Robinson
Crusoe
CHAPTER I - START IN LIFE
I WAS born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good
family, though not of that country, my father being a for-
eigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull. He got a good
estate
by merchandise, and leaving off his trade,
lived af-
terwards at York, from whence he had married my mother,
whose relations were named Robinson,
a very good fam-
ily in that country, and from whom I was called Robinson
Kreutznaer; but, by the usual corruption of words in Eng-
land, we are now called - nay we call ourselves and write our
name - Crusoe; and so my companions always called me.
I
had two elder brothers, one of whom was lieuten-
ant-colonel to an English
regiment of foot in Flanders,
formerly commanded by the famous Colonel Lockhart, and
was killed at the battle near Dunkirk against the Spaniards.
What became of my second brother I never knew, any more
than my father or mother knew what became of me.
Being the third son of the family and not bred to any
trade, my head began to be filled very early with rambling
thoughts. My father, who was very ancient, had given me a
competent share of learning, as far as house-education and
a country free school generally go, and designed me for the
law; but I would be satisfied with nothing but going to sea;
and my inclination to this led me so strongly against the
will, nay, the commands of my father, and against all the
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entreaties and persuasions of my mother and other friends,
that there seemed to be something fatal in that propensity
of nature, tending directly to the life of misery which was
to befall me.
My father, a wise and grave man, gave me serious and ex-
cellent counsel against what he foresaw was my design. He
called me one morning into his chamber, where he was con-
fined by the gout, and expostulated very warmly with me
upon this subject. He asked me what reasons, more than a
mere wandering inclination, I had for leaving father’s house
and my native country, where I might be well introduced,
and had a prospect of raising my fortune by application
and industry, with a life of ease and pleasure. He told me
it was men of desperate fortunes on one hand, or of aspir-
ing, superior fortunes on the other, who went abroad upon
adventures, to rise by enterprise, and make themselves fa-
mous in undertakings of a nature out of the common road;
that these things were all either too far above me or too far
below me; that mine was the middle state, or what might be
called the upper station of low life, which he had found, by
long experience, was the best state in the world, the most
suited to human happiness, not exposed to the miseries and
hardships, the labour and sufferings of the mechanic part of
mankind, and not embarrassed with the pride, luxury, am-
bition, and envy of the upper part of mankind. He told me I
might judge of the happiness of this state by this one thing
- viz. that this was the state of life which all other people
envied; that kings have frequently lamented the miserable
consequence of being born to great things, and wished they