by Daniel Defoe
fellow likely to do well in it, I inclined to let him go; but I
told him I would consult my partner, and give him an answer the
next day. I discoursed about it with my partner, who thereupon
made a most generous offer: "You know it has been an unlucky
ship," said he, "and we both resolve not to go to sea in it again;
if your steward" (so he called my man) "will venture the voyage, I
will leave my share of the vessel to him, and let him make the best
of it; and if we live to meet in England, and he meets with success
abroad, he shall account for one half of the profits of the ship's
freight to us; the other shall be his own."
If my partner, who was no way concerned with my young man, made him
such an offer, I could not do less than offer him the same; and all
the ship's company being willing to go with him, we made over half
the ship to him in property, and took a writing from him, obliging
him to account for the other, and away he went to Japan. The Japan
merchant proved a very punctual, honest man to him: protected him
at Japan, and got him a licence to come on shore, which the
Europeans in general have not lately obtained. He paid him his
freight very punctually; sent him to the Philippines loaded with
Japan and China wares, and a supercargo of their own, who,
trafficking with the Spaniards, brought back European goods again,
and a great quantity of spices; and there he was not only paid his
freight very well, and at a very good price, but not being willing
to sell the ship, then the merchant furnished him goods on his own
account; and with some money, and some spices of his own which he
brought with him, he went back to the Manillas, where he sold his
cargo very well. Here, having made a good acquaintance at Manilla,
he got his ship made a free ship, and the governor of Manilla hired
him to go to Acapulco, on the coast of America, and gave him a
licence to land there, and to travel to Mexico, and to pass in any
Spanish ship to Europe with all his men. He made the voyage to
Acapulco very happily, and there he sold his ship: and having
there also obtained allowance to travel by land to Porto Bello, he
found means to get to Jamaica, with all his treasure, and about
eight years after came to England exceeding rich.
But to return to our particular affairs, being now to part with the
ship and ship's company, it came before us, of course, to consider
what recompense we should give to the two men that gave us such
timely notice of the design against us in the river Cambodia. The
truth was, they had done us a very considerable service, and
deserved well at our hands; though, by the way, they were a couple
of rogues, too; for, as they believed the story of our being
pirates, and that we had really run away with the ship, they came
down to us, not only to betray the design that was formed against
us, but to go to sea with us as pirates. One of them confessed
afterwards that nothing else but the hopes of going a-roguing
brought him to do it: however, the service they did us was not the
less, and therefore, as I had promised to be grateful to them, I
first ordered the money to be paid them which they said was due to
them on board their respective ships: over and above that, I gave
each of them a small sum of money in gold, which contented them
very well. I then made the Englishman gunner in the ship, the
gunner being now made second mate and purser; the Dutchman I made
boatswain; so they were both very well pleased, and proved very
serviceable, being both able seamen, and very stout fellows.
We were now on shore in China; if I thought myself banished, and
remote from my own country at Bengal, where I had many ways to get
home for my money, what could I think of myself now, when I was
about a thousand leagues farther off from home, and destitute of
all manner of prospect of return? All we had for it was this:
that in about four months' time there was to be another fair at the
place where we were, and then we might be able to purchase various
manufactures of the country, and withal might possibly find some
Chinese junks from Tonquin for sail, that would carry us and our
goods whither we pleased. This I liked very well, and resolved to
wait; besides, as our particular persons were not obnoxious, so if
any English or Dutch ships came thither, perhaps we might have an
opportunity to load our goods, and get passage to some other place
in India nearer home. Upon these hopes we resolved to continue
here; but, to divert ourselves, we took two or three journeys into
the country.
First, we went ten days' journey to Nankin, a city well worth
seeing; they say it has a million of people in it: it is regularly
built, and the streets are all straight, and cross one another in
direct lines. But when I come to compare the miserable people of
these countries with ours, their fabrics, their manner of living,
their government, their religion, their wealth, and their glory, as
some call it, I must confess that I scarcely think it worth my
while to mention them here. We wonder at the grandeur, the riches,
the pomp, the ceremonies, the government, the manufactures, the
commerce, and conduct of these people; not that there is really any
matter for wonder, but because, having a true notion of the
barbarity of those countries, the rudeness and the ignorance that
prevail there, we do not expect to find any such thing so far off.
Otherwise, what are their buildings to the palaces and royal
buildings of Europe? What their trade to the universal commerce of
England, Holland, France, and Spain? What are their cities to
ours, for wealth, strength, gaiety of apparel, rich furniture, and
infinite variety? What are their ports, supplied with a few junks
and barks, to our navigation, our merchant fleets, our large and
powerful navies? Our city of London has more trade than half their
mighty empire: one English, Dutch, or French man-of-war of eighty
guns would be able to fight almost all the shipping belonging to
China: but the greatness of their wealth, their trade, the power
of their government, and the strength of their armies, may be a
little surprising to us, because, as I have said, considering them
as a barbarous nation of pagans, little better than savages, we did
not expect such things among them. But all the forces of their
empire, though they were to bring two millions of men into the
field together, would be able to do nothing but ruin the country
and starve themselves; a million of their foot could not stand
before one embattled body of our infantry, posted so as not to be
surrounded, though they were not to be one to twenty in number;
nay, I do not boast if I say that thirty thousand German or English
foot, and ten thousand horse, well managed, could defeat all the
forces of China. Nor is there a fortified town in China that could
hold out one month against the batteries and attacks of an European
army. They have firearms, it is true, but th
ey are awkward and
uncertain in their going off; and their powder has but little
strength. Their armies are badly disciplined, and want skill to
attack, or temper to retreat; and therefore, I must confess, it
seemed strange to me, when I came home, and heard our people say
such fine things of the power, glory, magnificence, and trade of
the Chinese; because, as far as I saw, they appeared to be a
contemptible herd or crowd of ignorant, sordid slaves, subjected to
a government qualified only to rule such a people; and were not its
distance inconceivably, great from Muscovy, and that empire in a
manner as rude, impotent, and ill governed as they, the Czar of
Muscovy might with ease drive them all out of their country, and
conquer them in one campaign; and had the Czar (who is now a
growing prince) fallen this way, instead of attacking the warlike
Swedes, and equally improved himself in the art of war, as they say
he has done; and if none of the powers of Europe had envied or
interrupted him, he might by this time have been Emperor of China,
instead of being beaten by the King of Sweden at Narva, when the
latter was not one to six in number.
As their strength and their grandeur, so their navigation,
commerce, and husbandry are very imperfect, compared to the same
things in Europe; also, in their knowledge, their learning, and in
their skill in the sciences, they are either very awkward or
defective, though they have globes or spheres, and a smattering of
the mathematics, and think they know more than all the world
besides. But they know little of the motions of the heavenly
bodies; and so grossly and absurdly ignorant are their common
people, that when the sun is eclipsed, they think a great dragon
has assaulted it, and is going to run away with it; and they fall a
clattering with all the drums and kettles in the country, to fright
the monster away, just as we do to hive a swarm of bees!
As this is the only excursion of the kind which I have made in all
the accounts I have given of my travels, so I shall make no more
such. It is none of my business, nor any part of my design; but to
give an account of my own adventures through a life of inimitable
wanderings, and a long variety of changes, which, perhaps, few that
come after me will have heard the like of: I shall, therefore, say
very little of all the mighty places, desert countries, and
numerous people I have yet to pass through, more than relates to my
own story, and which my concern among them will make necessary.
I was now, as near as I can compute, in the heart of China, about
thirty degrees north of the line, for we were returned from Nankin.
I had indeed a mind to see the city of Pekin, which I had heard so
much of, and Father Simon importuned me daily to do it. At length
his time of going away being set, and the other missionary who was
to go with him being arrived from Macao, it was necessary that we
should resolve either to go or not; so I referred it to my partner,
and left it wholly to his choice, who at length resolved it in the
affirmative, and we prepared for our journey. We set out with very
good advantage as to finding the way; for we got leave to travel in
the retinue of one of their mandarins, a kind of viceroy or
principal magistrate in the province where they reside, and who
take great state upon them, travelling with great attendance, and
great homage from the people, who are sometimes greatly
impoverished by them, being obliged to furnish provisions for them
and all their attendants in their journeys. I particularly
observed in our travelling with his baggage, that though we
received sufficient provisions both for ourselves and our horses
from the country, as belonging to the mandarin, yet we were obliged
to pay for everything we had, after the market price of the
country, and the mandarin's steward collected it duly from us.
Thus our travelling in the retinue of the mandarin, though it was a
great act of kindness, was not such a mighty favour to us, but was
a great advantage to him, considering there were above thirty other
people travelled in the same manner besides us, under the
protection of his retinue; for the country furnished all the
provisions for nothing to him, and yet he took our money for them.
We were twenty-five days travelling to Pekin, through a country
exceeding populous, but I think badly cultivated; the husbandry,
the economy, and the way of living miserable, though they boast so
much of the industry of the people: I say miserable, if compared
with our own, but not so to these poor wretches, who know no other.
The pride of the poor people is infinitely great, and exceeded by
nothing but their poverty, in some parts, which adds to that which
I call their misery; and I must needs think the savages of America
live much more happy than the poorer sort of these, because as they
have nothing, so they desire nothing; whereas these are proud and
insolent and in the main are in many parts mere beggars and
drudges. Their ostentation is inexpressible; and, if they can,
they love to keep multitudes of servants or slaves, which is to the
last degree ridiculous, as well as their contempt of all the world
but themselves.
I must confess I travelled more pleasantly afterwards in the
deserts and vast wildernesses of Grand Tartary than here, and yet
the roads here are well paved and well kept, and very convenient
for travellers; but nothing was more awkward to me than to see such
a haughty, imperious, insolent people, in the midst of the grossest
simplicity and ignorance; and my friend Father Simon and I used to
be very merry upon these occasions, to see their beggarly pride.
For example, coming by the house of a country gentleman, as Father
Simon called him, about ten leagues off the city of Nankin, we had
first of all the honour to ride with the master of the house about
two miles; the state he rode in was a perfect Don Quixotism, being
a mixture of pomp and poverty. His habit was very proper for a
merry-andrew, being a dirty calico, with hanging sleeves, tassels,
and cuts and slashes almost on every side: it covered a taffety
vest, so greasy as to testify that his honour must be a most
exquisite sloven. His horse was a poor, starved, hobbling
creature, and two slaves followed him on foot to drive the poor
creature along; he had a whip in his hand, and he belaboured the
beast as fast about the head as his slaves did about the tail; and
thus he rode by us, with about ten or twelve servants, going from
the city to his country seat, about half a league before us. We
travelled on gently, but this figure of a gentleman rode away
before us; and as we stopped at a village about an hour to refresh
us, when we came by the country seat of this great man, we saw him
in a little place before his door, eating a repast. It was a kind
of garden, but he was easy to be seen; and we were given to
understand that the more we looked at him the bette
r he would be
pleased. He sat under a tree, something like the palmetto, which
effectually shaded him over the head, and on the south side; but
under the tree was placed a large umbrella, which made that part
look well enough. He sat lolling back in a great elbow-chair,
being a heavy corpulent man, and had his meat brought him by two
women slaves. He had two more, one of whom fed the squire with a
spoon, and the other held the dish with one hand, and scraped off
what he let fall upon his worship's beard and taffety vest.
Leaving the poor wretch to please himself with our looking at him,
as if we admired his idle pomp, we pursued our journey. Father
Simon had the curiosity to stay to inform himself what dainties the
country justice had to feed on in all his state, which he had the
honour to taste of, and which was, I think, a mess of boiled rice,
with a great piece of garlic in it, and a little bag filled with
green pepper, and another plant which they have there, something
like our ginger, but smelling like musk, and tasting like mustard;
all this was put together, and a small piece of lean mutton boiled
in it, and this was his worship's repast. Four or five servants
more attended at a distance, who we supposed were to eat of the
same after their master. As for our mandarin with whom we
travelled, he was respected as a king, surrounded always with his
gentlemen, and attended in all his appearances with such pomp, that
I saw little of him but at a distance. I observed that there was
not a horse in his retinue but that our carrier's packhorses in
England seemed to me to look much better; though it was hard to
judge rightly, for they were so covered with equipage, mantles,
trappings, &c., that we could scarce see anything but their feet
and their heads as they went along.
I was now light-hearted, and all my late trouble and perplexity
being over, I had no anxious thoughts about me, which made this
journey the pleasanter to me; in which no ill accident attended me,
only in passing or fording a small river, my horse fell and made me
free of the country, as they call it--that is to say, threw me in.
The place was not deep, but it wetted me all over. I mention it
because it spoiled my pocket-book, wherein I had set down the names
of several people and places which I had occasion to remember, and
which not taking due care of, the leaves rotted, and the words were
never after to be read.
At length we arrived at Pekin. I had nobody with me but the youth
whom my nephew had given me to attend me as a servant and who
proved very trusty and diligent; and my partner had nobody with him
but one servant, who was a kinsman. As for the Portuguese pilot,
he being desirous to see the court, we bore his charges for his
company, and for our use of him as an interpreter, for he
understood the language of the country, and spoke good French and a
little English. Indeed, this old man was most useful to us
everywhere; for we had not been above a week at Pekin, when he came
laughing. "Ah, Seignior Inglese," says he, "I have something to
tell will make your heart glad."--"My heart glad," says I; "what
can that be? I don't know anything in this country can either give
me joy or grief to any great degree."--"Yes, yes," said the old
man, in broken English, "make you glad, me sorry."--"Why," said I,
"will it make you sorry?"--"Because," said he, "you have brought me
here twenty-five days' journey, and will leave me to go back alone;
and which way shall I get to my port afterwards, without a ship,
without a horse, without pecune?" so he called money, being his
broken Latin, of which he had abundance to make us merry with. In
short, he told us there was a great caravan of Muscovite and Polish
merchants in the city, preparing to set out on their journey by
land to Muscovy, within four or five weeks; and he was sure we
would take the opportunity to go with them, and leave him behind,
to go back alone.
I confess I was greatly surprised with this good news, and had