The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe

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About eight o'clock in the morning we discovered the ship's boats by the
help of our perspective glasses, and found there were two of them, both
thronged with people, and deep in the water. We perceived they rowed,
the wind being against them; that they saw our ship, and did their utmost
to make us see them. We immediately spread our ancient, to let them know
we saw them, and hung a waft out, as a signal for them to come on board,
and then made more sail, standing directly to them. In little more than
half-an-hour we came up with them; and took them all in, being no less
than sixty-four men, women, and children; for there were a great many
passengers.

Upon inquiry we found it was a French merchant ship of three-hundred
tons, home-bound from Quebec. The master gave us a long account of the
distress of his ship; how the fire began in the steerage by the
negligence of the steersman, which, on his crying out for help, was, as
everybody thought, entirely put out; but they soon found that some sparks
of the first fire had got into some part of the ship so difficult to come
at that they could not effectually quench it; and afterwards getting in
between the timbers, and within the ceiling of the ship, it proceeded
into the hold, and mastered all the skill and all the application they
were able to exert.

They had no more to do then but to get into their boats, which, to their
great comfort, were pretty large; being their long-boat, and a great
shallop, besides a small skiff, which was of no great service to them,
other than to get some fresh water and provisions into her, after they
had secured their lives from the fire. They had, indeed, small hopes of
their lives by getting into these boats at that distance from any land;
only, as they said, that they thus escaped from the fire, and there was a
possibility that some ship might happen to be at sea, and might take them
in. They had sails, oars, and a compass; and had as much provision and
water as, with sparing it so as to be next door to starving, might
support them about twelve days, in which, if they had no bad weather and
no contrary winds, the captain said he hoped he might get to the banks of
Newfoundland, and might perhaps take some fish, to sustain them till they
might go on shore. But there were so many chances against them in all
these cases, such as storms, to overset and founder them; rains and cold,
to benumb and perish their limbs; contrary winds, to keep them out and
starve them; that it must have been next to miraculous if they had
escaped.

In the midst of their consternation, every one being hopeless and ready
to despair, the captain, with tears in his eyes, told me they were on a
sudden surprised with the joy of hearing a gun fire, and after that four
more: these were the five guns which I caused to be fired at first seeing
the light. This revived their hearts, and gave them the notice, which,
as above, I desired it should, that there was a ship at hand for their
help. It was upon the hearing of these guns that they took down their
masts and sails: the sound coming from the windward, they resolved to lie
by till morning. Some time after this, hearing no more guns, they fired
three muskets, one a considerable while after another; but these, the
wind being contrary, we never heard. Some time after that again they
were still more agreeably surprised with seeing our lights, and hearing
the guns, which, as I have said, I caused to be fired all the rest of the
night. This set them to work with their oars, to keep their boats ahead,
at least that we might the sooner come up with them; and at last, to
their inexpressible joy, they found we saw them.

It is impossible for me to express the several gestures, the strange
ecstasies, the variety of postures which these poor delivered people ran
into, to express the joy of their souls at so unexpected a deliverance.
Grief and fear are easily described: sighs, tears, groans, and a very few
motions of the head and hands, make up the sum of its variety; but an
excess of joy, a surprise of joy, has a thousand extravagances in it.
There were some in tears; some raging and tearing themselves, as if they
had been in the greatest agonies of sorrow; some stark raving and
downright lunatic; some ran about the ship stamping with their feet,
others wringing their hands; some were dancing, some singing, some
laughing, more crying, many quite dumb, not able to speak a word; others
sick and vomiting; several swooning and ready to faint; and a few were
crossing themselves and giving God thanks.

I would not wrong them either; there might be many that were thankful
afterwards; but the passion was too strong for them at first, and they
were not able to master it: then were thrown into ecstasies, and a kind
of frenzy, and it was but a very few that were composed and serious in
their joy. Perhaps also, the case may have some addition to it from the
particular circumstance of that nation they belonged to: I mean the
French, whose temper is allowed to be more volatile, more passionate, and
more sprightly, and their spirits more fluid than in other nations. I am
not philosopher enough to determine the cause; but nothing I had ever
seen before came up to it. The ecstasies poor Friday, my trusty savage,
was in when he found his father in the boat came the nearest to it; and
the surprise of the master and his two companions, whom I delivered from
the villains that set them on shore in the island, came a little way
towards it; but nothing was to compare to this, either that I saw in
Friday, or anywhere else in my life.

It is further observable, that these extravagances did not show
themselves in that different manner I have mentioned, in different
persons only; but all the variety would appear, in a short succession of
moments, in one and the same person. A man that we saw this minute dumb,
and, as it were, stupid and confounded, would the next minute be dancing
and hallooing like an antic; and the next moment be tearing his hair, or
pulling his clothes to pieces, and stamping them under his feet like a
madman; in a few moments after that we would have him all in tears, then
sick, swooning, and, had not immediate help been had, he would in a few
moments have been dead. Thus it was, not with one or two, or ten or
twenty, but with the greatest part of them; and, if I remember right, our
surgeon was obliged to let blood of about thirty persons.

There were two priests among them: one an old man, and the other a young
man; and that which was strangest was, the oldest man was the worst. As
soon as he set his foot on board our ship, and saw himself safe, he
dropped down stone dead to all appearance. Not the least sign of life
could be perceived in him; our surgeon immediately applied proper
remedies to recover him, and was the only man in the ship that believed
he was not dead. At length he opened a vein in his arm, having first
chafed and rubbed the part, so as to warm it as much as possible. Upon
this the blood, which only dropped at first, flowing freely, in three
minutes after the man opened his eyes; a quarter of an hour after that he
spoke, grew better, and after the blood was stopped, he walked about,
told us he was perfectly well, and took a dram of cordial which the
surgeon gave him. About a quarter of an hour after this they came
running into the cabin to the surgeon, who was bleeding a Frenchwoman
that had fainted, and told him the priest was gone stark mad. It seems
he had begun to revolve the change of his circumstances in his mind, and
again this put him into an ecstasy of joy. His spirits whirled about
faster than the vessels could convey them, the blood grew hot and
feverish, and the man was as fit for Bedlam as any creature that ever was
in it. The surgeon would not bleed him again in that condition, but gave
him something to doze and put him to sleep; which, after some time,
operated upon him, and he awoke next morning perfectly composed and well.
The younger priest behaved with great command of his passions, and was
really an example of a serious, well-governed mind. At his first coming
on board the ship he threw himself flat on his face, prostrating himself
in thankfulness for his deliverance, in which I unhappily and
unseasonably disturbed him, really thinking he had been in a swoon; but
he spoke calmly, thanked me, told me he was giving God thanks for his
deliverance, begged me to leave him a few moments, and that, next to his
Maker, he would give me thanks also. I was heartily sorry that I
disturbed him, and not only left him, but kept others from interrupting
him also. He continued in that posture about three minutes, or little
more, after I left him, then came to me, as he had said he would, and
with a great deal of seriousness and affection, but with tears in his
eyes, thanked me, that had, under God, given him and so many miserable
creatures their lives. I told him I had no need to tell him to thank God
for it, rather than me, for I had seen that he had done that already; but
I added that it was nothing but what reason and humanity dictated to all
men, and that we had as much reason as he to give thanks to God, who had
blessed us so far as to make us the instruments of His mercy to so many
of His creatures. After this the young priest applied himself to his
countrymen, and laboured to compose them: he persuaded, entreated,
argued, reasoned with them, and did his utmost to keep them within the
exercise of their reason; and with some he had success, though others
were for a time out of all government of themselves.

I cannot help committing this to writing, as perhaps it may be useful to
those into whose hands it may fall, for guiding themselves in the
extravagances of their passions; for if an excess of joy can carry men
out to such a length beyond the reach of their reason, what will not the
extravagances of anger, rage, and a provoked mind carry us to? And,
indeed, here I saw reason for keeping an exceeding watch over our
passions of every kind, as well those of joy and satisfaction as those of
sorrow and anger.

We were somewhat disordered by these extravagances among our new guests
for the first day; but after they had retired to lodgings provided for
them as well as our ship would allow, and had slept heartily--as most of
them did, being fatigued and frightened--they were quite another sort of
people the next day. Nothing of good manners, or civil acknowledgments
for the kindness shown them, was wanting; the French, it is known, are
naturally apt enough to exceed that way. The captain and one of the
priests came to me the next day, and desired to speak with me and my
nephew; the commander began to consult with us what should be done with
them; and first, they told us we had saved their lives, so all they had
was little enough for a return to us for that kindness received. The
captain said they had saved some money and some things of value in their
boats, caught hastily out of the flames, and if we would accept it they
were ordered to make an offer of it all to us; they only desired to be
set on shore somewhere in our way, where, if possible, they might get a
passage to France. My nephew wished to accept their money at first word,
and to consider what to do with them afterwards; but I overruled him in
that part, for I knew what it was to be set on shore in a strange
country; and if the Portuguese captain that took me up at sea had served
me so, and taken all I had for my deliverance, I must have been starved,
or have been as much a slave at the Brazils as I had been at Barbary, the
mere being sold to a Mahometan excepted; and perhaps a Portuguese is not
a much better master than a Turk, if not in some cases much worse.

I therefore told the French captain that we had taken them up in their
distress, it was true, but that it was our duty to do so, as we were
fellow-creatures; and we would desire to be so delivered if we were in
the like or any other extremity; that we had done nothing for them but
what we believed they would have done for us if we had been in their case
and they in ours; but that we took them up to save them, not to plunder
them; and it would be a most barbarous thing to take that little from
them which they had saved out of the fire, and then set them on shore and
leave them; that this would be first to save them from death, and then
kill them ourselves: save them from drowning, and abandon them to
starving; and therefore I would not let the least thing be taken from
them. As to setting them on shore, I told them indeed that was an
exceeding difficulty to us, for that the ship was bound to the East
Indies; and though we were driven out of our course to the westward a
very great way, and perhaps were directed by Heaven on purpose for their
deliverance, yet it was impossible for us wilfully to change our voyage
on their particular account; nor could my nephew, the captain, answer it
to the freighters, with whom he was under charter to pursue his voyage by
way of Brazil; and all I knew we could do for them was to put ourselves
in the way of meeting with other ships homeward bound from the West
Indies, and get them a passage, if possible, to England or France.

The first part of the proposal was so generous and kind they could not
but be very thankful for it; but they were in very great consternation,
especially the passengers, at the notion of being carried away to the
East Indies; they then entreated me that as I was driven so far to the
westward before I met with them, I would at least keep on the same course
to the banks of Newfoundland, where it was probable I might meet with
some ship or sloop that they might hire to carry them back to Canada.

I thought this was but a reasonable request on their part, and therefore
I inclined to agree to it; for indeed I considered that to carry this
whole company to the East Indies would not only be an intolerable
severity upon the poor people, but would be ruining our whole voyage by
devouring all our provisions; so I thought it no breach of charter-party,
but what an unforeseen accident made absolutely necessary to us, and in
which no one could say we were to blame; for the laws of God and nature
would have forbid that we should refuse to take up two boats full of
people in such a distressed condition; and the nature of the thing, as
well respecting ourselves as the poor people, obliged us to set them on
shore somewhere or other for their deliverance. So I consented that we
would carry them to Newfoundland, if wind and weather would permit: and
if not, I would carry them to Martinico, in the West Indies.

The wind continued fresh easterly, but the weather pretty good; and as
the winds had continued in the points between NE. and SE. a long time, we
missed several opportunities of sending them to France; for we met
several ships bound to Europe, whereof two were French, from St.
Christopher's, but they had been so long beating up against the wind that
they durst take in no passengers, for fear of wanting provisions for the
voyage, as well for themselves as for those they should take in; so we
were obliged to go on. It was about a week after this that we made the
banks of Newfoundland; where, to shorten my story, we put all our French
people on board a bark, which they hired at sea there, to put them on
shore, and afterwards to carry them to France, if they could get
provisions to victual themselves with. When I say all the French went on
shore, I should remember that the young priest I spoke of, hearing we
were bound to the East Indies, desired to go the voyage with us, and to
be set on shore on the coast of Coromandel; which I readily agreed to,
for I wonderfully liked the man, and had very good reason, as will appear
afterwards; also four of the seamen entered themselves on our ship, and
proved very useful fellows.

From hence we directed our course for the West Indies, steering away S.
and S. by E. for about twenty days together, sometimes little or no wind
at all; when we met with another subject for our humanity to work upon,
almost as deplorable as that before.




CHAPTER II--INTERVENING HISTORY OF COLONY


It was in the latitude of 27 degrees 5 minutes N., on the 19th day of
March 1694-95, when we spied a sail, our course SE. and by S. We soon
perceived it was a large vessel, and that she bore up to us, but could
not at first know what to make of her, till, after coming a little
nearer, we found she had lost her main-topmast, fore-mast, and bowsprit;
and presently she fired a gun as a signal of distress. The weather was
pretty good, wind at NNW. a fresh gale, and we soon came to speak with
her. We found her a ship of Bristol, bound home from Barbadoes, but had
been blown out of the road at Barbadoes a few days before she was ready
to sail, by a terrible hurricane, while the captain and chief mate were
both gone on shore; so that, besides the terror of the storm, they were
in an indifferent case for good mariners to bring the ship home. They
had been already nine weeks at sea, and had met with another terrible
storm, after the hurricane was over, which had blown them quite out of
their knowledge to the westward, and in which they lost their masts. They
told us they expected to have seen the Bahama Islands, but were then
driven away again to the south-east, by a strong gale of wind at NNW.,
the same that blew now: and having no sails to work the ship with but a
main course, and a kind of square sail upon a jury fore-mast, which they
had set up, they could not lie near the wind, but were endeavouring to
stand away for the Canaries.

But that which was worst of all was, that they were almost starved for
want of provisions, besides the fatigues they had undergone; their bread
and flesh were quite gone--they had not one ounce left in the ship, and
had had none for eleven days. The only relief they had was, their water
was not all spent, and they had about half a barrel of flour left; they
had sugar enough; some succades, or sweetmeats, they had at first, but
these were all devoured; and they had seven casks of rum. There was a
youth and his mother and a maid-servant on board, who were passengers,
and thinking the ship was ready to sail, unhappily came on board the
evening before the hurricane began; and having no provisions of their own
left, they were in a more deplorable condition than the rest: for the
seamen being reduced to such an extreme necessity themselves, had no
compassion, we may be sure, for the poor passengers; and they were,
indeed, in such a condition that their misery is very hard to describe.

I had perhaps not known this part, if my curiosity had not led me, the
weather being fair and the wind abated, to go on board the ship. The
second mate, who upon this occasion commanded the ship, had been on board
our ship, and he told me they had three passengers in the great cabin
that were in a deplorable condition. "Nay," says he, "I believe they are
dead, for I have heard nothing of them for above two days; and I was
afraid to inquire after them," said he, "for I had nothing to relieve
them with." We immediately applied ourselves to give them what relief we
could spare; and indeed I had so far overruled things with my nephew,
that I would have victualled them though we had gone away to Virginia, or
any other part of the coast of America, to have supplied ourselves; but
there was no necessity for that.

But now they were in a new danger; for they were afraid of eating too
much, even of that little we gave them. The mate, or commander, brought
six men with him in his boat; but these poor wretches looked like
skeletons, and were so weak that they could hardly sit to their oars. The
mate himself was very ill, and half starved; for he declared he had
reserved nothing from the men, and went share and share alike with them
in every bit they ate. I cautioned him to eat sparingly, and set meat
before him immediately, but he had not eaten three mouthfuls before he
began to be sick and out of order; so he stopped a while, and our surgeon
mixed him up something with some broth, which he said would be to him
both food and physic; and after he had taken it he grew better. In the
meantime I forgot not the men. I ordered victuals to be given them, and
the poor creatures rather devoured than ate it: they were so exceedingly
hungry that they were in a manner ravenous, and had no command of
themselves; and two of them ate with so much greediness that they were in
danger of their lives the next morning. The sight of these people's
distress was very moving to me, and brought to mind what I had a terrible
prospect of at my first coming on shore in my island, where I had not the
least mouthful of food, or any prospect of procuring any; besides the
hourly apprehensions I had of being made the food of other creatures. But
all the while the mate was thus relating to me the miserable condition of
the ship's company, I could not put out of my thought the story he had
told me of the three poor creatures in the great cabin, viz. the mother,
her son, and the maid-servant, whom he had heard nothing of for two or
three days, and whom, he seemed to confess, they had wholly neglected,
their own extremities being so great; by which I understood that they had
really given them no food at all, and that therefore they must be
perished, and be all lying dead, perhaps, on the floor or deck of the
cabin.

As I therefore kept the mate, whom we then called captain, on board with
his men, to refresh them, so I also forgot not the starving crew that
were left on board, but ordered my own boat to go on board the ship, and,
with my mate and twelve men, to carry them a sack of bread, and four or
five pieces of beef to boil. Our surgeon charged the men to cause the
meat to be boiled while they stayed, and to keep guard in the cook-room,
to prevent the men taking it to eat raw, or taking it out of the pot
before it was well boiled, and then to give every man but a very little
at a time: and by this caution he preserved the men, who would otherwise
have killed themselves with that very food that was given them on purpose
to save their lives.

At the same time I ordered the mate to go into the great cabin, and see
what condition the poor passengers were in; and if they were alive, to
comfort them, and give them what refreshment was proper: and the surgeon
gave him a large pitcher, with some of the prepared broth which he had
given the mate that was on board, and which he did not question would
restore them gradually. I was not satisfied with this; but, as I said
above, having a great mind to see the scene of misery which I knew the
ship itself would present me with, in a more lively manner than I could
have it by report, I took the captain of the ship, as we now called him,
with me, and went myself, a little after, in their boat.

I found the poor men on board almost in a tumult to get the victuals out
of the boiler before it was ready; but my mate observed his orders, and
kept a good guard at the cook-room door, and the man he placed there,
after using all possible persuasion to have patience, kept them off by
force; however, he caused some biscuit-cakes to be dipped in the pot, and
softened with the liquor of the meat, which they called brewis, and gave
them every one some to stay their stomachs, and told them it was for
their own safety that he was obliged to give them but little at a time.
But it was all in vain; and had I not come on board, and their own
commander and officers with me, and with good words, and some threats
also of giving them no more, I believe they would have broken into the
cook-room by force, and torn the meat out of the furnace--for words are
indeed of very small force to a hungry belly; however, we pacified them,
and fed them gradually and cautiously at first, and the next time gave
them more, and at last filled their bellies, and the men did well enough.

But the misery of the poor passengers in the cabin was of another nature,
and far beyond the rest; for as, first, the ship's company had so little
for themselves, it was but too true that they had at first kept them very
low, and at last totally neglected them: so that for six or seven days it
might be said they had really no food at all, and for several days before
very little. The poor mother, who, as the men reported, was a woman of
sense and good breeding, had spared all she could so affectionately for
her son, that at last she entirely sank under it; and when the mate of
our ship went in, she sat upon the floor on deck, with her back up
against the sides, between two chairs, which were lashed fast, and her
head sunk between her shoulders like a corpse, though not quite dead. My
mate said all he could to revive and encourage her, and with a spoon put
some broth into her mouth. She opened her lips, and lifted up one hand,
but could not speak: yet she understood what he said, and made signs to
him, intimating, that it was too late for her, but pointed to her child,
as if she would have said they should take care of him. However, the
mate, who was exceedingly moved at the sight, endeavoured to get some of
the broth into her mouth, and, as he said, got two or three spoonfuls
down--though I question whether he could be sure of it or not; but it was
too late, and she died the same night.