by Daniel Defoe
first might run away with the ship, yet it was not true that they
had turned pirates; and that, in particular, these were not the men
that first went off with the ship, but innocently bought her for
their trade; and I am persuaded they will so far believe me as at
least to act more cautiously for the time to come."
In about thirteen days' sail we came to an anchor, at the south-
west point of the great Gulf of Nankin; where I learned by accident
that two Dutch ships were gone the length before me, and that I
should certainly fall into their hands. I consulted my partner
again in this exigency, and he was as much at a loss as I was. I
then asked the old pilot if there was no creek or harbour which I
might put into and pursue my business with the Chinese privately,
and be in no danger of the enemy. He told me if I would sail to
the southward about forty-two leagues, there was a little port
called Quinchang, where the fathers of the mission usually landed
from Macao, on their progress to teach the Christian religion to
the Chinese, and where no European ships ever put in; and if I
thought to put in there, I might consider what further course to
take when I was on shore. He confessed, he said, it was not a
place for merchants, except that at some certain times they had a
kind of a fair there, when the merchants from Japan came over
thither to buy Chinese merchandises. The name of the port I may
perhaps spell wrong, having lost this, together with the names of
many other places set down in a little pocket-book, which was
spoiled by the water by an accident; but this I remember, that the
Chinese merchants we corresponded with called it by a different
name from that which our Portuguese pilot gave it, who pronounced
it Quinchang. As we were unanimous in our resolution to go to this
place, we weighed the next day, having only gone twice on shore
where we were, to get fresh water; on both which occasions the
people of the country were very civil, and brought abundance of
provisions to sell to us; but nothing without money.
We did not come to the other port (the wind being contrary) for
five days; but it was very much to our satisfaction, and I was
thankful when I set my foot on shore, resolving, and my partner
too, that if it was possible to dispose of ourselves and effects
any other way, though not profitably, we would never more set foot
on board that unhappy vessel. Indeed, I must acknowledge, that of
all the circumstances of life that ever I had any experience of,
nothing makes mankind so completely miserable as that of being in
constant fear. Well does the Scripture say, "The fear of man
brings a snare"; it is a life of death, and the mind is so entirely
oppressed by it, that it is capable of no relief.
Nor did it fail of its usual operations upon the fancy, by
heightening every danger; representing the English and Dutch
captains to be men incapable of hearing reason, or of
distinguishing between honest men and rogues; or between a story
calculated for our own turn, made out of nothing, on purpose to
deceive, and a true, genuine account of our whole voyage, progress,
and design; for we might many ways have convinced any reasonable
creatures that we were not pirates; the goods we had on board, the
course we steered, our frankly showing ourselves, and entering into
such and such ports; and even our very manner, the force we had,
the number of men, the few arms, the little ammunition, short
provisions; all these would have served to convince any men that we
were no pirates. The opium and other goods we had on board would
make it appear the ship had been at Bengal. The Dutchmen, who, it
was said, had the names of all the men that were in the ship, might
easily see that we were a mixture of English, Portuguese, and
Indians, and but two Dutchmen on board. These, and many other
particular circumstances, might have made it evident to the
understanding of any commander, whose hands we might fall into,
that we were no pirates.
But fear, that blind, useless passion, worked another way, and
threw us into the vapours; it bewildered our understandings, and
set the imagination at work to form a thousand terrible things that
perhaps might never happen. We first supposed, as indeed everybody
had related to us, that the seamen on board the English and Dutch
ships, but especially the Dutch, were so enraged at the name of a
pirate, and especially at our beating off their boats and escaping,
that they would not give themselves leave to inquire whether we
were pirates or no, but would execute us off-hand, without giving
us any room for a defence. We reflected that there really was so
much apparent evidence before them, that they would scarce inquire
after any more; as, first, that the ship was certainly the same,
and that some of the seamen among them knew her, and had been on
board her; and, secondly, that when we had intelligence at the
river of Cambodia that they were coming down to examine us, we
fought their boats and fled. Therefore we made no doubt but they
were as fully satisfied of our being pirates as we were satisfied
of the contrary; and, as I often said, I know not but I should have
been apt to have taken those circumstances for evidence, if the
tables were turned, and my case was theirs; and have made no
scruple of cutting all the crew to pieces, without believing, or
perhaps considering, what they might have to offer in their
defence.
But let that be how it will, these were our apprehensions; and both
my partner and I scarce slept a night without dreaming of halters
and yard-arms; of fighting, and being taken; of killing, and being
killed: and one night I was in such a fury in my dream, fancying
the Dutchmen had boarded us, and I was knocking one of their seamen
down, that I struck my doubled fist against the side of the cabin I
lay in with such a force as wounded my hand grievously, broke my
knuckles, and cut and bruised the flesh, so that it awaked me out
of my sleep. Another apprehension I had was, the cruel usage we
might meet with from them if we fell into their hands; then the
story of Amboyna came into my head, and how the Dutch might perhaps
torture us, as they did our countrymen there, and make some of our
men, by extremity of torture, confess to crimes they never were
guilty of, or own themselves and all of us to be pirates, and so
they would put us to death with a formal appearance of justice; and
that they might be tempted to do this for the gain of our ship and
cargo, worth altogether four or five thousand pounds. We did not
consider that the captains of ships have no authority to act thus;
and if we had surrendered prisoners to them, they could not answer
the destroying us, or torturing us, but would be accountable for it
when they came to their country. However, if they were to act thus
with us, what advantage would it be to us that they should be
called to an account for it?--or if we were firs
t to be murdered,
what satisfaction would it be to us to have them punished when they
came home?
I cannot refrain taking notice here what reflections I now had upon
the vast variety of my particular circumstances; how hard I thought
it that I, who had spent forty years in a life of continual
difficulties, and was at last come, as it were, to the port or
haven which all men drive at, viz. to have rest and plenty, should
be a volunteer in new sorrows by my own unhappy choice, and that I,
who had escaped so many dangers in my youth, should now come to be
hanged in my old age, and in so remote a place, for a crime which I
was not in the least inclined to, much less guilty of. After these
thoughts something of religion would come in; and I would be
considering that this seemed to me to be a disposition of immediate
Providence, and I ought to look upon it and submit to it as such.
For, although I was innocent as to men, I was far from being
innocent as to my Maker; and I ought to look in and examine what
other crimes in my life were most obvious to me, and for which
Providence might justly inflict this punishment as a retribution;
and thus I ought to submit to this, just as I would to a shipwreck,
if it had pleased God to have brought such a disaster upon me.
In its turn natural courage would sometimes take its place, and
then I would be talking myself up to vigorous resolutions; that I
would not be taken to be barbarously used by a parcel of merciless
wretches in cold blood; that it were much better to have fallen
into the hands of the savages, though I were sure they would feast
upon me when they had taken me, than those who would perhaps glut
their rage upon me by inhuman tortures and barbarities; that in the
case of the savages, I always resolved to die fighting to the last
gasp, and why should I not do so now? Whenever these thoughts
prevailed, I was sure to put myself into a kind of fever with the
agitation of a supposed fight; my blood would boil, and my eyes
sparkle, as if I was engaged, and I always resolved to take no
quarter at their hands; but even at last, if I could resist no
longer, I would blow up the ship and all that was in her, and leave
them but little booty to boast of.
CHAPTER XIII--ARRIVAL IN CHINA
The greater weight the anxieties and perplexities of these things
were to our thoughts while we were at sea, the greater was our
satisfaction when we saw ourselves on shore; and my partner told me
he dreamed that he had a very heavy load upon his back, which he
was to carry up a hill, and found that he was not able to stand
longer under it; but that the Portuguese pilot came and took it off
his back, and the hill disappeared, the ground before him appearing
all smooth and plain: and truly it was so; they were all like men
who had a load taken off their backs. For my part I had a weight
taken off from my heart that it was not able any longer to bear;
and as I said above we resolved to go no more to sea in that ship.
When we came on shore, the old pilot, who was now our friend, got
us a lodging, together with a warehouse for our goods; it was a
little hut, with a larger house adjoining to it, built and also
palisadoed round with canes, to keep out pilferers, of which there
were not a few in that country: however, the magistrates allowed
us a little guard, and we had a soldier with a kind of half-pike,
who stood sentinel at our door, to whom we allowed a pint of rice
and a piece of money about the value of three-pence per day, so
that our goods were kept very safe.
The fair or mart usually kept at this place had been over some
time; however, we found that there were three or four junks in the
river, and two ships from Japan, with goods which they had bought
in China, and were not gone away, having some Japanese merchants on
shore.
The first thing our old Portuguese pilot did for us was to get us
acquainted with three missionary Romish priests who were in the
town, and who had been there some time converting the people to
Christianity; but we thought they made but poor work of it, and
made them but sorry Christians when they had done. One of these
was a Frenchman, whom they called Father Simon; another was a
Portuguese; and a third a Genoese. Father Simon was courteous, and
very agreeable company; but the other two were more reserved,
seemed rigid and austere, and applied seriously to the work they
came about, viz. to talk with and insinuate themselves among the
inhabitants wherever they had opportunity. We often ate and drank
with those men; and though I must confess the conversion, as they
call it, of the Chinese to Christianity is so far from the true
conversion required to bring heathen people to the faith of Christ,
that it seems to amount to little more than letting them know the
name of Christ, and say some prayers to the Virgin Mary and her
Son, in a tongue which they understood not, and to cross
themselves, and the like; yet it must be confessed that the
religionists, whom we call missionaries, have a firm belief that
these people will be saved, and that they are the instruments of
it; and on this account they undergo not only the fatigue of the
voyage, and the hazards of living in such places, but oftentimes
death itself, and the most violent tortures, for the sake of this
work.
Father Simon was appointed, it seems, by order of the chief of the
mission, to go up to Pekin, and waited only for another priest, who
was ordered to come to him from Macao, to go along with him. We
scarce ever met together but he was inviting me to go that journey;
telling me how he would show me all the glorious things of that
mighty empire, and, among the rest, Pekin, the greatest city in the
world: "A city," said he, "that your London and our Paris put
together cannot be equal to." But as I looked on those things with
different eyes from other men, so I shall give my opinion of them
in a few words, when I come in the course of my travels to speak
more particularly of them.
Dining with Father Simon one day, and being very merry together, I
showed some little inclination to go with him; and he pressed me
and my partner very hard to consent. "Why, father," says my
partner, "should you desire our company so much? you know we are
heretics, and you do not love us, nor cannot keep us company with
any pleasure."--"Oh," says he, "you may perhaps be good Catholics
in time; my business here is to convert heathens, and who knows but
I may convert you too?"--"Very well, father," said I, "so you will
preach to us all the way?"--"I will not be troublesome to you,"
says he; "our religion does not divest us of good manners; besides,
we are here like countrymen; and so we are, compared to the place
we are in; and if you are Huguenots, and I a Catholic, we may all
be Christians at last; at least, we are all gentlemen, and we may
converse so, without being uneasy to one another." I liked thi
s
part of his discourse very well, and it began to put me in mind of
my priest that I had left in the Brazils; but Father Simon did not
come up to his character by a great deal; for though this friar had
no appearance of a criminal levity in him, yet he had not that fund
of Christian zeal, strict piety, and sincere affection to religion
that my other good ecclesiastic had.
But to leave him a little, though he never left us, nor solicited
us to go with him; we had something else before us at first, for we
had all this while our ship and our merchandise to dispose of, and
we began to be very doubtful what we should do, for we were now in
a place of very little business. Once I was about to venture to
sail for the river of Kilam, and the city of Nankin; but Providence
seemed now more visibly, as I thought, than ever to concern itself
in our affairs; and I was encouraged, from this very time, to think
I should, one way or other, get out of this entangled circumstance,
and be brought home to my own country again, though I had not the
least view of the manner. Providence, I say, began here to clear
up our way a little; and the first thing that offered was, that our
old Portuguese pilot brought a Japan merchant to us, who inquired
what goods we had: and, in the first place, he bought all our
opium, and gave us a very good price for it, paying us in gold by
weight, some in small pieces of their own coin, and some in small
wedges, of about ten or twelves ounces each. While we were dealing
with him for our opium, it came into my head that he might perhaps
deal for the ship too, and I ordered the interpreter to propose it
to him. He shrunk up his shoulders at it when it was first
proposed to him; but in a few days after he came to me, with one of
the missionary priests for his interpreter, and told me he had a
proposal to make to me, which was this: he had bought a great
quantity of our goods, when he had no thoughts of proposals made to
him of buying the ship; and that, therefore, he had not money to
pay for the ship: but if I would let the same men who were in the
ship navigate her, he would hire the ship to go to Japan; and would
send them from thence to the Philippine Islands with another
loading, which he would pay the freight of before they went from
Japan: and that at their return he would buy the ship. I began to
listen to his proposal, and so eager did my head still run upon
rambling, that I could not but begin to entertain a notion of going
myself with him, and so to set sail from the Philippine Islands
away to the South Seas; accordingly, I asked the Japanese merchant
if he would not hire us to the Philippine Islands and discharge us
there. He said No, he could not do that, for then he could not
have the return of his cargo; but he would discharge us in Japan,
at the ship's return. Well, still I was for taking him at that
proposal, and going myself; but my partner, wiser than myself,
persuaded me from it, representing the dangers, as well of the seas
as of the Japanese, who are a false, cruel, and treacherous people;
likewise those of the Spaniards at the Philippines, more false,
cruel, and treacherous than they.
But to bring this long turn of our affairs to a conclusion; the
first thing we had to do was to consult with the captain of the
ship, and with his men, and know if they were willing to go to
Japan. While I was doing this, the young man whom my nephew had
left with me as my companion came up, and told me that he thought
that voyage promised very fair, and that there was a great prospect
of advantage, and he would be very glad if I undertook it; but that
if I would not, and would give him leave, he would go as a
merchant, or as I pleased to order him; that if ever he came to
England, and I was there and alive, he would render me a faithful
account of his success, which should be as much mine as I pleased.
I was loath to part with him; but considering the prospect of
advantage, which really was considerable, and that he was a young