particularly made signs for something to eat: they beckoned
to me to stop my boat, and they would fetch me some meat.
Upon this I lowered the top of my sail and lay by, and two of
them ran up into the country, and in less than half-an- hour
came back, and brought with them two pieces of dried flesh
and some corn, such as is the produce of their country; but
we neither knew what the one or the other was; however, we
were willing to accept it, but how to come at it was our next
dispute, for I would not venture on shore to them, and they
were as much afraid of us; but they took a safe way for us all,
for they brought it to the shore and laid it down, and went
and stood a great way off till we fetched it on board, and
then came close to us again.
We made signs of thanks to them, for we had nothing to
make them amends; but an opportunity offered that very
instant to oblige them wonderfully; for while we were lying
by the shore came two mighty creatures, one pursuing the
other (as we took it) with great fury from the mountains to-
wards the sea; whether it was the male pursuing the female,
or whether they were in sport or in rage, we could not tell,
any more than we could tell whether it was usual or strange,
but I believe it was the latter; because, in the first place, those
ravenous creatures seldom appear but in the night; and, in
the second place, we found the people terribly frighted, es-
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pecially the women. The man that had the lance or dart did
not fly from them, but the rest did; however, as the two crea-
tures ran directly into the water, they did not offer to fall
upon any of the negroes, but plunged themselves into the
sea, and swam about, as if they had come for their diver-
sion; at last one of them began to come nearer our boat than
at first I expected; but I lay ready for him, for I had loaded
my gun with all possible expedition, and bade Xury load
both the others. As soon as he came fairly within my reach,
I fired, and shot him directly in the head; immediately he
sank down into the water, but rose instantly, and plunged
up and down, as if he were struggling for life, and so indeed
he was; he immediately made to the shore; but between the
wound, which was his mortal hurt, and the strangling of
the water, he died just before he reached the shore.
It is impossible to express the astonishment of these poor
creatures at the noise and fire of my gun: some of them were
even ready to die for fear, and fell down as dead with the
very terror; but when they saw the creature dead, and sunk
in the water, and that I made signs to them to come to the
shore, they took heart and came, and began to search for the
creature. I found him by his blood staining the water; and
by the help of a rope, which I slung round him, and gave
the negroes to haul, they dragged him on shore, and found
that it was a most curious leopard, spotted, and fine to an
admirable degree; and the negroes held up their hands with
admiration, to think what it was I had killed him with.
The other creature, frighted with the flash of fire and the
noise of the gun, swam on shore, and ran up directly to the
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mountains from whence they came; nor could I, at that dis-
tance, know what it was. I found quickly the negroes wished
to eat the flesh of this creature, so I was willing to have them
take it as a favour from me; which, when I made signs to
them that they might take him, they were very thankful for.
Immediately they fell to work with him; and though they
had no knife, yet, with a sharpened piece of wood, they
took off his skin as readily, and much more readily, than
we could have done with a knife. They offered me some of
the flesh, which I declined, pointing out that I would give
it them; but made signs for the skin, which they gave me
very freely, and brought me a great deal more of their provi-
sions, which, though I did not understand, yet I accepted. I
then made signs to them for some water, and held out one
of my jars to them, turning it bottom upward, to show that
it was empty, and that I wanted to have it filled. They called
immediately to some of their friends, and there came two
women, and brought a great vessel made of earth, and burnt,
as I supposed, in the sun, this they set down to me, as before,
and I sent Xury on shore with my jars, and filled them all
three. The women were as naked as the men.
I was now furnished with roots and corn, such as it was,
and water; and leaving my friendly negroes, I made forward
for about eleven days more, without offering to go near the
shore, till I saw the land run out a great length into the sea,
at about the distance of four or five leagues before me; and
the sea being very calm, I kept a large offing to make this
point. At length, doubling the point, at about two leagues
from the land, I saw plainly land on the other side, to sea-
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ward; then I concluded, as it was most certain indeed, that
this was the Cape de Verde, and those the islands called,
from thence, Cape de Verde Islands. However, they were at
a great distance, and I could not well tell what I had best to
do; for if I should be taken with a fresh of wind, I might nei-
ther reach one or other.
In this dilemma, as I was very pensive, I stepped into the
cabin and sat down, Xury having the helm; when, on a sud-
den, the boy cried out, ‘Master, master, a ship with a sail!’
and the foolish boy was frighted out of his wits, thinking it
must needs be some of his master’s ships sent to pursue us,
but I knew we were far enough out of their reach. I jumped
out of the cabin, and immediately saw, not only the ship,
but that it was a Portuguese ship; and, as I thought, was
bound to the coast of Guinea, for negroes. But, when I ob-
served the course she steered, I was soon convinced they
were bound some other way, and did not design to come
any nearer to the shore; upon which I stretched out to sea as
much as I could, resolving to speak with them if possible.
With all the sail I could make, I found I should not be
able to come in their way, but that they would be gone by
before I could make any signal to them: but after I had
crowded to the utmost, and began to despair, they, it seems,
saw by the help of their glasses that it was some European
boat, which they supposed must belong to some ship that
was lost; so they shortened sail to let me come up. I was
encouraged with this, and as I had my patron’s ancient on
board, I made a waft of it to them, for a signal of distress,
and fired a gun, both which they saw; for they told me they
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saw the smoke, though they did not hear the gun. Upon
these signals they very kindly brought to, and lay by for me;
and in about three hours; time I came up with them.
They asked me what I was, in Portuguese, and in Span-
ish, and in French, but I understood none of them; but at
last a Scotch sailor, who was on board, called to me: and
I answered him, and told him I was an Englishman, that I
had made my escape out of slavery from the Moors, at Sal-
lee; they then bade me come on board, and very kindly took
me in, and all my goods.
It was an inexpressible joy to me, which any one will be-
lieve, that I was thus delivered, as I esteemed it, from such
a miserable and almost hopeless condition as I was in; and
I immediately offered all I had to the captain of the ship, as
a return for my deliverance; but he generously told me he
would take nothing from me, but that all I had should be
delivered safe to me when I came to the Brazils. ‘For,’ says
he, ‘I have saved your life on no other terms than I would be
glad to be saved myself: and it may, one time or other, be my
lot to be taken up in the same condition. Besides,’ said he,
‘when I carry you to the Brazils, so great a way from your
own country, if I should take from you what you have, you
will be starved there, and then I only take away that life I
have given. No, no,’ says he: ‘Seignior Inglese’ (Mr. English-
man), ‘I will carry you thither in charity, and those things
will help to buy your subsistence there, and your passage
home again.’
As he was charitable in this proposal, so he was just in
the performance to a tittle; for he ordered the seamen that
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none should touch anything that I had: then he took every-
thing into his own possession, and gave me back an exact
inventory of them, that I might have them, even to my three
earthen jars.
As to my boat, it was a very good one; and that he saw,
and told me he would buy it of me for his ship’s use; and
asked me what I would have for it? I told him he had been so
generous to me in everything that I could not offer to make
any price of the boat, but left it entirely to him: upon which
he told me he would give me a note of hand to pay me eighty
pieces of eight for it at Brazil; and when it came there, if any
one offered to give more, he would make it up. He offered
me also sixty pieces of eight more for my boy Xury, which I
was loth to take; not that I was unwilling to let the captain
have him, but I was very loth to sell the poor boy’s liber-
ty, who had assisted me so faithfully in procuring my own.
However, when I let him know my reason, he owned it to
be just, and offered me this medium, that he would give the
boy an obligation to set him free in ten years, if he turned
Christian: upon this, and Xury saying he was willing to go
to him, I let the captain have him.
We had a very good voyage to the Brazils, and I arrived
in the Bay de Todos los Santos, or All Saints’ Bay, in about
twenty-two days after. And now I was once more delivered
from the most miserable of all conditions of life; and what
to do next with myself I was to consider.
The generous treatment the captain gave me I can nev-
er enough remember: he would take nothing of me for my
passage, gave me twenty ducats for the leopard’s skin, and
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forty for the lion’s skin, which I had in my boat, and caused
everything I had in the ship to be punctually delivered to
me; and what I was willing to sell he bought of me, such as
the case of bottles, two of my guns, and a piece of the lump
of beeswax - for I had made candles of the rest: in a word, I
made about two hundred and twenty pieces of eight of all
my cargo; and with this stock I went on shore in the Bra-
zils.
I had not been long here before I was recommended to
the house of a good honest man like himself, who had an
INGENIO, as they call it (that is, a plantation and a sugar-
house). I lived with him some time, and acquainted myself
by that means with the manner of planting and making of
sugar; and seeing how well the planters lived, and how they
got rich suddenly, I resolved, if I could get a licence to settle
there, I would turn planter among them: resolving in the
meantime to find out some way to get my money, which I
had left in London, remitted to me. To this purpose, getting
a kind of letter of naturalisation, I purchased as much land
that was uncured as my money would reach, and formed a
plan for my plantation and settlement; such a one as might
be suitable to the stock which I proposed to myself to re-
ceive from England.
I had a neighbour, a Portuguese, of Lisbon, but born of
English parents, whose name was Wells, and in much such
circumstances as I was. I call him my neighbour, because
his plantation lay next to mine, and we went on very socia-
bly together. My stock was but low, as well as his; and we
rather planted for food than anything else, for about two
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years. However, we began to increase, and our land began
to come into order; so that the third year we planted some
tobacco, and made each of us a large piece of ground ready
for planting canes in the year to come. But we both wanted
help; and now I found, more than before, I had done wrong
in parting with my boy Xury.
But, alas! for me to do wrong that never did right, was
no great wonder. I hail no remedy but to go on: I had got
into an employment quite remote to my genius, and directly
contrary to the life I delighted in, and for which I forsook
my father’s house, and broke through all his good advice.
Nay, I was coming into the very middle station, or upper
degree of low life, which my father advised me to before,
and which, if I resolved to go on with, I might as well have
stayed at home, and never have fatigued myself in the world
as I had done; and I used often to say to myself, I could have
done this as well in England, among my friends, as have
gone five thousand miles off to do it among strangers and
savages, in a wilderness, and at such a distance as never to
hear from any part of the world that had the least knowl-
edge of me.
In this manner I used to look upon my condition with
the utmost regret. I had nobody to converse with, but now
and then this neighbour; no work to be done, but by the la-
bour of my hands; and I used to say, I lived just like a man
cast away upon some desolate island, that had nobody there
but himself. But how just has it been - and how should all
men reflect, that when they compare their present condi-
tions with others that are worse, Heaven may oblige them to
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make the exchange, and be convinced of their former felic-
ity by their experience - I say, how just has it been, that the
truly solitary life I reflected on, in an island of mere desola-
tion, should be my lot, who had so often unjustly compared
it with the life which I then led, in which, had I continued, I
had in all probability been exceeding prosperous and rich.
I was in some degree settled in my measures for carry-
ing on the plantation before my kind friend, the captain of
the ship that took me up at sea, went back - for the ship
remained there, in providing his lading and preparing for
his voyage, nearly three months - when telling him what
little stock I had left behind me in London, he gave me this
friendly and sincere advice:- ‘Seignior Inglese,’ says he (for
so he always called me), ‘if you will give me letters, and a
procuration in form to me, with orders to the person who
has your money in London to send your effects to Lisbon,
to such persons as I shall direct, and in such goods as are
proper for this country, I will bring you the produce of
them, God willing, at my return; but, since human affairs
are all subject to changes and disasters, I would have you
give orders but for one hundred pounds sterling, which, you
say, is half your stock, and let the hazard be run for the first;
so that, if it come safe, you may order the rest the same way,
and, if it miscarry, you may have the other half to have re-
course to for your supply.’
This was so wholesome advice, and looked so friendly,
that I could not but be convinced it was the best course I
could take; so I accordingly prepared letters to the gentle-
woman with whom I had left my money, and a procuration
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to the Portuguese captain, as he desired.
I wrote the English captain’s widow a full account of
all my adventures - my slavery, escape, and how I had met
with the Portuguese captain at sea, the humanity of his be-
haviour, and what condition I was now in, with all other
necessary directions for my supply; and when this honest
captain came to Lisbon, he found means, by some of the
English merchants there, to send over, not the order only,
but a full account of my story to a merchant in London, who
represented it effectually to her; whereupon she not only
delivered the money, but out of her own pocket sent the
Portugal captain a very handsome present for his humanity
and charity to me.
The merchant in London, vesting this hundred pounds
in English goods, such as the captain had written for, sent
them directly to him at Lisbon, and he brought them all
safe to me to the Brazils; among which, without my direc-
tion (for I was too young in my business to think of them),
he had taken care to have all sorts of tools, ironwork, and
utensils necessary for my plantation, and which were of
great use to me.
When this cargo arrived I thought my fortune made, for
I was surprised with the joy of it; and my stood steward, the
captain, had laid out the five pounds, which my friend had
sent him for a present for himself, to purchase and bring me
over a servant, under bond for six years’ service, and would
not accept of any consideration, except a little tobacco,
which I would have him accept, being of my own produce.
Neither was this all; for my goods being all English man-
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ufacture, such as cloths, stuffs, baize, and things particularly
valuable and desirable in the country, I found means to sell
them to a very great advantage; so that I might say I had
more than four times the value of my first cargo, and was
now infinitely beyond my poor neighbour - I mean in the
advancement of my plantation; for the first thing I did, I
bought me a negro slave, and an European servant also - I
mean another besides that which the captain brought me
from Lisbon.
But as abused prosperity is oftentimes made the very
means of our greatest adversity, so it was with me. I went on
the next year with great success in my plantation: I raised
fifty great rolls of tobacco on my own ground, more than
I had disposed of for necessaries among my neighbours;
and these fifty rolls, being each of above a hundredweight,
were well cured, and laid by against the return of the fleet
from Lisbon: and now increasing in business and wealth,
my head began to be full of projects and undertakings be-
yond my reach; such as are, indeed, often the ruin of the
best heads in business. Had I continued in the station I was
now in, I had room for all the happy things to have yet be-
fallen me for which my father so earnestly recommended a
quiet, retired life, and of which he had so sensibly described
the middle station of life to be full of; but other things at-
tended me, and I was still to be the wilful agent of all my
own miseries; and particularly, to increase my fault, and
double the reflections upon myself, which in my future sor-
rows I should have leisure to make, all these miscarriages
were procured by my apparent obstinate adhering to my
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foolish inclination of wandering abroad, and pursuing that
inclination, in contradiction to the clearest views of doing
myself good in a fair and plain pursuit of those prospects,
and those measures of life, which nature and Providence
concurred to present me with, and to make my duty.
As I had once done thus in my breaking away from my
parents, so I could not be content now, but I must go and
leave the happy view I had of being a rich and thriving man
in my new plantation, only to pursue a rash and immoderate
desire of rising faster than the nature of the thing admitted;
and thus I cast myself down again into the deepest gulf of
human misery that ever man fell into, or perhaps could be
consistent with life and a state of health in the world.
To come, then, by the just degrees to the particulars of
this part of my story. You may suppose, that having now
lived almost four years in the Brazils, and beginning to
thrive and prosper very well upon my plantation, I had not
only learned the language, but had contracted acquaintance
and friendship among my fellow-planters, as well as among
the merchants at St. Salvador, which was our port; and that,
in my discourses among them, I had frequently given them
an account of my two voyages to the coast of Guinea: the
manner of trading with the negroes there, and how easy it
was to purchase upon the coast for trifles - such as beads,
toys, knives, scissors, hatchets, bits of glass, and the like -
not only gold-dust, Guinea grains, elephants’ teeth, &c., but
negroes, for the service of the Brazils, in great numbers.
They listened always very attentively to my discourses on
these heads, but especially to that part which related to the
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buying of negroes, which was a trade at that time, not only
not far entered into, but, as far as it was, had been carried on
by assientos, or permission of the kings of Spain and Portu-
gal, and engrossed in the public stock: so that few negroes
were bought, and these excessively dear.
It happened, being in company with some merchants
and planters of my acquaintance, and talking of those
things very earnestly, three of them came to me next morn-
ing, and told me they had been musing very much upon
what I had discoursed with them of the last night, and they
came to make a secret proposal to me; and, after enjoining
me to secrecy, they told me that they had a mind to fit out
a ship to go to Guinea; that they had all plantations as well
as I, and were straitened for nothing so much as servants;
that as it was a trade that could not be carried on, because
they could not publicly sell the negroes when they came
home, so they desired to make but one voyage, to bring the
negroes on shore privately, and divide them among their
own plantations; and, in a word, the question was whether
I would go their supercargo in the ship, to manage the trad-
ing part upon the coast of Guinea; and they offered me that
I should have my equal share of the negroes, without pro-
viding any part of the stock.
This was a fair proposal, it must be confessed, had it been
made to any one that had not had a settlement and a plan-
tation of his own to look after, which was in a fair way of
coming to be very considerable, and with a good stock upon
it; but for me, that was thus entered and established, and
had nothing to do but to go on as I had begun, for three
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or four years more, and to have sent for the other hundred
pounds from England; and who in that time, and with that
little addition, could scarce have failed of being worth three
or four thousand pounds sterling, and that increasing too
- for me to think of such a voyage was the most preposterous
thing that ever man in such circumstances could be guilty
of.
But I, that was born to be my own destroyer, could no
more resist the offer than I could restrain my first ram-
bling designs when my father’ good counsel was lost upon
me. In a word, I told them I would go with all my heart, if
they would undertake to look after my plantation in my ab-
sence, and would dispose of it to such as I should direct, if
I miscarried. This they all engaged to do, and entered into
writings or covenants to do so; and I made a formal will,
disposing of my plantation and effects in case of my death,
making the captain of the ship that had saved my life, as be-
fore, my universal heir, but obliging him to dispose of my
effects as I had directed in my will; one half of the produce
being to himself, and the other to be shipped to England.
In short, I took all possible caution to preserve my effects
and to keep up my plantation. Had I used half as much pru-
dence to have looked into my own interest, and have made
a judgment of what I ought to have done and not to have
done, I had certainly never gone away from so prosperous
an undertaking, leaving all the probable views of a thriving
circumstance, and gone upon a voyage to sea, attended with
all its common hazards, to say nothing of the reasons I had
to expect particular misfortunes to myself.
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But I was hurried on, and obeyed blindly the dictates of
my fancy rather than my reason; and, accordingly, the ship
being fitted out, and the cargo furnished, and all things
done, as by agreement, by my partners in the voyage, I went
on board in an evil hour, the 1st September 1659, being the
same day eight years that I went from my father and mother
at Hull, in order to act the rebel to their authority, and the
fool to my own interests.
Our ship was about one hundred and twenty tons bur-
den, carried six guns and fourteen men, besides the master,
his boy, and myself. We had on board no large cargo of
goods, except of such toys as were fit for our trade with the
negroes, such as beads, bits of glass, shells, and other trifles,
especially little looking-glasses, knives, scissors, hatchets,
and the like.
The same day I went on board we set sail, standing away
to the northward upon our own coast, with design to stretch
over for the African coast when we came about ten or twelve
degrees of northern latitude, which, it seems, was the man-
ner of course in those days. We had very good weather, only
excessively hot, all the way upon our own coast, till we came
to the height of Cape St. Augustino; from whence, keeping
further off at sea, we lost sight of land, and steered as if we
were bound for the isle Fernando de Noronha, holding our
course N.E. by N., and leaving those isles on the east. In this
course we passed the line in about twelve days’ time, and
were, by our last observation, in seven degrees twenty-two
minutes northern latitude, when a violent tornado, or hur-
ricane, took us quite out of our knowledge. It began from
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the south-east, came about to the north-west, and then set-
tled in the north-east; from whence it blew in such a terrible
manner, that for twelve days together we could do noth-
ing but drive, and, scudding away before it, let it carry us
whither fate and the fury of the winds directed; and, during
these twelve days, I need not say that I expected every day
to be swallowed up; nor, indeed, did any in the ship expect
to save their lives.
In this distress we had, besides the terror of the storm,
one of our men die of the calenture, and one man and the
boy washed overboard. About the twelfth day, the weather
abating a little, the master made an observation as well as
he could, and found that he was in about eleven degrees
north latitude, but that he was twenty-two degrees of lon-
gitude difference west from Cape St. Augustino; so that he
found he was upon the coast of Guiana, or the north part
of Brazil, beyond the river Amazon, toward that of the river
Orinoco, commonly called the Great River; and began to
consult with me what course he should take, for the ship
was leaky, and very much disabled, and he was going di-
rectly back to the coast of Brazil.
I was positively against that; and looking over the charts
of the sea-coast of America with him, we concluded there
was no inhabited country for us to have recourse to till we
came within the circle of the Caribbee Islands, and there-
fore resolved to stand away for Barbadoes; which, by keeping
off at sea, to avoid the indraft of the Bay or Gulf of Mexico,
we might easily perform, as we hoped, in about fifteen days’
sail; whereas we could not possibly make our voyage to the
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coast of Africa without some assistance both to our ship
and to ourselves.
With this design we changed our course, and steered
away N.W. by W., in order to reach some of our English
islands, where I hoped for relief. But our voyage was other-
wise determined; for, being in the latitude of twelve degrees
eighteen minutes, a second storm came upon us, which
carried us away with the same impetuosity westward, and
drove us so out of the way of all human commerce, that,
had all our lives been saved as to the sea, we were rather in
danger of being devoured by savages than ever returning to
our own country.
In this distress, the wind still blowing very hard, one of
our men early in the morning cried out, ‘Land!’ and we had
no sooner run out of the cabin to look out, in hopes of see-
ing whereabouts in the world we were, than the ship struck
upon a sand, and in a moment her motion being so stopped,
the sea broke over her in such a manner that we expected
we should all have perished immediately; and we were im-
mediately driven into our close quarters, to shelter us from
the very foam and spray of the sea.
It is not easy for any one who has not been in the like
condition to describe or conceive the consternation of men
in such circumstances. We knew nothing where we were, or
upon what land it was we were driven - whether an island or
the main, whether inhabited or not inhabited. As the rage
of the wind was still great, though rather less than at first,
we could not so much as hope to have the ship hold many
minutes without breaking into pieces, unless the winds, by
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a kind of miracle, should turn immediately about. In a word,
we sat looking upon one another, and expecting death every
moment, and every man, accordingly, preparing for anoth-
er world; for there was little or nothing more for us to do in
this. That which was our present comfort, and all the com-
fort we had, was that, contrary to our expectation, the ship
did not break yet, and that the master said the wind began
to abate.
Now, though we thought that the wind did a little abate,
yet the ship having thus struck upon the sand, and sticking
too fast for us to expect her getting off, we were in a dread-
ful condition indeed, and had nothing to do but to think of
saving our lives as well as we could. We had a boat at our
stern just before the storm, but she was first staved by dash-
ing against the ship’s rudder, and in the next place she broke
away, and either sunk or was driven off to sea; so there was
no hope from her. We had another boat on board, but how
to get her off into the sea was a doubtful thing. However,
there was no time to debate, for we fancied that the ship
would break in pieces every minute, and some told us she
was actually broken already.
In this distress the mate of our vessel laid hold of the
boat, and with the help of the rest of the men got her slung
over the ship’s side; and getting all into her, let go, and com-
mitted ourselves, being eleven in number, to God’s mercy
and the wild sea; for though the storm was abated consid-
erably, yet the sea ran dreadfully high upon the shore, and
might be well called DEN WILD ZEE, as the Dutch call the
sea in a storm.
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And now our case was very dismal indeed; for we all saw
plainly that the sea went so high that the boat could not
live, and that we should be inevitably drowned. As to mak-
ing sail, we had none, nor if we had could we have done
anything with it; so we worked at the oar towards the land,
though with heavy hearts, like men going to execution; for
we all knew that when the boat came near the shore she
would be dashed in a thousand pieces by the breach of the
sea. However, we committed our souls to God in the most
earnest manner; and the wind driving us towards the shore,
we hastened our destruction with our own hands, pulling
as well as we could towards land.
What the shore was, whether rock or sand, whether steep
or shoal, we knew not. The only hope that could rationally
give us the least shadow of expectation was, if we might find
some bay or gulf, or the mouth of some river, where by great
chance we might have run our boat in, or got under the lee
of the land, and perhaps made smooth water. But there was
nothing like this appeared; but as we made nearer and near-
er the shore, the land looked more frightful than the sea.
After we had rowed, or rather driven about a league and a
half, as we reckoned it, a raging wave, mountain-like, came
rolling astern of us, and plainly bade us expect the COUP
DE GRACE. It took us with such a fury, that it overset the
boat at once; and separating us as well from the boat as
from one another, gave us no time to say, ‘O God!’ for we
were all swallowed up in a moment.
Nothing can describe the confusion of thought which I
felt when I sank into the water; for though I swam very well,
Robinson Crusoe
yet I could not deliver myself from the waves so as to draw
breath, till that wave having driven me, or rather carried
me, a vast way on towards the shore, and having spent it-
self, went back, and left me upon the land almost dry, but
half dead with the water I took in. I had so much presence
of mind, as well as breath left, that seeing myself nearer the
mainland than I expected, I got upon my feet, and endeav-
oured to make on towards the land as fast as I could before
another wave should return and take me up again; but I
soon found it was impossible to avoid it; for I saw the sea
come after me as high as a great hill, and as furious as an
enemy, which I had no means or strength to contend with:
my business was to hold my breath, and raise myself upon
the water if I could; and so, by swimming, to preserve my
breathing, and pilot myself towards the shore, if possible,
my greatest concern now being that the sea, as it would car-
ry me a great way towards the shore when it came on, might
not carry me back again with it when it gave back towards
the sea.
The wave that came upon me again buried me at once
twenty or thirty feet deep in its own body, and I could feel
myself carried with a mighty force and swiftness towards
the shore - a very great way; but I held my breath, and as-
sisted myself to swim still forward with all my might. I was
ready to burst with holding my breath, when, as I felt myself
rising up, so, to my immediate relief, I found my head and
hands shoot out above the surface of the water; and though
it was not two seconds of time that I could keep myself so,
yet it relieved me greatly, gave me breath, and new courage.
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I was covered again with water a good while, but not so long
but I held it out; and finding the water had spent itself, and
began to return, I struck forward against the return of the
waves, and felt ground again with my feet. I stood still a few
moments to recover breath, and till the waters went from
me, and then took to my heels and ran with what strength I
had further towards the shore. But neither would this deliv-
er me from the fury of the sea, which came pouring in after
me again; and twice more I was lifted up by the waves and
carried forward as before, the shore being very flat.
The last time of these two had well-nigh been fatal to me,
for the sea having hurried me along as before, landed me,
or rather dashed me, against a piece of rock, and that with
such force, that it left me senseless, and indeed helpless, as
to my own deliverance; for the blow taking my side and
breast, beat the breath as it were quite out of my body; and
had it returned again immediately, I must have been stran-
gled in the water; but I recovered a little before the return
of the waves, and seeing I should be covered again with the
water, I resolved to hold fast by a piece of the rock, and so
to hold my breath, if possible, till the wave went back. Now,
as the waves were not so high as at first, being nearer land, I
held my hold till the wave abated, and then fetched another
run, which brought me so near the shore that the next wave,
though it went over me, yet did not so swallow me up as to
carry me away; and the next run I took, I got to the main-
land, where, to my great comfort, I clambered up the cliffs
of the shore and sat me down upon the grass, free from dan-
ger and quite out of the reach of the water.
Robinson Crusoe
I was now landed and safe on shore, and began to look
up and thank God that my life was saved, in a case wherein
there was some minutes before scarce any room to hope. I
believe it is impossible to express, to the life, what the ec-
stasies and transports of the soul are, when it is so saved, as
I may say, out of the very grave: and I do not wonder now
at the custom, when a malefactor, who has the halter about
his neck, is tied up, and just going to be turned off, and has
a reprieve brought to him - I say, I do not wonder that they
bring a surgeon with it, to let him blood that very moment
they tell him of it, that the surprise may not drive the ani-
mal spirits from the heart and overwhelm him.
‘For sudden joys, like griefs, confound at first.’
I walked about on the shore lifting up my hands, and my
whole being, as I may say, wrapped up in a contemplation of
my deliverance; making a thousand gestures and motions,
which I cannot describe; reflecting upon all my comrades
that were drowned, and that there should not be one soul
saved but myself; for, as for them, I never saw them after-
wards, or any sign of them, except three of their hats, one
cap, and two shoes that were not fellows.
I cast my eye to the stranded vessel, when, the breach
and froth of the sea being so big, I could hardly see it, it lay
so far of; and considered, Lord! how was it possible I could
get on shore
After I had solaced my mind with the comfortable part
of my condition, I began to look round me, to see what kind
of place I was in, and what was next to be done; and I soon
found my comforts abate, and that, in a word, I had a dread-
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ful deliverance; for I was wet, had no clothes to shift me, nor
anything either to eat or drink to comfort me; neither did I
see any prospect before me but that of perishing with hun-
ger or being devoured by wild beasts; and that which was
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