by Daniel Defoe
They ask’d me what I was, in Portuguese, and in Spanish, and in French, but I understood none of them; but at last a Scots sailor who was on board, call’d to me, and I answer’d him, and told him I was an Englishman, that I had made my escape out of slavery from the Moors at Sallee; then they bad me come on board, and very kindly took me in, and all my goods.
It was an inexpressible joy to me, that any one will believe, that I was thus deliver’d, as I esteem’d 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 deliver’d safe to me when I came to the Brasils; for, says he, I have sav’d your life on no other terms than I would be glad to be saved my self, 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 Brasils, 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, Seignor, Inglese, says he, Mr. Englishman, I will carry you thither in charity, and those things will help you to buy your subsistance there, and your passage home again.
As he was charitable in his proposal, so he was just in the performance to a tittle, for he ordered the seamen, that none should offer to touch any thing 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 so much as 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 the ship’s use, and ask’d me what I would have for it? I told him he had been so generous to me in every thing, 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 his hand to pay me 80 Pieces of Eight for it at Brasil, and when it came there, if any one offer’d to give more he would make it up; he offer’d me also 60 Pieces of Eight more for my boy Xury, which I was loath to take, not that I was not willing to let the Captain have him, but I was very loath to sell the poor boy’s liberty, who had assisted me so faithfully in procuring my own. However when I let him know my reason, he own’d it to be just, and offer’d me this medium, that he would give the boy an obligation to set him free in ten years, if he turn’d 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 Brasils, and arriv’d in the Bay de Todos los Santos, or All-Saints Bay,18 in about twenty-two days after. And now I was once more deliver’d from the most miserable of all conditions of life, and what to do next with my self I was now to consider.
The generous treatment the Captain gave me, I can never enough remember; he would take nothing of me for my passage, gave me twenty Ducats for the leopard’s skin, and forty for the lyon’s skin which I had in my boat, and caused every thing I had in the ship to be punctually deliver’d me, and what I was willing to sell he bought, such as the case of bottles, two of my guns, and a piece of the lump of bees-wax, for I had made candles of the rest; in a word, I made about 220 Pieces of Eight of all my cargo, and with this stock I went on shore in the Brasils.
I had not been long here, but being recommended to the house of a good honest man like himself, who had an Ingeino as they call it; that is, a plantation and a sugar-house. I lived with him some time, and acquainted my self by that means with the manner of their planting and making of sugar; and seeing how well the planters liv’d, and how they grew rich suddenly, I resolv’d, if I could get licence to settle there, I would turn planter among them, resolving in the mean time 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 a letter of naturalization, I purchased as much land that was uncur’d, as my money would reach, and form’d a plan for my plantation and settlement, and such a one as might be suitable to the stock which I proposed to my self to receive 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 sociably together. My stock was but low as well as his; and we rather planted for food than any thing else, for about two years. However, we began to encrease, 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 had no remedy but to go on; I was gotten 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 thro’ 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 ha’ staid at home, and never have fatigu’d my self in the world as I had done; and I used often to say to my self, I could ha’ done this as well in England among my friends, as ha’ gone 5000 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 knowledge of me.
In this manner I used to look upon my condition with the utmost regret. I had no body to converse with but now and then this neighbour; no work to be done, but by the labour of my hands; and I used to say, I liv’d just like a man cast away upon some desolate island, that had no body there but himself. But how just has it been, and how should all men reflect, that when they compare their present conditions with others that are worse, Heaven may oblige them to make the exchange, and be convinc’d of their former felicity, by their experience: I say, how just has it been, that the truly solitary life I reflected on in an island of meer desolation should be my lot, who had so often unjustly compar’d 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 carrying 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 loading, and preparing for his voyage, near three months, when telling him what little stock I had left behind me in London, he gave me this friendly and sincere advice, Seignor Inglese, says he; for so he always called me, if you will give me letters, and a procuration here 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 Sterl. 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 recourse to for your supply.
This was so wholesom advice, and look’d so friendly, that I could not but be convinc’d it was the best course I could take; so I accordingly prepared letters to the gentlewoman with whom I had left my money, and a procuration 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 Portugal Captain at sea, the humanity of his behaviour, and in 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 at 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 handsom present for his humanity and charity to me.
The merchant in London vesting this
hundred Pounds in English goods, such as the Captain had writ for, sent them directly to him at Lisbon, and he brought them all safe to me to the Brasils, among which, without my direction (for I was too young in my business to think of them) he had taken care to have all sorts of tools, iron-work, 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 good 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; but my goods being all English manufactures, such as cloth, stuffs, bays, 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 abus’d prosperity is oftentimes made the very means of our greatest adversity, so was it 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 100 wt. were well cur’d and laid by against the return of the fleet from Lisbon: and now increasing in business and in wealth, my head began to be full of projects and undertakings beyond 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 befallen 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 attended me, and I was still to be the wilful agent of all my own miseries; and particularly to encrease my fault and double the reflections upon my self, which in my future sorrows I should have leisure to make; all these miscarriages were procured by my apparent obstinate adhering to my foolish inclination of wandring abroad, and pursuing that inclination, in contradiction to the clearest views of doing my self 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 my self down again into the deepest gulph 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 Brasils, and beginning to thrive and prosper very well upon my plantation; I had not only learn’d the language, but had contracted acquaintance and friendship among my fellow-planters, as well as among the merchants at St. Salvadore, 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, scissars, hatchets, bits of glass, and the like; not only gold dust, Guinea grains, elephants teeth, &c. but Negroes for the service of the Brasils, in great numbers.
They listened always very attentively to my discourses on these heads, but especially to that part which related to the buying Negroes, which was a trade at that time not only not far entred into, but as far as it was, had been carried on by the Assiento’s,19 or permission of the Kings of Spain and Portugal, and engross’d in the publick, so that few Negroes were brought, and those excessive dear.
It happen’d, being in company with some merchants and planters of my acquaintance, and talking of those things very earnestly, three of them came to me the next morning, 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 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 straiten’d for nothing so much as servants; that as it was a trade that could not be carried on, because they could not publickly 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 super-cargo in the ship to manage the trading part upon the coast of Guinea? And they offer’d me that I should have my equal share of the Negroes without providing any part of the stock.
This was a fair proposal it must be confess’d, had it been made to any one that had not had a settlement and plantation 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 go on as I had begun for three or four years more, and to have sent for the other hundred Pound from England, and who in that time, and with that little addition, could scarce ha’ fail’d of being worth three or four thousand Pounds Sterling, and that encreasing 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 rambling designs, when my father’s 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 absence, and would dispose of it to such as I should direct if I miscarry’d. This they all engag’d to do, and entred 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 sav’d my life as before, 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 ship’d to England.
In short, I took all possible caution to preserve my effects, and keep up my plantation; had I used half as much prudence to have look’d 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 my self.
But I was hurried on, and obey’d 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 —th of —,20 being the same day eight year 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 interest.
Our ship was about 120 tun burthen,21 carried 6 guns, and 14 men, besides the Master, his boy, and my self; 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 odd trifles, especially little looking-glasses, knives, scissars, 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 they came about 10 or 12 degrees of northern latitude, which it seems was the manner of their course in those days. We had very good weather, only excessive hot, all the way upon our own coast, till we came the height of Cape St. Augustino, from whence keeping farther off at sea we lost sight of land, and steer’d as if we was bou
nd for the isle Fernand de Noronha,22 holding our course N. E. by N. and leaving those isles on the east; in this course we past the Line in about 12 days time, and were by our last observation in 7 degrees 22 min. northern latitude, when a violent tournado or hurricane took us quite out of our knowledge; it began from the south-east, came about to the north-west, and then settled into the north-east, from whence it blew in such a terrible manner, that for 12 days together we could do nothing but drive, and scudding away before it, let it carry us whither ever fate and the fury of the winds directed; and during these 12 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 died of the calenture, and one man and the boy wash’d over board; about the 12th day the weather abating a little, the Master made an observation as well as he could, and found that he was in about 11 degrees north latitude, but that he was 22 degrees of longitude difference west from Cape St. Augustino; so that he found he was gotten upon the coast of Guinea, or the north part of Brasil, beyond the River Amazones, toward that of the River Oroonoko, commonly call’d 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 directly back to the coast of Brasil.
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 Carribbe-Islands, and therefore resolved to stand away for Barbadoes, which by keeping off at sea, to avoid the indraft of the Bay or Gulph of Mexico, we might easily perform, as we hoped, in about fifteen days sail; whereas we could not possibly make our voyage to the coast of Africa without some assistance, both to our ship and to our selves.