A New Voyage Round the World by a Course Never Sailed Before

by Daniel Defoe

I was really very much concerned about it, one ofmy doctors came to me, and told me he had been at the city (that is, atLima) to buy some drugs and medicines, to recruit his chest, and he hadfallen into company with an Irish Jesuit, who, he found, was anextraordinary good physician, and that he had had some discourse withhim about our sick men, and he believed for a good word or two, he couldpersuade him to come and visit them.

  I was very loath to consent to it, and said to the surgeon, If he is anIrishman, he speaks English, and he will presently perceive that we areall Englishmen, and so we shall be betrayed; all our designs will beblown up at once, and our farther measures be all broken; and thereforeI would not consent. This I did not speak from the fear of any hurt theycould have done me by force, for I had no reason to value that, beingable to have fought my way clear out of their seas, if I had been put toit; but, as I had traded all the way by stratagem, and had manyconsiderable views still behind, I was unwilling to be disappointed bythe discovery of my schemes, or that the Spaniards should know upon whata double foundation I acted, and how I was a French ally and merchant,or an English enemy and privateer, just as I pleased, and as opportunityshould offer; in which case they would have been sure to have trepannedme if possible, under pretence of the former, and have used me, if theyever should get an advantage over me, as one of the latter.

  This made me very cautious, and I had good reason for it too; and yetthe sickness and danger of my men pressed me very hard to have theadvice of a good physician, if it was possible, and especially to besatisfied whether it was really the plague or no, for I was very uneasyabout that.

  But my surgeon told me, that, as to my apprehension of discovery, hewould undertake to prevent it by this method. First, he said, he foundthat the Irishman did not understand French at all, and so I had nothingto do but to order, that, when he came on board, as little Englishshould be spoke in his hearing as possible; and this was not difficult,for almost all our men had a little French at their tongue's end, byhaving so many Frenchmen on board of them; others had the Levant jargon,which they call Lingua Frank; so that, if they had but due caution, itcould not be suddenly perceived what countrymen they were.

  Besides this, the surgeon ordered, that as soon as the Padre came onboard, he should be surrounded with French seamen only, some of whomshould be ordered to follow him from place to place, and chop in withtheir nimble tongues, upon some occasion or other, so that he shouldhear French spoken wherever he turned himself.

  Upon this, which indeed appeared very easy to be done, I agreed to letthe doctor come on board, and accordingly the surgeon brought him thenext day, where Captain Merlotte received him in the cabin, and treatedhim very handsomely, but nothing was spoken but French or Spanish; andthe surgeon, who had pretended himself to be an Irishman, acted asinterpreter between the doctor and us.

  Here we told him the case of our men that were sick; some of them,indeed, were French, and others that could speak French, were instructedto speak to him as if they could speak no other tongue, and those thesurgeon interpreted; others, who were English, were called Irishmen, andtwo or three were allowed to be English seamen picked up in the EastIndies, as we had seamen, we told him, of all nations.

  The matter, in short, was so carried that the good man, for such Ireally think he was, had no manner of suspicion; and, to do him justice,he was an admirable physician, and did our men a great deal of good; forall of them, excepting three, recovered under his hands, and those threehad recovered if they had not, like madmen, drank large quantities ofpunch when they were almost well; and, by their intemperance, inflamedtheir blood, and thereby thrown themselves back again into their fever,and put themselves, as the Padre said of them, out of the reach ofmedicine.

  We treated this man of art with a great deal of respect, made him somevery handsome presents, and particularly such as he could not come at inthe country where he was; besides which, I ordered he should have thevalue of one hundred dollars in gold given him; but he, on the otherhand, thanking Captain Merlotte for his bounty, would have no money, buthe accepted a present of some linen, a few handkerchiefs, some nutmegs,and a piece of black baize: most of which, however, he afterwards said,he made presents of again in the city, among some of his acquaintance.

  But he had a farther design in his head, which, on a future day, hecommunicated in confidence to the surgeon I have mentioned, whoconversed with him, and by him to me, and which was to him, indeed, ofthe highest importance. The case was this.

  He took our surgeon on shore with him one day from the Madagascar ship,where he had been with him to visit some of our sick men, and, drinkinga glass of wine with him, he told him he had a favour to ask of him, anda thing to reveal to him in confidence, which was of the utmostconsequence to himself though of no great value to him, (the surgeon),and, if he would promise the utmost secrecy to him, on his faith andhonour, he would put his life into his hands. For, seignior, said he, itwill be no other, nor would anything less than my life pay for it, ifyou should discover it to any of the people here, or anywhere else onthis coast.

  The surgeon was a very honest man, and carried indeed the index of it inhis face; and the Padre said afterwards, he inclined to put thisconfidence in him because he thought he saw something of an honest manin his very countenance. After so frank a beginning, the surgeon made noscruple to tell him, that, seeing he inclined to treat him with suchconfidence, and to put a trust of so great importance in him, he wouldgive him all the assurance in his power that he would be as faithful tohim as it was possible to be to himself, and that the secret shouldnever go out of his mouth to any one in the world, but to such and atsuch time as he should consent to and direct. In short, he used so manysolemn protestations, that the Padre made no scruple to trust him withthe secret, which, indeed, was no less than putting his life into hishands. The case was this.

  He told him he had heard them talk of going to Ireland in their return,and, as he had been thirty years out of his own country, in such aremote part of the world, where it was never likely that he should eversee it again, the notion he had entertained that this ship was goingthither, and might set him on shore there, that he might once more seehis native country, and his family and friends, had filled his mind withsuch a surprising joy, that he could no longer contain himself; andthat, therefore, if he would procure leave of the captain that he mightcome privately on board and take his passage home, he would willinglypay whatever the captain should desire of him, but that it must be donewith the greatest secrecy imaginable, or else he was ruined; for that,if he should be discovered and stopped, he should be confined in theJesuit's house there as long as he lived, without hope of redemption.

  The surgeon told him the thing was easy to be done if he would give himleave to acquaint one man in the ship with it, which was not CaptainMerlotte, but a certain Englishman, who was a considerable person in theship, without whom the captain did nothing, and who would be more secureto trust, by far, than Captain Merlotte. The Padre told him, that,without asking him for any reasons, since he had put his life andliberty in his hands, he would trust him with the management of thewhole, in whatever way he chose to conduct it.

  The surgeon accordingly brought him on board to me, and making aconfidence of the whole matter to me, I turned to the Padre, and toldhim in English, giving him my hand, that I would be under all theengagements and promises of secrecy that our surgeon had been in, forhis security and satisfaction; that he had merited too well of us towish him any ill, and, in short, that the whole ship should be engagedfor his security. That, as to his coming on board and bringing anythingoff that belonged to him, he must take his own measures, and answer tohimself for the success; but that, after he was on board, we would sinkthe ship under him, or blow her aloft in the air, before we woulddeliver him up on any account whatever.

  He was so pleased with my frank way of talking to him, that he told mehe would put his life into my hands with the same freedom as he had donebefore with my surgeon; so we began to concert measures for his
comingon board with secrecy.

  He told us there was no need of any proposals, for he would acquaint thehead of the house that he intended to go on board the French ship in theroad, and to go to St. Jago, where he had several times been in the samemanner; and that, as they had not the least suspicion of him, he wasvery well satisfied that they would make no scruple of it.

  But his mistake in this might have been his ruin; for though, had itbeen a Spanish ship, they would not have mistrusted him, yet, when henamed the French ship in the road of Callao, they began to question himvery smartly about it. Upon which, he was obliged to tell them, that,since they were doubtful of him, he would not go at all, telling themwithal, that it was hard to suspect him, who had been so faithful to hisvows, as to reside for near thirty years among them, when he mightfrequently have made an escape from them, if he had been so disposed.So, for three or four days, he made no appearance of going at all; buthaving had private notice from me the evening before we