The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe

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THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF ROBINSON CRUSOE


CHAPTER I--REVISITS ISLAND


That homely proverb, used on so many occasions in England, viz. "That
what is bred in the bone will not go out of the flesh," was never more
verified than in the story of my Life. Any one would think that after
thirty-five years' affliction, and a variety of unhappy circumstances,
which few men, if any, ever went through before, and after near seven
years of peace and enjoyment in the fulness of all things; grown old, and
when, if ever, it might be allowed me to have had experience of every
state of middle life, and to know which was most adapted to make a man
completely happy; I say, after all this, any one would have thought that
the native propensity to rambling which I gave an account of in my first
setting out in the world to have been so predominant in my thoughts,
should be worn out, and I might, at sixty one years of age, have been a
little inclined to stay at home, and have done venturing life and fortune
any more.

Nay, farther, the common motive of foreign adventures was taken away in
me, for I had no fortune to make; I had nothing to seek: if I had gained
ten thousand pounds I had been no richer; for I had already sufficient
for me, and for those I had to leave it to; and what I had was visibly
increasing; for, having no great family, I could not spend the income of
what I had unless I would set up for an expensive way of living, such as
a great family, servants, equipage, gaiety, and the like, which were
things I had no notion of, or inclination to; so that I had nothing,
indeed, to do but to sit still, and fully enjoy what I had got, and see
it increase daily upon my hands. Yet all these things had no effect upon
me, or at least not enough to resist the strong inclination I had to go
abroad again, which hung about me like a chronic distemper. In
particular, the desire of seeing my new plantation in the island, and the
colony I left there, ran in my head continually. I dreamed of it all
night, and my imagination ran upon it all day: it was uppermost in all my
thoughts, and my fancy worked so steadily and strongly upon it that I
talked of it in my sleep; in short, nothing could remove it out of my
mind: it even broke so violently into all my discourses that it made my
conversation tiresome, for I could talk of nothing else; all my discourse
ran into it, even to impertinence; and I saw it myself.

I have often heard persons of good judgment say that all the stir that
people make in the world about ghosts and apparitions is owing to the
strength of imagination, and the powerful operation of fancy in their
minds; that there is no such thing as a spirit appearing, or a ghost
walking; that people's poring affectionately upon the past conversation
of their deceased friends so realises it to them that they are capable of
fancying, upon some extraordinary circumstances, that they see them, talk
to them, and are answered by them, when, in truth, there is nothing but
shadow and vapour in the thing, and they really know nothing of the
matter.

For my part, I know not to this hour whether there are any such things as
real apparitions, spectres, or walking of people after they are dead; or
whether there is anything in the stories they tell us of that kind more
than the product of vapours, sick minds, and wandering fancies: but this
I know, that my imagination worked up to such a height, and brought me
into such excess of vapours, or what else I may call it, that I actually
supposed myself often upon the spot, at my old castle, behind the trees;
saw my old Spaniard, Friday's father, and the reprobate sailors I left
upon the island; nay, I fancied I talked with them, and looked at them
steadily, though I was broad awake, as at persons just before me; and
this I did till I often frightened myself with the images my fancy
represented to me. One time, in my sleep, I had the villainy of the
three pirate sailors so lively related to me by the first Spaniard, and
Friday's father, that it was surprising: they told me how they
barbarously attempted to murder all the Spaniards, and that they set fire
to the provisions they had laid up, on purpose to distress and starve
them; things that I had never heard of, and that, indeed, were never all
of them true in fact: but it was so warm in my imagination, and so
realised to me, that, to the hour I saw them, I could not be persuaded
but that it was or would be true; also how I resented it, when the
Spaniard complained to me; and how I brought them to justice, tried them,
and ordered them all three to be hanged. What there was really in this
shall be seen in its place; for however I came to form such things in my
dream, and what secret converse of spirits injected it, yet there was, I
say, much of it true. I own that this dream had nothing in it literally
and specifically true; but the general part was so true--the base;
villainous behaviour of these three hardened rogues was such, and had
been so much worse than all I can describe, that the dream had too much
similitude of the fact; and as I would afterwards have punished them
severely, so, if I had hanged them all, I had been much in the right, and
even should have been justified both by the laws of God and man.

But to return to my story. In this kind of temper I lived some years; I
had no enjoyment of my life, no pleasant hours, no agreeable diversion
but what had something or other of this in it; so that my wife, who saw
my mind wholly bent upon it, told me very seriously one night that she
believed there was some secret, powerful impulse of Providence upon me,
which had determined me to go thither again; and that she found nothing
hindered me going but my being engaged to a wife and children. She told
me that it was true she could not think of parting with me: but as she
was assured that if she was dead it would be the first thing I would do,
so, as it seemed to her that the thing was determined above, she would
not be the only obstruction; for, if I thought fit and resolved to
go--[Here she found me very intent upon her words, and that I looked very
earnestly at her, so that it a little disordered her, and she stopped. I
asked her why she did not go on, and say out what she was going to say?
But I perceived that her heart was too full, and some tears stood in her
eyes.] "Speak out, my dear," said I; "are you willing I should
go?"--"No," says she, very affectionately, "I am far from willing; but if
you are resolved to go," says she, "rather than I would be the only
hindrance, I will go with you: for though I think it a most preposterous
thing for one of your years, and in your condition, yet, if it must be,"
said she, again weeping, "I would not leave you; for if it be of Heaven
you must do it, there is no resisting it; and if Heaven make it your duty
to go, He will also make it mine to go with you, or otherwise dispose of
me, that I may not obstruct it."

This affectionate behaviour of my wife's brought me a little out of the
vapours, and I began to consider what I was doing; I corrected my
wandering fancy, and began to argue with myself sedately what business I
had after threescore years, and after such a life of tedious sufferings
and disasters, and closed in so happy and easy a manner; I, say, what
business had I to rush into new hazards, and put myself upon adventures
fit only for youth and poverty to run into?

With those thoughts I considered my new engagement; that I had a wife,
one child born, and my wife then great with child of another; that I had
all the world could give me, and had no need to seek hazard for gain;
that I was declining in years, and ought to think rather of leaving what
I had gained than of seeking to increase it; that as to what my wife had
said of its being an impulse from Heaven, and that it should be my duty
to go, I had no notion of that; so, after many of these cogitations, I
struggled with the power of my imagination, reasoned myself out of it, as
I believe people may always do in like cases if they will: in a word, I
conquered it, composed myself with such arguments as occurred to my
thoughts, and which my present condition furnished me plentifully with;
and particularly, as the most effectual method, I resolved to divert
myself with other things, and to engage in some business that might
effectually tie me up from any more excursions of this kind; for I found
that thing return upon me chiefly when I was idle, and had nothing to do,
nor anything of moment immediately before me. To this purpose, I bought
a little farm in the county of Bedford, and resolved to remove myself
thither. I had a little convenient house upon it, and the land about it,
I found, was capable of great improvement; and it was many ways suited to
my inclination, which delighted in cultivating, managing, planting, and
improving of land; and particularly, being an inland country, I was
removed from conversing among sailors and things relating to the remote
parts of the world. I went down to my farm, settled my family, bought
ploughs, harrows, a cart, waggon-horses, cows, and sheep, and, setting
seriously to work, became in one half-year a mere country gentleman. My
thoughts were entirely taken up in managing my servants, cultivating the
ground, enclosing, planting, &c.; and I lived, as I thought, the most
agreeable life that nature was capable of directing, or that a man always
bred to misfortunes was capable of retreating to.

I farmed upon my own land; I had no rent to pay, was limited by no
articles; I could pull up or cut down as I pleased; what I planted was
for myself, and what I improved was for my family; and having thus left
off the thoughts of wandering, I had not the least discomfort in any part
of life as to this world. Now I thought, indeed, that I enjoyed the
middle state of life which my father so earnestly recommended to me, and
lived a kind of heavenly life, something like what is described by the
poet, upon the subject of a country life:--

"Free from vices, free from care,
Age has no pain, and youth no snare."

But in the middle of all this felicity, one blow from unseen Providence
unhinged me at once; and not only made a breach upon me inevitable and
incurable, but drove me, by its consequences, into a deep relapse of the
wandering disposition, which, as I may say, being born in my very blood,
soon recovered its hold of me; and, like the returns of a violent
distemper, came on with an irresistible force upon me. This blow was the
loss of my wife. It is not my business here to write an elegy upon my
wife, give a character of her particular virtues, and make my court to
the sex by the flattery of a funeral sermon. She was, in a few words,
the stay of all my affairs; the centre of all my enterprises; the engine
that, by her prudence, reduced me to that happy compass I was in, from
the most extravagant and ruinous project that filled my head, and did
more to guide my rambling genius than a mother's tears, a father's
instructions, a friend's counsel, or all my own reasoning powers could
do. I was happy in listening to her, and in being moved by her
entreaties; and to the last degree desolate and dislocated in the world
by the loss of her.

When she was gone, the world looked awkwardly round me. I was as much a
stranger in it, in my thoughts, as I was in the Brazils, when I first
went on shore there; and as much alone, except for the assistance of
servants, as I was in my island. I knew neither what to think nor what
to do. I saw the world busy around me: one part labouring for bread,
another part squandering in vile excesses or empty pleasures, but equally
miserable because the end they proposed still fled from them; for the men
of pleasure every day surfeited of their vice, and heaped up work for
sorrow and repentance; and the men of labour spent their strength in
daily struggling for bread to maintain the vital strength they laboured
with: so living in a daily circulation of sorrow, living but to work, and
working but to live, as if daily bread were the only end of wearisome
life, and a wearisome life the only occasion of daily bread.

This put me in mind of the life I lived in my kingdom, the island; where
I suffered no more corn to grow, because I did not want it; and bred no
more goats, because I had no more use for them; where the money lay in
the drawer till it grew mouldy, and had scarce the favour to be looked
upon in twenty years. All these things, had I improved them as I ought
to have done, and as reason and religion had dictated to me, would have
taught me to search farther than human enjoyments for a full felicity;
and that there was something which certainly was the reason and end of
life superior to all these things, and which was either to be possessed,
or at least hoped for, on this side of the grave.

But my sage counsellor was gone; I was like a ship without a pilot, that
could only run afore the wind. My thoughts ran all away again into the
old affair; my head was quite turned with the whimsies of foreign
adventures; and all the pleasant, innocent amusements of my farm, my
garden, my cattle, and my family, which before entirely possessed me,
were nothing to me, had no relish, and were like music to one that has no
ear, or food to one that has no taste. In a word, I resolved to leave
off housekeeping, let my farm, and return to London; and in a few months
after I did so.

When I came to London, I was still as uneasy as I was before; I had no
relish for the place, no employment in it, nothing to do but to saunter
about like an idle person, of whom it may be said he is perfectly useless
in God's creation, and it is not one farthing's matter to the rest of his
kind whether he be dead or alive. This also was the thing which, of all
circumstances of life, was the most my aversion, who had been all my days
used to an active life; and I would often say to myself, "A state of
idleness is the very dregs of life;" and, indeed, I thought I was much
more suitably employed when I was twenty-six days making a deal board.

It was now the beginning of the year 1693, when my nephew, whom, as I
have observed before, I had brought up to the sea, and had made him
commander of a ship, was come home from a short voyage to Bilbao, being
the first he had made. He came to me, and told me that some merchants of
his acquaintance had been proposing to him to go a voyage for them to the
East Indies, and to China, as private traders. "And now, uncle," says
he, "if you will go to sea with me, I will engage to land you upon your
old habitation in the island; for we are to touch at the Brazils."

Nothing can be a greater demonstration of a future state, and of the
existence of an invisible world, than the concurrence of second causes
with the idea of things which we form in our minds, perfectly reserved,
and not communicated to any in the world.

My nephew knew nothing how far my distemper of wandering was returned
upon me, and I knew nothing of what he had in his thought to say, when
that very morning, before he came to me, I had, in a great deal of
confusion of thought, and revolving every part of my circumstances in my
mind, come to this resolution, that I would go to Lisbon, and consult
with my old sea-captain; and if it was rational and practicable, I would
go and see the island again, and what was become of my people there. I
had pleased myself with the thoughts of peopling the place, and carrying
inhabitants from hence, getting a patent for the possession and I know
not what; when, in the middle of all this, in comes my nephew, as I have
said, with his project of carrying me thither in his way to the East
Indies.

I paused a while at his words, and looking steadily at him, "What devil,"
said I, "sent you on this unlucky errand?" My nephew stared as if he had
been frightened at first; but perceiving that I was not much displeased
at the proposal, he recovered himself. "I hope it may not be an unlucky
proposal, sir," says he. "I daresay you would be pleased to see your new
colony there, where you once reigned with more felicity than most of your
brother monarchs in the world." In a word, the scheme hit so exactly
with my temper, that is to say, the prepossession I was under, and of
which I have said so much, that I told him, in a few words, if he agreed
with the merchants, I would go with him; but I told him I would not
promise to go any further than my own island. "Why, sir," says he, "you
don't want to be left there again, I hope?" "But," said I, "can you not
take me up again on your return?" He told me it would not be possible to
do so; that the merchants would never allow him to come that way with a
laden ship of such value, it being a month's sail out of his way, and
might be three or four. "Besides, sir, if I should miscarry," said he,
"and not return at all, then you would be just reduced to the condition
you were in before."

This was very rational; but we both found out a remedy for it, which was
to carry a framed sloop on board the ship, which, being taken in pieces,
might, by the help of some carpenters, whom we agreed to carry with us,
be set up again in the island, and finished fit to go to sea in a few
days. I was not long resolving, for indeed the importunities of my
nephew joined so effectually with my inclination that nothing could
oppose me; on the other hand, my wife being dead, none concerned
themselves so much for me as to persuade me one way or the other, except
my ancient good friend the widow, who earnestly struggled with me to
consider my years, my easy circumstances, and the needless hazards of a
long voyage; and above all, my young children. But it was all to no
purpose, I had an irresistible desire for the voyage; and I told her I
thought there was something so uncommon in the impressions I had upon my
mind, that it would be a kind of resisting Providence if I should attempt
to stay at home; after which she ceased her expostulations, and joined
with me, not only in making provision for my voyage, but also in settling
my family affairs for my absence, and providing for the education of my
children. In order to do this, I made my will, and settled the estate I
had in such a manner for my children, and placed in such hands, that I
was perfectly easy and satisfied they would have justice done them,
whatever might befall me; and for their education, I left it wholly to
the widow, with a sufficient maintenance to herself for her care: all
which she richly deserved; for no mother could have taken more care in
their education, or understood it better; and as she lived till I came
home, I also lived to thank her for it.

My nephew was ready to sail about the beginning of January 1694-5; and I,
with my man Friday, went on board, in the Downs, the 8th; having, besides
that sloop which I mentioned above, a very considerable cargo of all
kinds of necessary things for my colony, which, if I did not find in good
condition, I resolved to leave so.

First, I carried with me some servants whom I purposed to place there as
inhabitants, or at least to set on work there upon my account while I
stayed, and either to leave them there or carry them forward, as they
should appear willing; particularly, I carried two carpenters, a smith,
and a very handy, ingenious fellow, who was a cooper by trade, and was
also a general mechanic; for he was dexterous at making wheels and hand-
mills to grind corn, was a good turner and a good pot-maker; he also made
anything that was proper to make of earth or of wood: in a word, we
called him our Jack-of-all-trades. With these I carried a tailor, who
had offered himself to go a passenger to the East Indies with my nephew,
but afterwards consented to stay on our new plantation, and who proved a
most necessary handy fellow as could be desired in many other businesses
besides that of his trade; for, as I observed formerly, necessity arms us
for all employments.

My cargo, as near as I can recollect, for I have not kept account of the
particulars, consisted of a sufficient quantity of linen, and some
English thin stuffs, for clothing the Spaniards that I expected to find
there; and enough of them, as by my calculation might comfortably supply
them for seven years; if I remember right, the materials I carried for
clothing them, with gloves, hats, shoes, stockings, and all such things
as they could want for wearing, amounted to about two hundred pounds,
including some beds, bedding, and household stuff, particularly kitchen
utensils, with pots, kettles, pewter, brass, &c.; and near a hundred
pounds more in ironwork, nails, tools of every kind, staples, hooks,
hinges, and every necessary thing I could think of.

I carried also a hundred spare arms, muskets, and fusees; besides some
pistols, a considerable quantity of shot of all sizes, three or four tons
of lead, and two pieces of brass cannon; and, because I knew not what
time and what extremities I was providing for, I carried a hundred
barrels of powder, besides swords, cutlasses, and the iron part of some
pikes and halberds. In short, we had a large magazine of all sorts of
store; and I made my nephew carry two small quarter-deck guns more than
he wanted for his ship, to leave behind if there was occasion; so that
when we came there we might build a fort and man it against all sorts of
enemies. Indeed, I at first thought there would be need enough for all,
and much more, if we hoped to maintain our possession of the island, as
shall be seen in the course of that story.

I had not such bad luck in this voyage as I had been used to meet with,
and therefore shall have the less occasion to interrupt the reader, who
perhaps may be impatient to hear how matters went with my colony; yet
some odd accidents, cross winds and bad weather happened on this first
setting out, which made the voyage longer than I expected it at first;
and I, who had never made but one voyage, my first voyage to Guinea, in
which I might be said to come back again, as the voyage was at first
designed, began to think the same ill fate attended me, and that I was
born to be never contented with being on shore, and yet to be always
unfortunate at sea. Contrary winds first put us to the northward, and we
were obliged to put in at Galway, in Ireland, where we lay wind-bound two-
and-twenty days; but we had this satisfaction with the disaster, that
provisions were here exceeding cheap, and in the utmost plenty; so that
while we lay here we never touched the ship's stores, but rather added to
them. Here, also, I took in several live hogs, and two cows with their
calves, which I resolved, if I had a good passage, to put on shore in my
island; but we found occasion to dispose otherwise of them.

We set out on the 5th of February from Ireland, and had a very fair gale
of wind for some days. As I remember, it might be about the 20th of
February in the evening late, when the mate, having the watch, came into
the round-house and told us he saw a flash of fire, and heard a gun
fired; and while he was telling us of it, a boy came in and told us the
boatswain heard another. This made us all run out upon the quarter-deck,
where for a while we heard nothing; but in a few minutes we saw a very
great light, and found that there was some very terrible fire at a
distance; immediately we had recourse to our reckonings, in which we all
agreed that there could be no land that way in which the fire showed
itself, no, not for five hundred leagues, for it appeared at WNW. Upon
this, we concluded it must be some ship on fire at sea; and as, by our
hearing the noise of guns just before, we concluded that it could not be
far off, we stood directly towards it, and were presently satisfied we
should discover it, because the further we sailed, the greater the light
appeared; though, the weather being hazy, we could not perceive anything
but the light for a while. In about half-an-hour's sailing, the wind
being fair for us, though not much of it, and the weather clearing up a
little, we could plainly discern that it was a great ship on fire in the
middle of the sea.

I was most sensibly touched with this disaster, though not at all
acquainted with the persons engaged in it; I presently recollected my
former circumstances, and what condition I was in when taken up by the
Portuguese captain; and how much more deplorable the circumstances of the
poor creatures belonging to that ship must be, if they had no other ship
in company with them. Upon this I immediately ordered that five guns
should be fired, one soon after another, that, if possible, we might give
notice to them that there was help for them at hand and that they might
endeavour to save themselves in their boat; for though we could see the
flames of the ship, yet they, it being night, could see nothing of us.

We lay by some time upon this, only driving as the burning ship drove,
waiting for daylight; when, on a sudden, to our great terror, though we
had reason to expect it, the ship blew up in the air; and in a few
minutes all the fire was out, that is to say, the rest of the ship sunk.
This was a terrible, and indeed an afflicting sight, for the sake of the
poor men, who, I concluded, must be either all destroyed in the ship, or
be in the utmost distress in their boat, in the middle of the ocean;
which, at present, as it was dark, I could not see. However, to direct
them as well as I could, I caused lights to be hung out in all parts of
the ship where we could, and which we had lanterns for, and kept firing
guns all the night long, letting them know by this that there was a ship
not far off.