have heard

158 THE ADVENTURES OF

me you would have found no room to be displeased,
much less to think so hard of me, that I should
suggest that you have not had wonderful assist-
ances and deliverances ; and I hope, on your behalf,
that you are in the way of God's blessing, as your
design is exceeding good, and will prosper: but,
sir, though it were more so than is even possible
to you, yet there may be some among you that are
not equally right in their actions ; and you know
that, in the story of the children of Israel, one Achan
in the camp removed God's blessing from them,
and turned his hand so against them that six-and-
thirty of them, though not concerned in the crime,
were the objects of divine vengeance, and bore the
weight of that punishment."

I was sensibly touched with his discourse, and
told him his influence was so just, and the whole
design seemed so sincere, and was really so relig-
ious in its own nature, that I was very sorry I had
interrupted him, and begged him to go on : and
in the mean time, because it seemed that what we
had both to say might take up some time, I told
him I was going to the Englishmen's plantations,
and asked him to go with me, and we might dis-
course of it by the way. He told me he would the
more willingly wait on me thither, because there
partly the thing was acted which he desired to
speak to me about ; so we walked on, and I pressed
him to be free and plain with me in what he had
to say.

"Why then, sir," says he, "be pleased to give

ROBINSON CRUSOE 159

me leave to lay down a few propositions, as the
foundation of what I have to say, that we may not
differ in the general principles, though we may be
of some differing opinions in the practice of par-
ticulars. First, sir, though we differ in some of the
doctrinal articles of religion, and it is very unhappy
it is so, especially in the case before us, as I shall
show afterwards, yet there are some general prin-
ciples in which we both agree, viz., that there is
a God ; and that this God having given us some
stated general rules for our service and obedience,
we ought not willingly and knowingly to offend
him, either by neglecting to do what he has com-
manded, or by doing what he has expressly for-
bidden ; and let our different religions be what they
will, this general principle is readily owned by us
all, that the blessing of God does not ordinarily
follow presumptuous sinning against his command ;
and every good Christian will be affectionately con-
cerned to prevent any that are under his care living
in a total neglect of God and his commands. It is
not your men being Protestants, whatever my
opinion may be of such, that discharges me from
being concerned for their souls, and from endeav-
ouring if it lies before me, that they should live in
as little distance from enmity with their Maker as
possible, especially if you give me leave to meddle
so far in your circuit."

I could not yet imagine what he aimed at, and
told him I granted all he had said, and thanked him
that he would so far concern himself for us ; and

i6o THE ADVENTURES OF

begged that he would explain the particulars of
what he had observed, that, like Joshua, to take
his own parable, I might put away the accursed
thing from us.

" Why then, sir,*' says he, " I will take the lib-
erty you give me; and there are three things, which,
if I am right, must stand in the way of God's bless-
ing upon your endeavours here, and which I should
rejoice, for your sake, and their own, to see re-
moved : and, sir, I promise myself that you will
fully agree with me in them all, as soon as I name
them ; especially because I shall convince you that
every one of them may, with great ease, and very
much to your satisfaction, be remedied. First, sir,"
says he, "you have here four Englishmen, who have
fetched women from among the savages, and have
taken them as their wives, and have had many
children by them all, and yet are not married to them
after any stated, legal manner, as the laws of God
and man require ; and therefore are yet, in the
sense of both, no less than fornicators, if not liv-
ing in adultery. To this, sir, I know you will
object that there was no clergyman or priest of any
kind, or of any profession, to perform the cere-
mony ; nor any pen and ink, or paper, to write
down a contract of marriage, and have it signed
between them : and I know also, sir, what the
Spaniard governor has told you ; I mean of the
agreement that he obliged them to make when they
took the women, viz., that they should choose them
out by consent, and keep separately to them, which,

ROBINSON CRUSOE i6i

by the way, is nothing of a marriage, no agreement
with the women, as wives, but only an agreement
among themselves, to keep them from quarrelling.
But, sir, the essence of the sacrament of matri-
mony [so he called it, being a Roman] consists
not only in the mutual consent of the parties to
take one another as man and wife, but in the
formal and legal obligation that there is in the con-
tract to compel the man and woman, at all times,
to own and acknowledge each other ; obliging the
man to abstain from all other women, to engage
in no other contract while these subsist, and, on all
occasions, as ability allows, to provide honestly for
them and their children ; and to oblige the women
to the same, or like conditions, mutatis mutandis,
on their side. Now, sir," says he, " these men may
when they please or when occasion presents, aban-
don these women, disown their children, leave
them to perish, and take other women and marry
them while these are living '' : and here he added,
with some warmth, " How, sir, is God honoured
in this unlawful liberty ? and how shall a blessing
succeed your endeavours in this place, however
good in themselves, and however sincere in your
design, while these men, who at present are your
subjects, under your absolute government and
dominion, are allowed by you to live in open
adultery ? "

I confess I was struck with the thing itself, but
much more with the convincing arguments he sup-
ported it with ; for it was certainly true that though

i62 THE ADVENTURES OF

they had no clergyman upon the spot, yet a formal
contract on both sides, made before witnesses, and
confirmed by any token which they had all agreed
to be bound by, though it had been but breaking
a stick between them, engaging the men to own
these women for their wives upon all occasions,
and never to abandon them or their children, and
the women to the same with their husbands, had
been an effectual lawful marriage in the sight of
God ; and it was a great neglect that it was not
done. But I thought to have got off my young
priest by telling him that all that part was done
when I was not here ; and they had lived so many
years with tKem now, that if it was adultery it was
past remedy ; they could do nothing in it now.

" Sir," says he, " asking your pardon for such
freedom, you are right in this that, it being done
in your absence, you could not be charged with
that part of the crime ; but, I beseech you, flatter
not yourself that you are not therefore under an
obligation to do your utmost now to put an end
to it. How can you think but that, let the time
past lie on whom it will, all the guilt, for the future,
will lie entirely upon you? because it is certainly
in your power now to put an end to it, and in no-
body's power but yours."

I was so dull still that I did not take him right;
but I imagined that, by putting an end to it, he
meant that I should part them, and not suffer them
to live together any longer; and I said to him I
could not do that, by any means, for that it would

ROBINSON CRUSOE 163

put the whole island into confusion. He seemed
surprised that I should so far mistake him. "No,
sir," says he, " I do not mean that you should now
separate them, but legally and effectually marry
them now; and as, sir, my way of marrying them
may not be easy to reconcile them to, though it
will be effectual, even by your own laws, so your
way may be as well before God, and as valid among
men; I mean, by a written contract signed by both
man and woman, and by all the witnesses present,
which all the laws of Europe would decree to be
valid."

I was amazed to see so much true piety, and so
much sincerity of zeal, besides the unusual impar-
tiality in his discourse as to his own party or church,
and such true warmth for preserving the people
that he had no knowledge of or relation to ; I say,
for preserving them from transgressing the laws of
God, the like of which I had indeed not met with
anywhere : but recollecting what he had said of mar-
rying them by a written contract, which I knew he
would stand to, I returned it back upon him, and
told him I granted all that he had said to be just,
and on his part very kind; that I would discourse
with the men upon the point now, when I came to
them; and I knew no reason why they should scru-
ple to let him marry them all, which I knew well
enough would be granted to be as authentic and
valid in England as if they were married by one of
our own clergymen. What was afterwards done in
this matter I shall speak of by itself.

1 64 THE ADVENTURES OF

I then pressed him to tell me what was the sec-
ond complaint which he had to make, acknowledg-
ing that I was very much his debtor for the first,
and thanked him heartily for it. He told me he
would use the same freedom and plainness in the
second, and hoped I would take it as well; and
this was that notwithstanding these English sub-
jects of mine, as he called them, had lived with
those women for almost seven years, had taught
them to speak English, and even to read it, and
that they were, as he perceived, women of toler-
able understanding, and capable of instruction, yet
they had not, to this hour, taught them anything
of the Christian religion, no, not so much as to
know that there was a God, or a worship, or in
what manner God was to be served; or that their
own idolatry, and worshipping they knew not
whom, was false and absurd. This, he said, was
an unaccountable neglect, and what God would cer-
tainly call them to account for, and perhaps, at
last, take the work out of their hands — he spoke
this very affectionately and warmly. " I am per-
suaded," says he, " had those men lived in the sav-
age country whence their wives came, the savages
would have taken more pains to have brought
them to be idolaters, and to worship the Devil,
than any of these men, so far as I can see, have
taken with them to teach them the knowledge of
the true God. Now, sir," said he, " though I do
not acknowledge your religion, or you mine, yet
we would be glad see the Devil's servants, and the

ROBINSON CRUSOE 165

subjects of his kingdom, taught to know the gen-
eral principles of the Christian religion : that they
might, at least, hear of God, and a Redeemer, and
of the resurrection, and of a future state, — things
which we all believe ; they would have, at least,
been so much nearer coming into the bosom of the
true church than they are now, in the public pro-
fession of idolatry and devil-worship.**

I could hold no longer ; I took him in my arms
and embraced him with an excess of passion.
" How far,'* said I to him, " have I been from un-
derstanding the most essential part of a Christian !
viz., to love the interest of the Christian Church,
and the good of other men*s souls : I scarce have
known what belongs to the being a Christian.*'
" Oh, sir, do not say so,*' replied he ; " this thing is
not your fault." " No," said I, " but why did I
never lay it to heart as well as you ? ** " It is not
too late yet,** said he ; " be not too forward to con-
demn yourself.** " But what can be done now ? **
said I ; " you see I am going away.** " Will you
give me leave to talk to these poor men about it? **
" Yes, with all my heart," said I ; " and will oblige
them to give heed to what you say too." "As to
that," said he, " we must leave them to the mercy
of Christ ; but it is your business to assist them,
encourage them, and instruct them ; and if you give
me leave, and God his blessing, I do not doubt
but the poor ignorant souls shall be brought home
to the great circle of Christianity, if not into the
particular faith we all embrace, and that even while

i66 THE ADVENTURES OF

you stay here/' Upon this I said, " I shall not
only give you leave, but give you a thousand
thanks for it." What followed on this account I
shall mention also again in its place.

I now pressed him for the third article in which
we were to blame. "Why, really," says he, "it is
of the same nature ; and I will proceed, asking
your leave, with the same plainness as before ; it is
about your poor savages, who are, as I may say,
your conquered subjects. It is a maxim, sir, that
is, or ought to be, received among all Christians,
of what church, or pretended church soever, viz.,
the Christian knowledge ought to be propagated
by all possible means, and on all possible occasions.
It is on this principle that our Church sends mis-
sionaries into Persia, India, China ; and that our
clergy, even of the superior sort, willingly engage
in the most hazardous voyages, and the most dan-
gerous residence among murderers and barbarians,
to teach them the knowledge of the true God, and
to bring them over to embrace the Christian faith.
Now, sir, you have such an opportunity here to
have six- or seven-and-thirty poor savages brought
over from idolatry to the knowledge of God, their
Maker and Redeemer, that I wonder how you can
pass such an occasion of doing good, which is really
worth the expense of a man's whole life."

I was now struck dumb, indeed, and had not one
word to say. I had here a spirit of true Christian
zeal for God and religion before me, let his par-
ticular principles be of what kind soever : as for

ROBINSON CRUSOE 167

me, I had not so much as entertained a thought of
this in my heart before, and I believe I should not
have thought of it ; for I looked upon these sav-
ages as slaves, and people whom, had we any work
for them to do, we would have used as such, or
would have been glad to have transported them to
any other part of the world : for our business was
to get rid of them ; and we would all have been sat-
isfied if they had been sent to any country, so they
had never seen their own. But to the case ; — I say,
I was confounded at his discourse, and knew not
what answer to make him.

He looked earnestly at me, seeing me in some
disorder — " Sir,*' says he, " I shall be very sorry
if what I have said gives you any offence." " No,
no,'' said I, " I am offended with nobody but my-
self; but I am perfectly confounded, not only to
think that I should never take any notice of this
before, but with reflecting what notice I am able to
take of it now. You know, sir," said I, " what cir-
cumstances I am in ; I am bound to the East Indies
in a ship freighted by merchants, and to whom it
would be an insufferable piece of injustice to detain
their ship here, the men lying all this while at vict-
uals and wages on the owners' account. It is true,
I agreed to be allowed twelve days here, and if I
stay more, I must pay three pounds sterling per
diem demurrage ; nor can I stay upon demurrage
above eight days more, and I have been here thir-
teen already ; so that I am perfectly unable to engage
in this work, unless I would suffer myself to be left

i68 THE ADVENTURES OF

behind here again ; in which case, if this single ship
should miscarry in any part of her voyage, I should
be just in the same condition that I was left in here,
at first, and from which I have been so wonderfully
delivered." He owned the case was very hard upon
me, as to my voyage, but laid it home upon my con-
science, whether the blessing of saving thirty-seven
souls was not worth venturing all I had in the world
for. I was not so sensible of that as he was. I re-
turned upon him thus : " Why, sir, it is a valuable
thing, indeed, to be an instrument in God's hand
to convert thirty-seven heathens to the knowledge
of Christ ; but as you are an ecclesiastic, and are
given over to the work, so that it seems so naturally
to fall into the way of your profession, how is it then
that you do not rather offer yourself to undertake
it than press me to do it ? "

Upon this he faced about just before me, as he
walked along, and putting me to a full stop, made
me a very low bow. "I most heartily thank God
and you, sir," said he, " for giving me so evident
a call to so blessed a work ; and if you think your-
self discharged from it, and desire me to undertake
it, I will most readily do it, and think it a happy
reward for all the hazards and difficulties of such
a broken, disappointed voyage as I have met
with, that I am dropped at last into so glorious
a work."

I discovered a kind of rapture in his face while
he spoke this to me ; his eyes sparkled like fire, his
face glowed, and his colour came and went, as if

ROBINSON CRUSOE 169

he had been falling into fits; in a word, he was fired
with the joy of being embarked in such a work. I
paused a considerable while before I could tell what
to say to him ; for I was really surprised to find a
man of such sincerity and zeal, and carried out in
his zeal beyond the ordinary rate of men, not of his
profession only, but even of any profession whatso-
ever. But after I had considered it a while, I asked
him seriously if he was in earnest, and that he would
venture, on the single consideration of an attempt
on those poor people, to be locked up in an un-
planted island for perhaps his life, and at last might
not know whether he should be able to do them
good or not ?

He turned short upon me, and asked me what
I called a venture ? " Pray, sir," said he, " what do
you think I consented to go in your ship to the East
Indies for?" "Nay," said I, "that I know not,
unless it was to preach to the Indians." "Doubt-
less it was," said he ; " and do you think, if I can
convert these thirty-seven men to the faith of Je-
sus Christ, it is not worth my time, though I should
never be fetched off the island again ? Nay, is it
not infinitely of more worth to save so many souls
than my life is, or the life of twenty more of the
same profession ? Yes, sir," says he, " I would give
Christ and the Blessed Virgin thanks all my days,
if I could be made the least happy instrument of
saving the souls of those poor men, though I were
never to set my foot off this island, or see my nat-
ive country any more. But since you will honour

lyo THE ADVENTURES OF

me with putting me into this work, for which I will
pray for you all the days of my life, I have one
humble petition to you besides." " What is that ? "
said I. " Why," says he, " it is that you will leave
your man Friday with me, to be my interpreter to
them, and to assist me ; for without some help I
cannot speak to them, or they to me."

I was sensibly touched at his requesting Friday,
because I could not think of parting with him, and
that for many reasons : he had been the companion
of my travels ; he was not only faithful to me, but
sincerely affectioilate to the last degree; and I had
resolved to do something considerable for him if
he outlived me, as it was probable he would. Then
I knew that as I had bred Friday up to be a Protest-
ant, it would quite confound him to bring him to
embrace another profession ; and he would never,
while his eyes were open, believe that his old mas-
ter was a heretic, and would be damned ; and this
might, in the end, ruin the poor fellow's princi-
ples, and so turn him back again to his first idol-
atry. However, a sudden thought relieved me in
this strait, and it was this : I told him I could not
say that I was willing to part with Friday on any
account whatever, though a work that to him was
of more value than his life ought to be to me of
much more value than the keeping or parting with
a servant. But, on the other hand, I was persuaded
that Friday would by no means agree to part with
me: and I could not force him to it without his
consent, without manifest injustice ; because I had

Plate XV

ROBINSON CRUSOE 171

promised I would never put him away, and he had
promised and engaged to me that he would never
leave me unless I put him away.

He seemed very much concerned at it, for he
had no rational access to these poor people, seeing
he did not understand one word of their language,
nor they one word of his. To remove this dif-
ficulty, I told him Friday's father had learned
Spanish, which I found he also understood, and he
should serve him as an interpreter. So he was much
better satisfied, and nothing could persuade him
but he would stay and endeavour to convert them;
but Providence gave another very happy turn to
all this.

I come back now to the first part of his objec-
tions. When we came to the Englishmen, I sent
for them all together, and after some account given
them of what I had done for them, viz., what nec-
essary things I had provided for them, and how
they were distributed, which they were very sens-
ible of, and very thankful for, I began to talk to
them of the scandalous life they led, and gave them
a full account of the notice the clergyman had taken
of it; and, arguing how unchristian and irreligious
a life it was, I first asked them if they were mar-
ried men or bachelors ? They soon explained their
conditions to me, and showed that two of them
were widowers, and the other three were single
men, or bachelors. I asked them with what con-
science they could take those women, and lie with
them as they had done, call them their wives, and

172 THE ADVENTURES OF

have so many children by them, and not be law-
fully married to them ?

They all gave me the answer I expected, viz.,
that there was nobody to marry them; that they
agreed before the governor to keep them as their
wives, and to maintain them and own them as their
wives; and they thought, as things stood with
them, they were as legally married as if they had
been married by a parson, and with all the formal-
ities in the world.

I told them that no doubt they were married in
the sight of God, and were bound in conscience to
keep them as their wives; but that the laws of men
being otherwise, they might desert the poor women
and children hereafter; and that their wives being
poor desolate women, friendless and moneyless,
would have no way to help themselves. I therefore
told them that, unless I was assured of their honest
intent, I could do nothing for them, but would
take care that what I did should be for the women
and children without them ; and that, unless they
would give me some assurances that they would
marry the women, I could not think it was conven-
ient they should continue together as man and
wife ; for it was both scandalous to men and offens-
ive to God, who they could not think would bless
them if they went on thus.

All this went on as I expected; and they told
me, especially Will Atkins, who now seemed to
speak for the rest, that they loved their wives as
well as if they had been born in their own native

ROBINSON CRUSOE 173

country, and would not leave them upon any ac-
count whatever: and they did verily believe their
wives were as virtuous and as modest, and did, to
the utmost of their skill, as much for them and
for their children as any women could possibly do ;
and they would not part with them on any account :
and Will Atkins, for his own particular, added that
if any man would take him away, and offer to carry
him home to England, and make him captain of
the best man-of-war in the navy, he would not go
with him, if he might not carry his wife and child-
ren with him ; and if there was a clergyman in the
ship he would be married to her now with all his
heart.

This was just as I would have it: the priest was
not with me at that moment, but was not far off;
so, to try him farther, I told him I had a clergy-
man with me, and, if he was sincere, I would have
him married next morning, and bade him consider
of it, and talk with the rest. He said, as for him-
self, he need not consider of it at all, for he was
very ready to do it, and was glad I had a minister
with me, and he believed they would be all willing
also. I then told him that my friend, the minister,
was a Frenchman, and could not speak English,
but I would act the clerk between them. He never
so much as asked me whether he was a Papist or
Protestant, which was indeed what I was afraid of;
so we parted: I went back to my clergyman, and
Will Atkins went in to talk with his companions.
I desired the French gentleman not to say any-

174 THE ADVENTURES OF

thing to them till the business was thorough ripe :
and I told him what answer the men had given me.

Before I went from their quarter, they all came
to me and told me they had been considering what
I had said; that they were glad to hear I had a
clergyman in my company, and they were very will-
ing to give me the satisfaction I desired, and to be
formally married as soon as I pleased; for they were
far from desiring to part with their wives, and that
they meant nothing but what was very honest when
they chose them. So I appointed them to meet me
the next morning, and, in the mean time, they
should let their wives know the meaning of the
marriage law ; and that it was not only to prevent
any scandal, but also to oblige them that they should
not forsake them, whatever might happen.

The women were easily made sensible of the
meaning of the thing, and were very well satisfied
with it, as indeed they had reason to be: so they
failed not to attend all together at my apartment
next morning, where I brought out my clergyman ;
and though he had not on a minister's gown, after
the manner of England, or the habit of a priest,
after the manner of France, yet having a black vest,
something like a cassock, with a sash round it, he
did not look very unlike a minister; and as for his
language, I was his interpreter. But the seriousness
of his behaviour to them, and the scruples he made
of marrying the women because they were not bap-
tized and professed Christians, gave them an ex-
ceeding reverence for his person ; and there was no

ROBINSON CRUSOE 175

need, after that, to inquire whether he was a clergy-
man or not. Indeed, I was afraid his scruples would
have been carried so far as that he would not have
married them at all ; nay, notwithstanding all I was
able to say to him, he resisted me, though mod-
estly, yet very steadily : and at last refused abso-
lutely to marry them unless he had first talked with
the men and the women too; and though I at first
was a little backward to it, yet at last I agreed to
it with a good will, perceiving the sincerity of his
design.

When he came to them he let them know that
I had acquainted him with their circumstances, and
with the present design; that he was very willing
to perform that part of his function, and marry
them, as I had desired ; but that, before he could
do it, he must take the liberty to talk with them.
He told them that in the sight of all indifferent
men, and in the sense of the laws of society, they
had lived all this while in open fornication; and that
it was true that nothing but the consenting to marry,
or effectually separating them from one another,
could now put an end to it ; but there was a dif-
ficulty in it, too, with respect to the laws of Christ-
Ian matrimony, which he was not fully satisfied
about, viz., that of marrying one that is a professed
Christian to a savage, an idolater, and a heathen,
one that Is not baptized; and yet that he did not
see that there was time left to endeavour to per-
suade the women to be baptized, or to profess the
name of Christ, whom they had, he doubted, heard

176 THE ADVENTURES OF

nothing of, and without which they could not be
baptized. He told them he doubted they were but
indifferent Christians themselves : that they had but
little knowledge of God or of his ways, and there-
fore he could not expect that they had said much
to their wives on that head yet; but that, unless
they would promise him to use their endeavours
with their wives to persuade them to become
Christians, and would, as well as they could, in-
struct them in the knowledge and belief of God
that made them, and to worship Jesus Christ that
redeemed them, he could not marry them; for he
would have no hand in joining Christians with
savages; nor was it consistent with the principles
of the Christian religion, and was indeed expressly
forbidden in God's law.

They heard all this very attentively, and I de-
livered it very faithfully to them from his mouth,
as near his own words as I could ; only sometimes
adding something of my own, to convince them
how just it was, and how I was of his mind : and I
always very faithfully distinguished between what
I said from myself, and what were the clergyman's
words. They told me it was very true, what the
gentlemen said, that they were very indifferent
Christians themselves, and that they had never
talked to their wives about religion. " Lord, sir,"
says Will Atkins, " how should we teach them re-
ligion? why, we know nothing ourselves; and be-
sides, sir," said he, "should we talk to them of God
and Jesus Christ, and heaven and hell, it would

ROBINSON CRUSOE 177

make them laugh at us, and ask us what we believe
ourselves. And if we should tell them that we be-
lieve all the things we speak of to them, such as of
good people going to heaven, and wicked people
to the Devil, they would ask us where we intend to
go ourselves, that believe all this, and are such
wicked fellows as we indeed are. Why, sir, 'tis
enough to give them a surfeit of religion at first
hearing; folks must have some religion themselves
before they pretend to teach other people." "Will
Atkins,'* said I to him, "though I am afraid that
what you say has too much truth in it, yet can you
not tell your wife she is in the wrong; that there
is a God, and a religion better than her own; that
her gods are idols ; that they can neither hear nor
speak ; that there is a great Being that made all
things, and that can destroy all that he has made;
that he rewards the good and punishes the bad ;
and that we are to be judged by him at last for all
we do here? You are not so ignorant but even
nature itself will teach you that all this is true; and
I am satisfied you know it all to be true, and be-
lieve it yourself" "That is true, sir," said Atkins;
"but with what face can I say anything to my wife
of all this, when she will tell me immediately it
cannot be true?" "Not true! "said I; "what do you
mean by that?" "Why, sir," said he, "she will
tell me it cannot be true that this God I shall tell
her of can be just, or can punish or reward, since
I am not punished and sent to the Devil, that have
been such a wicked creature as she knows I have

lyS THE ADVENTURES OF

been, even to her, and to everybody else ; and that
I should be suffered to live, that have been always
acting so contrary to what I must tell her is good,
and to what I ought to have done." "Why, truly,
Atkins,'' said I, "I am afraid thou speakest too
much truth"; and with that I informed the cler-
gyman of what Atkins had said, for he was impa-
tient to know. " O," said the priest, " tell him there
is one thing will make him the best minister in the
world to his wife, and that is, repentance ; for none
teach repentance like true penitents. He wants no-
thing but to repent, and then he will be so much
the better qualified to instruct his wife : he will then
be able to tell her that there is not only a God, and
that he is the just rewarder of good and evil, but
that he is a merciful Being, and with infinite good-
ness and long-suflFering forbears to punish those
thatoflfend; waiting to be gracious, and willing not
the death of a sinner, but rather that he should
return and live : that oftentimes he suffers wicked
men to go a long time, and even reserves damna-
tion to the general day of retribution : that it is
a clear evidence of God and of a future state that
righteous men receive not their reward, or wicked
men their punishment, till they come into another
world; and this will lead him to teach his wife the
doctrine of the resurrection and of the last judg-
ment. Let him but repent for himself, he will be
an excellent preacher of repentance to his wife."

I repeated all this to Atkins, who looked very
serious all the while, and who, we could easily

ROBINSON CRUSOE 179

perceive, was more than ordinarily affected with it:
when being eager, and hardly suffering me to make
an end — " I know all this, master," says he, "and
a great deal more ; but I have not the impudence
to talk thus to my wife, when God and my con-
science know, and my wife will be an undeniable
evidence against me, that I have lived as if I had
never heard of a God or future state, or anything
about it ; and to talk of my repenting, alas ! [and
with that he fetched a deep sigh, and I could see
that the tears stood in his eyes] 't is past all that
with me." " Past it, Atkins ?" said I ;" what dost
thou mean by that ? " " I know well enough what
I mean," says he; "I mean *tis too late, and that
is too true."

I told the clergyman, word for word, what he
said : the poor zealous priest, — I must call him
so, for, be his opinion what it will, he had certainly
amost singular affection for the goodof other men's
souls, and it would be hard to think he had not
the like for his own, — I say, this affectionate man
could not refrain from tears ; but, recovering him-
self, said to me, "Ask him but one question : Is
he easy that it is too late ; or is he troubled, and
wishes it were not so ? " I put the question fairly
to Atkins ; and he answered, with a great deal of
passion, how could any man be easy in a condition
that must certainly end in eternal destruction? that
he was far from being easy ; but that, on the con-
trary, he believed it would, one time or other, ruin
him. " What do you mean by that ? " said I. Why,

i8o THE ADVENTURES OF

he said, he believed he should one time or other
cut his throat, to put an end to the terror of it.

The clergyman shook his head with great con-
cern in his face, when I told him all this; but turn-
ing quick to me upon it, says, " If that be his case,
we may assure him it is not too late ; Christ will give
him repentance. But, pray,** says he, "explain this
to him ; that as no man is saved but by Christ, and
the merit of his passion procuring divine mercy for
him, how can it be too late for any man to receive
mercy ? Does he think he is able to sin beyond the
power or reach of divine mercy? Pray tell him,
there may be a time when provoked mercy will no
longer strive, and when God may refuse to hear, but
that it is never too late for men to ask mercy ; and
we that are Christ's servants are commanded to
preach mercy at all times, in the nam e of Jesus Christ,
to all those that sincerely repent ; so that it is never
too late to repent."

I told Atkins all this, and he heard me with
great earnestness ; but it seemed as if he turned off
the discourse to the rest, for he said to me he would
go and have some talk with his wife; so he went
out a while, and we talked to the rest. I perceived
they were all stupidly ignorant as to matters of
religion, as much as I was when I went rambling
away from my father; and yet there were none of
them backward to hear what had been said; and all
of them seriously promised that they would talk with
their wives about it, and do their endeavours to
persuade them to turn Christians.

ROBINSON CRUSOE i8i

The clergyman smiled upon me when I reported
what answer they gave, but said nothing a good
while ; but at last, shaking his head, "We that are
Christ's servants," says he, "can go no farther than
to exhort and instruct; and when men comply,
submit to the reproof, and promise what we ask,
'tis all we can do ; we are bound to accept their
good words ; but, believe me, sir," said he, "what-
ever you may have known of the life of that man
you call Will Atkins, I believe he is the only sin-
cere convert among them : I take that man to be
a true penitent: I will not despair of the rest; but
that man is apparently struck with the sense of his
past life, and I doubt not, when he comes to talk
of religion to his wife, he will talk himself effectu-
ally into it ; for attempting to teach others is some-
times the best way of teaching ourselves. I know a
man, who, having nothing but a summary notion
of religion himself, and being wicked and profli-
gate to the last degree in his life, made a thor-
ough reformation in himself by labouring to con-
vert a Jew. If that poor Atkins begins but once
to talk seriously of Jesus Christ to his wife, my
life for it, he talks himself into a thorough convert,
makes himself a penitent; and who knows what
may follow?"

Upon this discourse, however, and their promis-
ing, as above, to endeavour to persuade their wives
to embrace Christianity, he married the other two
couple; but Will Atkins and his wife were not yet
come in. After this, my clergyman, waiting a while,

i82 THE ADVENTURES OF

was curious to know where Atkins was gone ; and
turning to me, said, " I entreat you, sir, let us walk
out of your labyrinth here, and look; I dare say we
shall find this poor man somewhere or other talk-
ing seriously to his wife, and teaching her already
something of religion/* I began to be of the same
mind ; so we went out together, and I carried him a
way which none knew but myself,and where the trees
were so very thick that it was not easy to see through
the thicket of leaves, and far harder to see in than
to see out; when coming to the edge of the wood,
I saw Atkins and his tawny wife sitting under the
shade of a bush, very eager in discourse : I stopped
short till my clergyman came up to me, and then,
having showed him where they were, we stood and
looked very steadily at them a good while. We ob-
served him very earnest with her, pointing up to
the sun, and to every quarter of the heavens, and
then down to the earth, then out to the sea, then
to himself, then to her, to the woods, to the trees.
"Now," says the clergyman, "you see my words
are made good, the man preaches to her; mark him
now, he is telling her that our God has made him and
her,and the heavens, the earth, the sea, the woods,the
trees, etc." " I believe he is," said I. Immediately
we perceived Will Atkins start upon his feet, fall
down on his knees, and lift up both his hands. We
supposed he said something, but we could not hear
him ; it was too far for that. He did not continue
kneeling half a minute, but comes and sits down
again by his wife, and talks to her again ; we per-

ROBINSON CRUSOE 183

ceived then the woman very attentive, but whether
she said anything to him, we could not tell. While
the poor fellow was upon his knees, I could see the
tears run plentifully down my clergyman's cheeks,
and I could hardly forbear myself; but it was a
great affliction to us both that we were not near
enough to hear anything that passed between them.
Well, however, we could come no nearer, for fear
of disturbing them ; so we resolved to see an end
to this piece of still conversation, and it spoke loud
enough to us without the help of voice. He sat
down again, as I have said, close by her, and talked
again earnestly to her, and two or three times we
could see him embrace her most passionately ; an-
other time we saw him take out his handkerchief
and wipe her eyes, and then kiss her again, with a
kind of transport very unusual ; and after several
of these things, we saw him on a sudden jump up
again, and lend her his hand to help her up, when
immediately leading her by the hand a step or two,
they both kneeled down together, and continued
so about two minutes.

My friend could bear it no longer, but cries out
aloud, "St.Paul! St. Paul! behold he prayeth." I was
afraid Atkins would hear him, therefore I entreated
him to withhold himself a while, that we might see
an end of the scene, which to me, I must confess,
was the most affecting that ever I saw in my life.
Well, he strove with himself for a while, but was
in such raptures to think that the poor heathen
woman was become a Christian that he was not

i84 THE ADVENTURES OF

able to contain himself; he wept several times,
then, throwing up his hands and crossing his breast,
said over several things ejaculatory, and by way of
giving God thanks for so miraculous a testimony
of the success of our endeavours ; some he spoke
softly, and I could not well hear others ; some in
Latin, some in French ; then two or three times the
tears would interrupt him ; that he could not speak at
all ; but I begged that he would contain himself, and
let us more narrowly and fully observe what was
before us, which he did for a time, the scene not
being near ended yet ; for after the poor man and
his wife were risen again from their knees, we ob-
served he stood talking still eagerly to her, and we
observed her motion, that she was greatly affected
with what he said, by her frequently lifting up her
hands, laying her hand to her breast, and such other
postures as express the greatest seriousness and at-
tention : this continued about half a quarter of an
hour, and then they walked away; so we could see
no more of them in that situation. I took this in-
terval to talk with my clergyman ; and first, I was
glad to see the particulars we had both been wit-
nesses to, that though I was hard enough of belief
in such cases, yet that I began to think it was all
very sincere here, both in the man and his wife,
however ignorant they might both be, and I hoped
such a beginning would yet have a more happy
end: "And who knows," said I, "but these two
may in time, by instruction and example, work
upon some of the others?" " Some of them? " said

ROBINSON CRUSOE 185

he, turning quick upon me ; " aye, upon all of them :
depend upon it, if those two savages, for he has
been but little better as you relate it, should embrace
Jesus Christ, they will never leave it till they work
upon all the rest ; for true religion is naturally
communicative, and he that is once made a Christ-
ian will never leave a pagan behind him if he can
help it." I owned it was a most Christian principle
to think so, and a testimony of true zeal, as well
as a generous heart, in him. " But, my friend,"
said I, " will you give me leave to start one dif-
ficulty here ? I cannot tell how to object the least
thing against that affectionate concern which you
show for the turning the poor people from their
paganism to the Christian religion : but how does
this comfort you while these people are, in your
account, out of the pale of the Catholic Church,
without which you believe there is no salvation ?
so that you esteem these but heretics, and for other
reasons as effectually lost as the pagans themselves."
To this he answered, with abundance of candour,
thus: "Sir, I am a Catholic of the Roman Church,
and a priest of the order of St. Benedict, and I em-
brace all the principles of the Roman faith ; but yet,
if you will believe me, and that I do not speak in
compliment to you, or in respect to my circum-
stances and your civilities; I say, nevertheless, I do
not look upon you who call yourselves reformed,
without some charity : I dare not say (though I
know it is our opinion in general) that you cannot
be saved; I will by no means limit the mercy of

i86 THE ADVENTURES OF

Christ so far as to think that he cannot receive you
into the bosom of his Church, in a manner to us
unperceivable ; and I hope you have the same
charity for us : I pray daily for your being all re-
stored to Christ's Church, by whatsoever method
he, who is all- wise, is pleased to direct. In the
mean time, sure you will allow it consists with me,
as a Roman, to distinguish far between a Protest-
ant and a Pagan; between one that calls on Jesus
Christ, though in a way which I do not think is
according to the true faith, and a savage or a bar-
barian, that knows no God, no Christ, no Redeemer ;
and if you are not within the pale of the Catholic
Church, we hope you are nearer being restored to
it than those that know nothing of God or of his
Church: and I rejoice, therefore, when I see this
poor man, who, you say, has been a profligate, and
almost a murderer, kneel down and pray to Jesus
Christ, as we suppose he did, though not fully
enlightened ; believing that God, from whom every
such work proceeds, will sensibly touch his heart,
and bring him to the further knowledge of that
truth in his own time : and if God shall influence
this poor man to convert and instruct the ignorant
savage, his wife, I can never believe that he shall
be cast away himself. And have I not reason then
to rejoice the nearer any are brought to the know-
ledge of Christ, though they may not be brought
quite home into the bosom of the Catholic Church
just at the time when I may desire it, leaving it to
the goodness of Christ to perfect his work in his

ROBINSON CRUSOE 187

own time, and in his own way? Certainly, I would
rejoice if all the savages in America were brought,
like this poor woman, to pray to God, though they
were all to be Protestants at first, rather than they
should continue pagans or heathens ; firmly believ-
ing that he that had bestowed the first light to them
would farther illuminate them with a beam of his
heavenly grace, and bring them into the pale of
his Church, when he should see good."

CHAPTER X

1WAS astonished at the sincerity and temper of
this pious Papist, as much as I was oppressed by
the power of his reasoning ; and it presently occurred
to my thoughts that if such a temper was universal,
we might be all Catholic Christians, whatever church
or particular profession we joined in; that a spirit
of charity would soon work us all into right princi-
ples ; and as he thought that the like charity would
make us all Catholics, so I told him I believed had
all the members of his church the like moderation,
they would soon all be Protestants. — And there
we left that part; for we never disputed at all.

However, I talked to him another way, and tak-
ing him by the hand, " My friend," says I, " I wish
all the clergy of the Romish Church were blest with
such moderation, and had an equal share of your
charity. I am entirely of your opinion: but I must
tell you that if you should preach such doctrine in
Spain or Italy, they would put you into the Inqui-
sition." "It may be so," said he; "I know not
what they would do in Spain or Italy ; but I will not

ROBINSON CRUSOE 189

say they would be the better Christians for that se-
verity ; for I am sure there is no heresy in abound-
ing with charity."

As Will Atkins and his wife were gone, our busi-
ness there was over, so we went back our own way ;
and when we came back, we found them waiting
to be called in : observing this, I asked my clergy-
man if we should discover to him that we had seen
him under the bush or not; and it was his opinion
we should not, but that we should talk to him first,
and hear what he would say to us ; so we called him
in alone, nobody being in the place but ourselves,
and I began with him thus :

" Will Atkins," said I, " prithee what education
had you ? What was your father ? "

W. A. " A better man than ever I shall be :
Sir, my father was a clergyman."

R. C. " What education did he give you ? "

W. A. "He would have taught me well, sir;
but I despised all education, instruction, or cor-
rection, like a beast as I was."

R. C. " It is true, Solomon says. He that de-
spises reproof is brutish."

W. A. "Aye, sir, I was brutish indeed, for I
murdered my father : for God's sake, sir, talk no
more about that, sir ; I murdered my poor father."

Pr. " Ha ! a murderer ! "

Here the priest started (for I interpreted every
word as he spoke) and looked pale : it seems he
believed that Will had really killed his father.

R. C. " No, no, sir, I do not understand him

I90 THE ADVENTURES OF

so : Will Atkins, explain yourself; you did not
kill your father, did you, with your own hands ? "

W. A. " No, sir, I did not cut his throat ; but
I cut the thread of all his comforts, and shortened
his days : I broke his heart by the most ungrate-
ful, unnatural return for the most tender and affec-
tionate treatment that father ever gave, or child
could receive."

R. C. "Well, I did not ask you about your
father, to extort this confession : I pray God give
you repentance for it, and forgive that and all your
other sins; but I asked you because I see that
though you have not much learning, yet you are
not so ignorant as some are in things that are good ;
that you have known more of religion, a great deal,
than you have practised."

W. A. "Though you, sir, did not extort the
confession that I made about my father, conscience
does ; and whenever we come to look back upon
our lives, the sins against our indulgent parents
are certainly the first that touch us ; the wounds
they make lie deepest, and the weight they leave
will lie heaviest upon the mind, of all the sins we
can commit."

R. C. " You talk too feelingly and sensibly for
me, Atkins ; I cannot bear it."

W. A. " You bear it, master ! I dare say you
know nothing of it."

R. C. " Yes, Atkins ; every shore, every hill,
nay, I may say every tree in this island, is witness
to the anguish of my soul for my ingratitude and

ROBINSON CRUSOE 191

bad usage of a good, tender father ; a father much
like yours, by your description : and I murdered
my father as well as you. Will Atkins ; but I think,
for all that, my repentance is short of yours too,
by a great deal."

I would have said more if I could have restrained
my passions ; but I thought this poor man's repent-
ance was so much sincerer than mine that I was
going to leave off the discourse and retire ; for I
was surprised with what he had said, and thought
that instead of my going about to teach and instruct
him, this man was made a teacher and instructor
to me in a most surprising and unexpected man-
ner.

I laid all this before the young clergyman, who
was greatly affected with it, and said to me, " Did
I not say, sir, that when this man was converted
he would preach to us all ? I tell you, sir, if this
one man be made a true penitent, here will be no
need of me ; he will make Christians of all in the
island."

But having a little composed myself, I renewed
my discourse with Will Atkins. " But, Will," said
I, " how comes the sense of this matter to touch
you just now ? "

W. A. " Sir, you have set me about a work that
has struck a dart through my very soul ; I have
been talking about God and religion to my wife,
in order, as you directed me, to make a Christian
of her, and she has preached such a sermon to me
as I shall never forget while I live."

192 THE ADVENTURES OF

R. C. " No, no, it is not your wife has preached
to you ; but when you were moving religious ar-
guments to her, conscience has flung them back
upon you."

W. A. "Aye, sir, with such force as is not to
be resisted."

R. C. " Pray, Will, let us know what passed
between you and your wife ; for I know something
of it already."

W. A. " Sir, it is impossible to give you a full
account of it; I am too full to hold it, and yet have
no tongue to express it ; but let her have said what
she will, and though I cannot give you an account
of it, this I can tell you, that I have resolved to
amend and reform my life."

R. C. " But tell us some of it : how did you be-
gin, Will ? For this has been an extraordinary case,
that is certain. She has preached a sermon, indeed,
if she has wrought this upon you."

W. A. " Why, I first told her the nature of our
laws about marriage, and what the reasons were
that men and women were obliged to enter into
such compacts as it was neither in the power of one
nor other to break; that otherwise, order and jus-
tice could not be maintained, and men would run
from their wives, and abandon their children, mix
confusedly with one another, and neither families
be kept entire, nor inheritances be settled by legal
descent."

R. C. "You talk like a civilian, Will. Could
you make her understand what you meant by in-

ROBINSON CRUSOE 193

heritance and families ? They know no such things
among the savages, but marry anyhow, without
regard to relation, consanguinity, or family ; bro-
ther and sister, nay, as I have been told, even the
father and the daughter, and the son and the
mother."

W. A. '* I believe, sir, you are misinformed, and
my wife assures me of the contrary, and that they
abhor it ; perhaps, for any farther relations, they
may not be so exact as we are ; but she tells me
they never touch one another in the near relation-
ship you speak of"

R. C. " Well, what did she say to what you
told her?"

W. A. " She said she liked it very well, and it
was much better than in her country."

R. C. " But did you tell her what marriage
was r

W. A. " Aye, aye ; there began our dialogue.
I asked her if she would be married to me our way.
She asked me what way that was. I told her mar-
riage was appointed by God ; and here we had a
strange talk together, indeed, as ever man and wife
had, I believe."

N. B. This dialogue between Will Atkins and
his wife I took down in writing, just after he had
told it me, which was as follows :

Wife. " Appointed by your God ! Why, have
you a God In your country ? "

W. A. "Yes, my dear, God Is In every coun-
try."

194 THE ADVENTURES OF

Wife. " No you God in my country; my coun-
try have the great old Benamuckee God."

W. A. " Child, I am very unfit to show you
who God is : God is in heaven, and made the
heaven and the earth, the sea, and all that in
them is.'*

Wife. " No makee de earth ; no you God
makee all earth ; no makee my country/'

Will Atkins laughed a little at her expression
of God not making her country.

Wife. " No laugh ; why laugh me ? This no-
thing to laugh."

He was justly reproved by his wife, for she was
more serious than he at first.

W. A. " That 's true, indeed; I will not laugh
any more, my dear."

Wife. " Why you say you God makee all ? "

W. A. "Yes, child, our God made the whole
world, and you and me, and all things; for he is
the only true God, and there is no God but him ;
he lives for ever in heaven."

Wife. " Why you no tell me long ago ? "

W. A. " That 's true, indeed ; but I have been
a wicked wretch, and have not only forgotten to
acquaint thee with anything before, but have lived
without God in the world myself."

Wife. "What! have you a great God in your
country, you no know him ? No say ' O * to him.
No do good thing for him ? That no pos-
sible."

W. A. " It is true, though, for all that ; we live

ROBINSON CRUSOE 195

as if there was no God in heaven, or that he had
no power on earth."

Wife. " But why God let you do so ? Why he
no makee you good live ? "

W. A. " It is all our own fault."

Wife. " But you say me he is great, much great,
have much great power, can makee kill when he
will, why he no makee kill when you no serve him,
no say ' O * to him, no be good mans ? "

W. A. " That is true, he might strike me dead ;
and I ought to expect it, for I have been a wicked
wretch, that is true ; but God is merciful, and does
not deal with us as we deserve."

Wife. " But then do you not tell God thankee
for that too ? "

W. A. "No, indeed, I have not thanked God
for his mercy, any more than I have feared God
for his power."

Wife. " Then you God no God ; me no think
believe he be such one, great much power, strong:
no makee kill you, though you make him so much
angry."

W. A. " What ! will my wicked life hinder
you from believing in God.^ What a dreadful
creature am I ! and what a sad truth is it that the
horrid lives of Christians hinder the conversion
of heathens ! "

Wife. " How me think you have great much
God up there [she points up to heaven] and yet
no do well, no do good thing ? Can he tell ? Sure
he no tell what you do ? "

196 THE ADVENTURES OF

W. A. "Yes, yes, he knows and sees all things;
he hears us speak, sees what we do, knows what we
think, though we do not speak."

Wife. " What ! he no hear you curse, swear,
speak de great damn ? "

W. A. " Yes, yes, he hears it all."

Wife. " Where be then the much great power
strong? "

W. A. "He is merciful, that is all we can say
for it; and this proves him to be the true God;
he is God, and not man, and therefore we are not
consumed."

Here Will Atkins told us he was struck with
horror, to think how he could tell his wife so
clearly that God sees, and hears, and knows the
secret thoughts of the heart, and all that we do, and
yet that he had dared to do all the vile things he
had done.

Wife. " Merciful ! What you call that?"

W. A. " He is our father and maker, and he
pities and spares us."

Wife. " So then he never makee kill, never
angry when you do wicked ; then he no good him-
self, or no great able."

W. A. " Yes, yes, my dear, he is infinitely good
and infinitely great, and able to punish too ; and
sometimes, to show his justice and vengeance, he
lets fly his anger to destroy sinners and make ex-
amples ; many are cut off in their sins."

Wife. " But no makee kill you yet; then he
tell you, may be, that he no makee you kill: so

ROBINSON CRUSOE 197

you makee de bargain with him, you do bad thing,
he no be angry at you when he be angry at other
mans."

W. A. "No, indeed ; my sins are all presump-
tions upon his goodness; and he would be infin-
itely just if he destroyed me, as he had done
other men.'*

Wife. "Well, and yet no kill, no makee you
dead ; what you say to him for that ? You no tell
him thankee for all that too ? "

W. A. " I am an unthankful, ungrateful dog,
that is true.'*

Wife. " Why he no makee you much good bet-
ter ? you say he makee you."

W. A. " He made me, as he made all the world :
it is I have deformed myself and abused his good-
ness, and made myself an abominable wretch."

Wife. " I wish you makee God know me; I no
makee him angry, I no do bad wicked thing."

Here Will Atkins said his heart sunk within him,
to hear a poor untaught creature desire to be taught
to know God, and he such a wicked wretch that he
could not say one word to her about God but what
the reproach of his own carriage would make most
irrational to her to believe ; nay, that already she had
told him that she could not believe In God, because
he, that was so wicked, was not destroyed.

W. A. " My dear, you mean you wish I could
teach you to know God, not God to know you ; for
he knows you already, and every thought in your
heart."

198 THE ADVENTURES OF

Wife. "Why then he know what I say to you
now; he know me wish to know him ; how shall me
know who makee me ? '*

W. A. "Poor creature, he must teach thee, I
cannot teach thee ; I will pray to him to teach thee
to know him, and forgive me, that am unworthy to
teach thee/*

The poor fellow was in such an agony at her de-
siring him to make her know God, and her wishing
to know him, that he said he fell down on his knees
before her, and prayed to God to enlighten her mind
with the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, and to
pardon his sins, and accept of his being the un-
worthy instrument of instructing her in the princi-
ples of religion : after which he sat down by her
again, and their dialogue went on. — This was the
time when we saw him kneel down, and hold up his
hands.

Wife. "What you put down the knee for? What
you hold up the hand for? What you say ? Who
you speak to ? What is all that ? *'

W. A. "My dear, I bow my knees in token of
my submission to him that made me ; I said * O * to
him, as you call it ; and as your old men do to their
idol Benamuckee ; that is, I prayed to him."

Wife. " What you say ' O * to him for ? "

W. A. " I prayed to him to open your eyes, and
your understanding, that you may know him, and
be accepted by him."

Wife. " Can he do that too ? "

W. A. "Yes, he can ; he can do all things."

ROBINSON CRUSOE 199

Wife. " But now he hear what you say ? "

W. A. " Yes ; he has bid us pray to him, and
promised to hear us."

Wife. " Bid you pray ? When he bid you ? How
he bid you ? What! you hear him speak ? "

W. A. " No, we do not hear him speak ; but he
has revealed himself many ways to us."

Here he was at a great loss to make her under-
stand that God has revealed himself to us by his
word, and what his word was, but at last he told it
her thus :

W. A. " God has spoken to some good men in
former days, even from heaven, by plain words ; and
God has inspired good men by his Spirit; and they
have written all his laws down in a book.*'

Wife. " Me no understand that ; where is
book ? "

W. A. " Alas ! my poor creature, I have not this
book ; but I hope I shall one time or other get it
for you, and help you to read it."

Here he embraced her with great affection ; but
with inexpressible grief that he had not a Bible.

Wife. " But how you makee me know that God
teachee them to write that book?"

W. A. " By the same rule that we know him to
be God."

Wife. " What rule ? What way you know
him?"

W. A. " Because he teaches and commands no-
thing but what is good, righteous, and holy, and
tends to make us perfectly good, as well as perfectly

200 THE ADVENTURES OF

happy ; and because he forbids, and commands us
to avoid, all that is wicked, that is evil in itself, or
evil in its consequence/'

Wife. " That me would understand, that me fain
see ; if he teachee all good thing, he makee all good
thing, he give all thing, he hear me when I say ' O '
to him, as you do just now; he makee me good,
if I wish to be good ; he spare me, no makee kill
me, when I no be good ; all this you say he do, yet
he be great God : me take, think, believe him to
be great God ; me say ' O ' to him with you, my
dear."

Here the poor man could forbear no longer, but
raised her up, made her kneel by him, and he prayed
to God aloud to instruct her in the knowledge of
himself, by his Spirit; and that by some good pro-
vidence, if possible, she might some time or other
come to have a Bible, that she might read the Word
of God, ^nd be taught by it to know him. — This
was the time that we saw him lift her up by the
hand, and saw him kneel down by her, as above.

They had several other discourses, it seems, after
this, too long to be set down here ; and particularly
she made him promise that since he confessed his
own life had been a wicked abominable course of
provocations against God, that he would reform it,
and not make God angry any more ; lest he should
make him dead, as she called it, and then she would
be left alone, and never be taught to know this God
better ; and lest he should be miserable, as he had
told her wicked men would be, after death.

ROBINSON CRUSOE 201

This was a strange account, and very affecting
to us both, but particularly to the young clergy-
man; he was indeed wonderfully surprised with it,
but under the greatest affliction imaginable that he
could not talk to her, that he could not speak Eng-
lish, to make her understand him ; and as she spoke
but very broken English, he could not understand
her; however, he turned himself to me, and told
me that he believed that there must be more to
do with this woman than to marry her. I did not
understand him at first, but at length he explained
himself, viz., that she ought to be baptized. I
agreed with him in that part readily, and was for
going about it presently. "No, no; hold, sir,"
said he ; " though I would have her be baptized by all
means, yet I must observe that Will Atkins, her
husband, has indeed brought her, in a wonderful
manner, to be willing to embrace a religious life,
and has given her just ideas of the being of a God ;
of his power, justice, and mercy : yet I desire to
know of him if he has said anything to her of Jesus
Christ, and of the salvation of sinners ; of the
nature of faith in him, and redemption by him;
of the Holy Spirit, the resurrection, the last judg-
ment, and a future state."

I called Will Atkins again, and asked him; but
the poor fellow fell immediately into tears, and told
us he had said something to her of all those things,
but that he was himself so wicked a creature, and
his own conscience so reproached him with his hor-
rid ungodly life, that he trembled at the apprehen-

202 THE ADVENTURES OF

sions that her knowledge of him should lessen the
attention she should give to those things, and make
her rather contemn religion than receive it; but he
was assured, he said, that her mind was so disposed
to receive due impressions of all those things, and
that if I would but discourse with her she would
make it appear to my satisfaction that my labour
would not be lost upon her.

Accordingly, I called her in, and, placing my-
self as interpreter between my religious priest and
the woman, I entreated him to begin with her ; but
sure such a sermon was never preached by a popish
priest in these latter ages of the world: and as I
told him, I thought he had all the zeal, all the
knowledge, all the sincerity of a Christian, without
the error of a Roman Catholic; and that I took
him to be such a clergyman as the Roman bishops
were, before the Church of Rome assumed spiritual
sovereignty over the consciences of men. In a word,
he brought the poor woman to embrace the know-
ledge of Christ, and of redemption by him, not
with wonder and astonishment only, as she did the
first notions of a God, but with joy and faith; with
an affection, and a surprising degree of understand-
ing, scarce to be imagined, much less to be ex-
pressed; and, at her own request, she was bap-
tized.

When he was preparing to baptize her, I en-
treated him that he would perform that office with
some caution, that the man might not perceive he
was of the Roman Church, if possible, because of

ROBINSON CRUSOE 203

other ill consequences which might attend a differ-
ence among us in that very religion which we were
instructing the other in. He told methatas he had
no consecrated chapel, nor proper things for the
office, I should see he would do it in a manner that
I should not know by it that he was a Roman
Catholic himself, if I had not known it before; and
so he did ; for saying only some words over to him-
self in Latin, which I could not understand, he
poured a whole dishful of water upon the woman's
head, pronouncing in French very loud, " Mary "
(which was the name her husband desired me to
give her, for I was her godfather), " I baptize thee
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of
the Holy Ghost"; so that none could know any-
thing by it what religion he was of. He gave the
benediction afterwards in Latin, but either Will
Atkins did not know but it was French, or else did
not take notice of it at that time.

As soon as this was over, we married them ; and
after the marriage was over, he turned to Will At-
kins, and in a very affectionate manner exhorted
him not only to persevere in that good disposition
he was in, but to support the convictions that were
upon him by a resolution to reform his life ; told
him it was in vain to say he repented if he did not
forsake his crimes : represented to him how God
had honoured him with being the instrument of
bringing his wife to the knowledge of the Christian
religion, and that he should be careful he did not
dishonour the grace of God ; and that if he did, he

204 THE ADVENTURES OF

would see the heathen a better Christian than him-
self; the savage converted, and the instrument cast
away. He said a great many good things to them
both; and then recommending them to God*s good-
ness, gave them the benediction again, I repeating
everything to them in English; and thus ended
the ceremony. I think it was the most pleasant and
agreeable day to me that ever I passed in my whole
life.

But my clergyman had not done yet; his
thoughts hung continually upon the conversion of
the thirty-seven savages, and fain he would have
stayed upon the island to have undertaken it;
but I convinced him, first, that his undertaking
was impracticable in itself; and, secondly, that
perhaps I would put it into a way of being done
in his absence to his satisfaction: of which by
and by.

Having thus brought the affairs of the island to
a narrow compass, I was preparing to go on board
the ship, when the young man I had taken out of
the famished ship's company came to me, and told
me he understood I had a clergyman with me, and
that I had caused the Englishmen to be married
to the savages; that he had a match, too, which he
desired might be finished before I went, between
two Christians, which he hoped would not be dis-
agreeable to me.

I knew this must be the young woman who
was his mother's servant, for there was no other
Christian woman on the island ; so I began to per-

ROBINSON CRUSOE 205

suade him not to do anything of that kind rashly,
or because he found himself in this solitary circum-
stance. I represented to him that he had some con-
siderable substance In the world, and good friends,
as I understood by himself, and the maid also ;
that the maid was not only poor, and a servant,
but was unequal to him, she being six- or seven-
and-twenty years old, and he not being seventeen
or eighteen ; that he might very probably, with my
assistance, make a remove from this wilderness,
and come into his own country again ; and that then
it would be a thousand to one but he would repent
his choice, and the dislike of that circumstance
might be disadvantageous to both. I was going to
say more, but he interrupted me, smiling, and told
me, with a great deal of modesty, that I mistook
in my guesses, that he had nothing of that kind in
his thoughts ; and he was very glad to hear that I
had an intent of putting them in a way to see their
own country again ; and nothing should have put
him upon staying there but that the voyage I was
going was so exceeding long and hazardous, and
would carry him quite out of the reach of all his
friends ; that he had nothing to desire of me but
that I would settle him In some little property in
the island where he was, give him a servant or two,
and some few necessaries, and he would settle him-
self here like a planter, waiting the good time when,
if ever I returned to England, I would redeem them ;
and hoped I would not be unmindful of him when
I came to England : that he would give me some

2o6 THE ADVENTURES OF

letters to his friends in London, to let them know
how good I had been to him, and in what part of
the world and what circumstances I had left him
in ; and he promised me that whenever I redeemed
him, the plantation, and all the improvements he
had made upon it, let the value be what it would,
should be wholly mine.

His discourse was very prettily delivered, con-
sidering his youth, and was the more agreeable to
me because he told me positively the match was
not for himself I gave him all possible assurances
that if I lived to come safe to England I would
deliver his letters, and do his business effectually :
and that he might depend I should never forget
the circumstances I had left him in ; but still I was
impatient to know who was the person to be mar-
ried : upon which he told me it was my Jack-of-all-
trades and his maid Susan. I was most agreeably
surprised when he named the match ; for indeed I
thought it very suitable. The character of that man
I have given already ; and as for the maid, she was
a very honest, modest, sober, and religious young
woman ; had a very good share of sense, was agree-
able enough in her person, spoke very handsomely,
and to the purpose, always with decency and good
manners, and neither too backward to speak, when
requisite, nor impertinently forward, when it was
not her business : very handy and housewifely, and
an excellent manager; fit, indeed, to have been
governess to the whole island, and she knew very
well how to behave in every respect.

ROBINSON CRUSOE 207

The match being proposed in this manner, we
married them the same day ; and as I was father
at the altar, as I may say, and gave her away, so I
gave her a portion ; for I appointed her and her
husband a handsome large space of ground for their
plantation ; and, indeed, this match, and the pro-
posal the young gentleman made to give him a
small property in the island, put me upon parcel-
ling it out amongst them, that they might not
quarrel afterwards about their situation.

This sharing-out the land to them I left to Will
Atkins, who was now grown a sober, grave, man-
aging fellow, perfectly reformed, exceedingly pious
and religious, and, as far as I may be allowed to
speak positively in such a case, I verily believe he
was a true penitent. He divided things so justly,
and so much to every one's satisfaction, that they
only desired one general writing under my hand
for the whole, which I caused to be drawn up, and
signed and sealed to them, setting out the bounds
and situation of every man's plantation, and testi-
fying that I gave them thereby severally a right to
the whole possession and inheritance of the re-
spective plantations or farms, with their improve-
ments, to them and their heirs, reserving all the
rest of the island as my own property, and a cer-
tain rent for every particular plantation after eleven
years, if I, or any one from me, or in my name,
came to demand it, producing an attested copy of
the same writing.

As to the government and laws among them, I

ao8 THE ADVENTURES OF

told them I was not capable of giving them better
rules than they were able to give themselves ; only
I made them promise me to live in love and good
neighbourhood with one another; and so I pre-
pared to leave them.

One thing I must not omit, and that is, that
being now settled in a kind of commonwealth among
themselves, and having much business in hand, it
was but odd to have seven-and-thirty Indians live
in a nook of the island, independent, and, indeed,
unemployed ; for, excepting the providing them-
selves food, which they had difficulty enough to
do sometimes, they had no manner of business or
property to manage. I proposed, therefore, to the
governor Spaniard that he should go to them with
Friday's father, and propose to them to remove,
and either plant for themselves, or take them into
their several families as servants, to be maintained
for their labour, but without being absolute slaves ;
for I would not admit them to make them slaves
by force, by any means ; because they had their
liberty given them by capitulation, as it were ar-
ticles of surrender, which they ought not to
break.

They most willingly embraced the proposal, and
came all very cheerful along with him : so we al-
lotted them land, and plantations, which three or
four accepted of, but all the rest chose to be
employed as servants in the several families we
had settled; and thus my colony was in a manner
settled, as follows: The Spaniards possessed my

ROBINSON CRUSOE 209

original habitation, which was the capital city, and
extended their plantations all along the side of the
brook, which made the creek that I have so often
described, as far as my bower; and as they increased
their culture, it went always eastward. The Eng-
lish lived in the northeast part, where Will Atkins
and his comrades began, and came on southward
and south-west, towards the back part of the Span-
iards; and every plantation had a great addition of
land to take in, if they found occasion, so that they
need not jostle one another for want of room. All
the east end of the island was left uninhabited, that
if any of the savages should come on shore there only
for their usual customary barbarities, they might
come and go; if they disturbed nobody, nobody
would disturb them; and no doubt but they were
often ashore, and went away again, for I never heard
that the planters were ever attacked or disturbed
any more.

It now came Into my thoughts that I had hinted
to my friend the clergyman that the work of con-
verting the savages might perhaps be set on foot
in his absence to his satisfaction, and told him
that now I thought it was put in a fair way ; for the
savages being thus divided among the Christians,
if they would but every one of them do their part
with those which came under their hands, I hoped
it might have a very good effect.

He agreed presently in that, if they did their
part. "But how," says he, " shall we obtain that
of them?" I told him we would call them all to-

aio THE ADVENTURES OF

gether, and leave it in charge with them, or go to
them, one by one, which he thought best; so we di-
vided it, he to speak to the Spaniards, who were all
Papists, and I to the English, who were all Pro-
testants; and we recommended it earnestly to them,
and made them promise that they would never
make any distinction of Papist or Protestant in
their exhorting the savages to turn Christians,
but teach them the general knowledge of the true
God, and of their Saviour Jesus Christ; and they
likewise promised us that they would never have
any differences or disputes one with another about
religion.

When I came to Will Atkins's house (I may call
it so, for such a house, or such a piece of basket-
work,! believe, was not standing in the world again),
there I found the young woman I have mentioned
above and Will Atkins's wife were become intimates ;
and this prudent religious young woman had per-
fected the work Will Atkins had begun: and though
it was not above four days after what I have related,
yet the new-baptized savage woman was made such
a Christian as I have seldom heard of in all my ob-
servation or conversation in the world.

It came next into my mind, in the morning be-
fore I went to them, that, amongst all the needful
things I had to leave with them, I had not left them
a Bible, in which I showed myself less considering
for them than my good friend the widow was for
me, when she sent me the cargo of a hundred pounds
from Lisbon, where she packed up three Bibles

ROBINSON CRUSOE 211

and a prayer-book. However, the good woman's
chanty had a greater extent than ever she imagined,
for they were reserved for the comfort and instruc-
tion of those that made much better use of them
than I had done.

I took one of the Bibles in my pocket, and when
I came to Will Atkins's tent, or house, and found
the young woman and Atkins's baptized wife had
been discoursing of religion together, for Will
Atkins told it me with a great deal of joy, I asked
if they were together now, and he said yes; so I
went into the house, and he with me, and we found
them together very earnest in discourse. "Oh,
sir," says Will Atkins, "when God has sinners to
reconcile to himself, and aliens to bring home, he
never wants a messenger; my wife has got a new
instructor; I knew I was as unworthy as I was in-
capable of that work; that young woman has been
sent hither from heaven; she is enough to convert
a whole island of savages." The young woman
blushed, and rose up to go away, but I desired
her to sit still ; I told her she had a good work
upon her hands ; and I hoped God would bless
her in it.

We talked a little, and I did not perceive they
had any book among them, though 1 did not ask:
but I put my hand into my pocket, and pulled out
my Bible. "Here," says I to Atkins, "I have
brought you an assistant that perhaps you had not
before." The man was so confounded that he was
not able to speak for some time; but recovering

212 THE ADVENTURES OF

himself, he takes it with both his hands, and turn-
ing to his wife, "Here, my dear," says he, "did I
not tell you our God, though he lives above, could
hear what we said? Here 's the book I prayed for
when you and I kneeled down under the bush;
now God has heard us, and sent it/' When he had
said so the man fell into such transports of pas-
sionate joy that between the joy of having it, and
giving God thanks for it, the tears ran down his face
like a child that was crying.

The woman was surprised, and was like to have
run into a mistake that none of us were aware of, for
she firmly believed God had sent the book upon
her husband's petition. It is true that provident-
ially it was so, and might be taken so in a conse-
quent sense; but I believe it would have been no
difficult matter, at that time, to have persuaded the
poor woman to have believed that an express mes-
senger came from heaven on purpose to bring that
individual book; but it was too serious a matter
to suffer any delusion to take place ; so I turned to
the young woman and told her we did not desire
to impose upon the new convert in her first and
more ignorant understanding of things, and begged
her to explain to her that God may be very pro-
perly said to answer our petitions when, in the
course of his providence, such things are in a par-
ticular manner brought to pass as we petitioned
for; but we did not expect returns from heaven in
a miraculous and particular manner, and it is our
mercy that it is not so.

ROBINSON CRUSOE 213

This the young woman did afterwards effectu-
ally, so that there was, I assure you, no priestcraft
used here; and I should have thought it one of the
most unjustifiable frauds in the world to have had it
so. But the surprise of joy upon Will Atkins is real-
ly not to be expressed ; and there, we may be sure,
was no delusion. Sure no man was ever more thank-
ful in the world for anything of its kind than he
was for the Bible ; nor, I believe, never any man
was glad of a Bible from a better principle; and
though he had been a most profligate creature,
headstrong, furious, and desperately wicked, yet
this man is a standing rule to us all for the well in-
structing children, viz., that parents should never
give over to teach and instruct, nor ever despair
of the success of their endeavours, let the children
be ever so refractory, or, to appearance, insensible
of instruction; for, if ever God, in his providence,
touches the conscience of such, the force of their
education returns upon them, and the early in-
struction of parents is not lost, though it may have
been many years laid asleep, but, some time or
other, they may find the benefit of it. Thus it was
with this poor man: however ignorant he was of
religion and Christian knowledge, he found he had
some to do with now more ignorant than himself,
and that the least part of the instruction of his good
father that now came to his mind was of use to him.

Among the rest it occurred to him, he said, how
his father used to insist so much on the inexpress-
ible value of the Bible, the privilege and blessing

214 THE ADVENTURES OF

of it to nations, families, and persons: but he
never entertained the least notion of the worth of
it till now, when being to talk to heathens, savages,
and barbarians, he wanted the help of the written
oracle for his assistance.

The young woman was glad of it also for the
present occasion, though she had one, and so had
the youth, on board our ship, among their goods,
which were not yet brought on shore. And now
having said so many things of this young woman,
I cannot omit telling one story more of her and
myself, which has something in it very informing
and remarkable.

I have related to what extremity the poor young
woman was reduced, how her mistress was starved
to death, and died on board that unhappy ship we
met at sea, and how the whole ship's company was
reduced to the last extremity. The gentlewoman
and her son, and this maid were first hardly used,
as to provisions, and at last totally neglected and
starved; that is to say, brought to the last ex-
tremity of hunger. One day, being discoursing with
her on the extremities they suffered, I asked her if
she could describe, by what she had felt, what it
was to starve, and how it appeared. She told me she
believed she could, and she told her tale very dis-
tinctly, thus:

"First, sir," said she, "we had for some days
fared exceeding hard, and suffered very great hun-
ger; but at last we were wholly without food of any
kind, except sugar, and a little wine and water.

ROBINSON CRUSOE 215

The first day, after I had received no food at all,
I found myself, towards evening, first empty and
sick at the stomach, and nearer night much in-
clined to yawning and sleep. I lay down on a couch
in the great cabin to sleep, and slept about three
hours, and awaked a little refreshed, having taken
a glass of wine when I lay down : after being about
three hours awake, it being about five o'clock in the
morning, I found myself empty, and my stomach
sickish, and lay down again, but could not sleep at
all, being very faint and ill; and thus I continued
all the second day, with a strange variety, first hun-
gry, then sick again, with retchings to vomit. The
second night, being obliged to go to bed again with-
out any food, more than a draught of fresh water,
and being asleep, I dreamed I was at Barbadoes,
and that the market was mightily stocked with pro-
visions ; that I bought some for my mistress, and
went and dined very heartily. I thought my stom-
ach was as full after this as it would have been
after a good dinner; but when I awaked, I was ex-
ceedingly sunk in my spirits to find myself in the
extremity of famine. The last glass of wine we had
I drank, and put sugar in it, because of its having
some spirit^to supply nourishment; but there being
no substance in the stomach for the digesting office
to work upon, I found the only effisct of the wine
was to raise disagreeable fumes from the stomach
into the head; and I lay, as they told me, stupid
and senseless, as one drunk, for some time. The
third day, in the morning, after a night of strange,

2i6 THE ADVENTURES OF

confused, and inconsistent dreams, and rather doz-
ing than sleeping, I awaked ravenous and furious
with hunger; and I question, had not my under-
standing returned and conquered it, whether, if I
had been a mother, and had had a little child with
me, its life would have been safe or not. This
lasted about three hours ; during which time I was
twice raging mad, as any creature in Bedlam, as my
young master told me and as he can now inform
you.

"In one of these fits of lunacy or distraction I
fell down, and struck my face against the corner of
a pallet bed, in which my mistress lay, and, with the
blow, the blood gushed out of my nose; and the
cabin-boy bringing me a little basin, I sat down and
bled into it a great deal; and as the blood came
from me, I came to myself, and the violence of the
flame or fever I was in abated, and so did the raven-
ous part of the hunger. Then I grew sick, and
retched to vomit, but could not, for I had nothing
in my stomach to bring up. After I had bled some
time, I swooned, and they all believed I was dead;
but I came to myself soon after, and then had a
most dreadful pain in my stomach, not to be de-
scribed, not like the colic, but a gnawing, eager pain
for food ; and towards the night it went off, with a
kind of earnest wishing or longing for food, some-
thing like, as I suppose, the longing of a woman
with child. I took another draught of water, with
sugar in it ; but my stomach loathed the sugar, and
brought it all up again ; then I took a draught of

ROBINSON CRUSOE 217

water without sugar, and that stayed with me; and
I laid me down upon the bed, praying most heart-
ily that it would please God to take me away; and
composing my mind in hopes of it, I slumbered
a while, and then waking, thought myself dying,
being light with vapours from an empty stomach.
I recommended my soul then to God, and earnestly
wished that somebody would throw me into the
sea.

" All this while my mistress lay by me, just, as
I thought, expiring, but bore it with much more
patience than I ; gave the last bit of bread she had
left to her child, my young master, who would not
have taken it, but she obliged him to eat it; and
I believe it saved his life.

" Towards the morning I slept again; and when
I awoke, I fell into a violent passion of crying, and
after that had a second fit of violent hunger. I got
up ravenous, and in a most dreadful condition ; had
my mistress been dead, as much as I loved her, I
am certain I should have eaten a piece of her flesh
with as much relish, and as unconcerned, as ever I
did eat the flesh of any creature appointed for food ;
and once or twice I was going to bite my own arm.
At last I saw the basin in which was the blood I
had bled at my nose the day before : I ran to it, and
swallowed it with such haste, and such a greedy ap-
petite, as if I wondered nobody had taken it before,
and afraid it should be taken from me now. After
it was down, though the thoughts of it filled me
with horror, yet it checked the fit of hunger, and I

2i8 THE ADVENTURES OF

took another draught of water, and was composed
and refreshed for some hours after. This was the
fourth day ; and thus I held it till towards night ;
when, within the compass of three hours, I had all
the several circumstances over again, one after an-
other, viz., sick, sleepy, eagerly hungry, pain in the
stomach, then ravenous again, then sick, then luna-
tic, then crying, then ravenous again, and so every
quarter of an hour ; and my strength wasted exceed-
ingly. At night I laid me down, having no comfort
but in the hope that I should die before morning.

" All this night I had no sleep ; but the hunger
was now turned into a disease ; and I had a terrible
colic and griping, by wind, instead of food, having
found its way into the bowels ; and in this condi-
tion I lay till morning, when I was surprised with
the cries and lamentations of my young master,
who called out to me that his mother was dead. I
lifted myself up a little, for I had not strength to
rise, but found she was not dead, though she was
able to give very little signs of life.

"I had then such convulsions in my stomach,
for want of some sustenance, that I cannot de-
scribe ; wi*th such frequent throes and pangs of ap-
petite that nothing but the tortures of death can
imitate; and in this condition I was when I heard
the seamen above cry out, ' A sail ! a sail ! * and
halloo and jump about as if they were distracted.

" I was not able to get off from the bed, and my
mistress much less ; and my young master was so
sick that I thought he had been expiring. So we

ROBINSON CRUSOE 219

could not open the cabin-door, or get any account
what it was that occasioned such confusion ; nor
had we any conversation with the ship's company
for two days, they having told us that they had not
a mouthful of anything to eat in the ship ; and this
they told us afterwards, they thought we had been
dead. It was this dreadful condition we were in
when you were sent to save our lives : and how you
found us, sir, you know as well as I, and better
too."

This was her own relation, and is such a distinct
account of starving to death as, I confess, I never
met with, and was exceeding entertaining to me.
I am the rather apt to believe it to be a true ac-
count, because the youth gave me an account of a
good part of it ; though, I must own, not so dis-
tinct and so feeling as the maid : and the rather,
because it seems his mother fed him at the price
of her own life. But the poor maid, though her
constitution being stronger than that of her mis-
tress, who was in years, and a weakly woman too,
she might struggle harder with it : I say, the poor
maid might be supposed to feel the extremity some-
thing sooner than her mistress, who might be al-
lowed to keep the last bit something longer than
she parted with any to relieve the maid. No ques-
tion, as the case is here related, if our ship, or some
other, had not so providentially met them, a few
days more would have ended all their lives, unless
they had prevented it by eating one another; and
that even, as their case stood, would have served

!22o THE ADVENTURES OF

them but a little while, they being five hundred
leagues from any land, or any possibility of relief,
other than in the miraculous manner it happened.
— But this is by the way ; I return to my disposi-
tion of things among the people.

And, first, it is to be observed here that for many
reasons I did not think fit to let them know any-
thing of the sloop I had framed, and which I thought
of setting up among them, for I found, at least at
my first coming, such seeds of divisions among
them that I saw plainly had I set up the sloop, and
left it among them, they would, upon every light
disgust, have separated, and gone away from one
another, or perhaps have turned pirates, and so
made the island a den of thieves, instead of a plan-
tation of sober and religious people, as I intended
it. Nor did I leave the two pieces of brass cannon
that I had on board, or the two quarter-deck guns
that my nephew took extraordinary, for the same
reason : I thought it was enough to qualify them
for a defensive war against any that should invade
them, but not to set them up for an offensive war,
or to go abroad to attack others ; which, in the end,
would only bring ruin and destruction upon them.
I reserved the sloop, therefore, and the guns, for
their service another way, as I shall observe in its
place.

Having now done with the island, I left them
all in good circumstances, and in a flourishing
condition, and went on board my ship again the
6th of May, having been about twenty-five days

ROBINSON CRUSOE 221

among them ; and as they were all resolved to stay
upon the island till I came to remove them, I
promised to send them farther relief from the Bra-
zils, if I could possibly find an opportunity : and,
particularly, I promised to send them some cattle,
such as sheep, hogs, and cows ; as to the two cows
and calves which I brought from England, we had
been obliged, by the length of our voyage, to kill
them at sea, for want of hay to feed them.

END OF VOLUME III

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