The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe

D >> Daniel Defoe >> The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe


The Spaniards said they had, indeed, at first disarmed and excluded Will
Atkins and his two countrymen for their ill conduct, as they had let me
know, and they appealed to me for the necessity they were under to do so;
but that Will Atkins had behaved himself so bravely in the great fight
they had with the savages, and on several occasions since, and had showed
himself so faithful to, and concerned for, the general interest of them
all, that they had forgotten all that was past, and thought he merited as
much to be trusted with arms and supplied with necessaries as any of
them; that they had testified their satisfaction in him by committing the
command to him next to the governor himself; and as they had entire
confidence in him and all his countrymen, so they acknowledged they had
merited that confidence by all the methods that honest men could merit to
be valued and trusted; and they most heartily embraced the occasion of
giving me this assurance, that they would never have any interest
separate from one another.

Upon these frank and open declarations of friendship, we appointed the
next day to dine all together; and, indeed, we made a splendid feast. I
caused the ship's cook and his mate to come on shore and dress our
dinner, and the old cook's mate we had on shore assisted. We brought on
shore six pieces of good beef and four pieces of pork, out of the ship's
provisions, with our punch-bowl and materials to fill it; and in
particular I gave them ten bottles of French claret, and ten bottles of
English beer; things that neither the Spaniards nor the English had
tasted for many years, and which it may be supposed they were very glad
of. The Spaniards added to our feast five whole kids, which the cooks
roasted; and three of them were sent, covered up close, on board the ship
to the seamen, that they might feast on fresh meat from on shore, as we
did with their salt meat from on board.

After this feast, at which we were very innocently merry, I brought my
cargo of goods; wherein, that there might be no dispute about dividing, I
showed them that there was a sufficiency for them all, desiring that they
might all take an equal quantity, when made up, of the goods that were
for wearing. As, first, I distributed linen sufficient to make every one
of them four shirts, and, at the Spaniard's request, afterwards made them
up six; these were exceeding comfortable to them, having been what they
had long since forgot the use of, or what it was to wear them. I
allotted the thin English stuffs, which I mentioned before, to make every
one a light coat, like a frock, which I judged fittest for the heat of
the season, cool and loose; and ordered that whenever they decayed, they
should make more, as they thought fit; the like for pumps, shoes,
stockings, hats, &c. I cannot express what pleasure sat upon the
countenances of all these poor men when they saw the care I had taken of
them, and how well I had furnished them. They told me I was a father to
them; and that having such a correspondent as I was in so remote a part
of the world, it would make them forget that they were left in a desolate
place; and they all voluntarily engaged to me not to leave the place
without my consent.

Then I presented to them the people I had brought with me, particularly
the tailor, the smith, and the two carpenters, all of them most necessary
people; but, above all, my general artificer, than whom they could not
name anything that was more useful to them; and the tailor, to show his
concern for them, went to work immediately, and, with my leave, made them
every one a shirt, the first thing he did; and, what was still more, he
taught the women not only how to sew and stitch, and use the needle, but
made them assist to make the shirts for their husbands, and for all the
rest. As to the carpenters, I scarce need mention how useful they were;
for they took to pieces all my clumsy, unhandy things, and made clever
convenient tables, stools, bedsteads, cupboards, lockers, shelves, and
everything they wanted of that kind. But to let them see how nature made
artificers at first, I carried the carpenters to see Will Atkins' basket-
house, as I called it; and they both owned they never saw an instance of
such natural ingenuity before, nor anything so regular and so handily
built, at least of its kind; and one of them, when he saw it, after
musing a good while, turning about to me, "I am sure," says he, "that man
has no need of us; you need do nothing but give him tools."

Then I brought them out all my store of tools, and gave every man a
digging-spade, a shovel, and a rake, for we had no barrows or ploughs;
and to every separate place a pickaxe, a crow, a broad axe, and a saw;
always appointing, that as often as any were broken or worn out, they
should be supplied without grudging out of the general stores that I left
behind. Nails, staples, hinges, hammers, chisels, knives, scissors, and
all sorts of ironwork, they had without reserve, as they required; for no
man would take more than he wanted, and he must be a fool that would
waste or spoil them on any account whatever; and for the use of the smith
I left two tons of unwrought iron for a supply.

My magazine of powder and arms which I brought them was such, even to
profusion, that they could not but rejoice at them; for now they could
march as I used to do, with a musket upon each shoulder, if there was
occasion; and were able to fight a thousand savages, if they had but some
little advantages of situation, which also they could not miss, if they
had occasion.

I carried on shore with me the young man whose mother was starved to
death, and the maid also; she was a sober, well-educated, religious young
woman, and behaved so inoffensively that every one gave her a good word;
she had, indeed, an unhappy life with us, there being no woman in the
ship but herself, but she bore it with patience. After a while, seeing
things so well ordered, and in so fine a way of thriving upon my island,
and considering that they had neither business nor acquaintance in the
East Indies, or reason for taking so long a voyage, both of them came to
me and desired I would give them leave to remain on the island, and be
entered among my family, as they called it. I agreed to this readily;
and they had a little plot of ground allotted to them, where they had
three tents or houses set up, surrounded with a basket-work, palisadoed
like Atkins's, adjoining to his plantation. Their tents were contrived
so that they had each of them a room apart to lodge in, and a middle tent
like a great storehouse to lay their goods in, and to eat and to drink
in. And now the other two Englishmen removed their habitation to the
same place; and so the island was divided into three colonies, and no
more--viz. the Spaniards, with old Friday and the first servants, at my
habitation under the hill, which was, in a word, the capital city, and
where they had so enlarged and extended their works, as well under as on
the outside of the hill, that they lived, though perfectly concealed, yet
full at large. Never was there such a little city in a wood, and so hid,
in any part of the world; for I verify believe that a thousand men might
have ranged the island a month, and, if they had not known there was such
a thing, and looked on purpose for it, they would not have found it.
Indeed the trees stood so thick and so close, and grew so fast woven one
into another, that nothing but cutting them down first could discover the
place, except the only two narrow entrances where they went in and out
could be found, which was not very easy; one of them was close down at
the water's edge, on the side of the creek, and it was afterwards above
two hundred yards to the place; and the other was up a ladder at twice,
as I have already described it; and they had also a large wood, thickly
planted, on the top of the hill, containing above an acre, which grew
apace, and concealed the place from all discovery there, with only one
narrow place between two trees, not easily to be discovered, to enter on
that side.

The other colony was that of Will Atkins, where there were four families
of Englishmen, I mean those I had left there, with their wives and
children; three savages that were slaves, the widow and children of the
Englishman that was killed, the young man and the maid, and, by the way,
we made a wife of her before we went away. There were besides the two
carpenters and the tailor, whom I brought with me for them: also the
smith, who was a very necessary man to them, especially as a gunsmith, to
take care of their arms; and my other man, whom I called
Jack-of-all-trades, who was in himself as good almost as twenty men; for
he was not only a very ingenious fellow, but a very merry fellow, and
before I went away we married him to the honest maid that came with the
youth in the ship I mentioned before.

And now I speak of marrying, it brings me naturally to say something of
the French ecclesiastic that I had brought with me out of the ship's crew
whom I took up at sea. It is true this man was a Roman, and perhaps it
may give offence to some hereafter if I leave anything extraordinary upon
record of a man whom, before I begin, I must (to set him out in just
colours) represent in terms very much to his disadvantage, in the account
of Protestants; as, first, that he was a Papist; secondly, a Popish
priest; and thirdly, a French Popish priest. But justice demands of me
to give him a due character; and I must say, he was a grave, sober,
pious, and most religious person; exact in his life, extensive in his
charity, and exemplary in almost everything he did. What then can any
one say against being very sensible of the value of such a man,
notwithstanding his profession? though it may be my opinion perhaps, as
well as the opinion of others who shall read this, that he was mistaken.

The first hour that I began to converse with him after he had agreed to
go with me to the East Indies, I found reason to delight exceedingly in
his conversation; and he first began with me about religion in the most
obliging manner imaginable. "Sir," says he, "you have not only under
God" (and at that he crossed his breast) "saved my life, but you have
admitted me to go this voyage in your ship, and by your obliging civility
have taken me into your family, giving me an opportunity of free
conversation. Now, sir, you see by my habit what my profession is, and I
guess by your nation what yours is; I may think it is my duty, and
doubtless it is so, to use my utmost endeavours, on all occasions, to
bring all the souls I can to the knowledge of the truth, and to embrace
the Catholic doctrine; but as I am here under your permission, and in
your family, I am bound, in justice to your kindness as well as in
decency and good manners, to be under your government; and therefore I
shall not, without your leave, enter into any debate on the points of
religion in which we may not agree, further than you shall give me
leave."

I told him his carriage was so modest that I could not but acknowledge
it; that it was true we were such people as they call heretics, but that
he was not the first Catholic I had conversed with without falling into
inconveniences, or carrying the questions to any height in debate; that
he should not find himself the worse used for being of a different
opinion from us, and if we did not converse without any dislike on either
side, it should be his fault, not ours.

He replied that he thought all our conversation might be easily separated
from disputes; that it was not his business to cap principles with every
man he conversed with; and that he rather desired me to converse with him
as a gentleman than as a religionist; and that, if I would give him leave
at any time to discourse upon religious subjects, he would readily comply
with it, and that he did not doubt but I would allow him also to defend
his own opinions as well as he could; but that without my leave he would
not break in upon me with any such thing. He told me further, that he
would not cease to do all that became him, in his office as a priest, as
well as a private Christian, to procure the good of the ship, and the
safety of all that was in her; and though, perhaps, we would not join
with him, and he could not pray with us, he hoped he might pray for us,
which he would do upon all occasions. In this manner we conversed; and
as he was of the most obliging, gentlemanlike behaviour, so he was, if I
may be allowed to say so, a man of good sense, and, as I believe, of
great learning.

He gave me a most diverting account of his life, and of the many
extraordinary events of it; of many adventures which had befallen him in
the few years that he had been abroad in the world; and particularly, it
was very remarkable, that in the voyage he was now engaged in he had had
the misfortune to be five times shipped and unshipped, and never to go to
the place whither any of the ships he was in were at first designed. That
his first intent was to have gone to Martinico, and that he went on board
a ship bound thither at St. Malo; but being forced into Lisbon by bad
weather, the ship received some damage by running aground in the mouth of
the river Tagus, and was obliged to unload her cargo there; but finding a
Portuguese ship there bound for the Madeiras, and ready to sail, and
supposing he should meet with a ship there bound to Martinico, he went on
board, in order to sail to the Madeiras; but the master of the Portuguese
ship being but an indifferent mariner, had been out of his reckoning, and
they drove to Fayal; where, however, he happened to find a very good
market for his cargo, which was corn, and therefore resolved not to go to
the Madeiras, but to load salt at the Isle of May, and to go away to
Newfoundland. He had no remedy in this exigence but to go with the ship,
and had a pretty good voyage as far as the Banks (so they call the place
where they catch the fish), where, meeting with a French ship bound from
France to Quebec, and from thence to Martinico, to carry provisions, he
thought he should have an opportunity to complete his first design, but
when he came to Quebec, the master of the ship died, and the vessel
proceeded no further; so the next voyage he shipped himself for France,
in the ship that was burned when we took them up at sea, and then shipped
with us for the East Indies, as I have already said. Thus he had been
disappointed in five voyages; all, as I may call it, in one voyage,
besides what I shall have occasion to mention further of him.

But I shall not make digression into other men's stories which have no
relation to my own; so I return to what concerns our affair in the
island. He came to me one morning (for he lodged among us all the while
we were upon the island), and it happened to be just when I was going to
visit the Englishmen's colony, at the furthest part of the island; I say,
he came to me, and told me, with a very grave countenance, that he had
for two or three days desired an opportunity of some discourse with me,
which he hoped would not be displeasing to me, because he thought it
might in some measure correspond with my general design, which was the
prosperity of my new colony, and perhaps might put it, at least more than
he yet thought it was, in the way of God's blessing.

I looked a little surprised at the last of his discourse, and turning a
little short, "How, sir," said I, "can it be said that we are not in the
way of God's blessing, after such visible assistances and deliverances as
we have seen here, and of which I have given you a large account?" "If
you had pleased, sir," said he, with a world of modesty, and yet great
readiness, "to have heard me, you would have found no room to have been
displeased, much less to think so hard of me, that I should suggest that
you have not had wonderful assistances and deliverances; and I hope, on
your behalf, that you are in the way of God's blessing, and your design
is exceeding good, and will prosper. But, sir, though it were more so
than is even possible to you, yet there may be some among you that are
not equally right in their actions: and you know that in the story of the
children of Israel, one Achan in the camp removed God's blessing from
them, and turned His hand so against them, that six-and-thirty of them,
though not concerned in the crime, were the objects of divine vengeance,
and bore the weight of that punishment."

I was sensibly touched with this discourse, and told him his inference
was so just, and the whole design seemed so sincere, and was really so
religious in its own nature, that I was very sorry I had interrupted him,
and begged him to go on; and, in the meantime, because it seemed that
what we had both to say might take up some time, I told him I was going
to the Englishmen's plantations, and asked him to go with me, and we
might discourse of it by the way. He told me he would the more willingly
wait on me thither, because there partly the thing was acted which he
desired to speak to me about; so we walked on, and I pressed him to be
free and plain with me in what he had to say.

"Why, then, sir," said he, "be pleased to give me leave to lay down a few
propositions, as the foundation of what I have to say, that we may not
differ in the general principles, though we may be of some differing
opinions in the practice of particulars. First, sir, though we differ in
some of the doctrinal articles of religion (and it is very unhappy it is
so, especially in the case before us, as I shall show afterwards), yet
there are some general principles in which we both agree--that there is a
God; and that this God having given us some stated general rules for our
service and obedience, we ought not willingly and knowingly to offend
Him, either by neglecting to do what He has commanded, or by doing what
He has expressly forbidden. And let our different religions be what they
will, this general principle is readily owned by us all, that the
blessing of God does not ordinarily follow presumptuous sinning against
His command; and every good Christian will be affectionately concerned to
prevent any that are under his care living in a total neglect of God and
His commands. It is not your men being Protestants, whatever my opinion
may be of such, that discharges me from being concerned for their souls,
and from endeavouring, if it lies before me, that they should live in as
little distance from enmity with their Maker as possible, especially if
you give me leave to meddle so far in your circuit."

I could not yet imagine what he aimed at, and told him I granted all he
had said, and thanked him that he would so far concern himself for us:
and begged he would explain the particulars of what he had observed, that
like Joshua, to take his own parable, I might put away the accursed thing
from us.

"Why, then, sir," says he, "I will take the liberty you give me; and
there are three things, which, if I am right, must stand in the way of
God's blessing upon your endeavours here, and which I should rejoice, for
your sake and their own, to see removed. And, sir, I promise myself that
you will fully agree with me in them all, as soon as I name them;
especially because I shall convince you, that every one of them may, with
great ease, and very much to your satisfaction, be remedied. First,
sir," says he, "you have here four Englishmen, who have fetched women
from among the savages, and have taken them as their wives, and have had
many children by them all, and yet are not married to them after any
stated legal manner, as the laws of God and man require. To this, sir, I
know, you will object that there was no clergyman or priest of any kind
to perform the ceremony; nor any pen and ink, or paper, to write down a
contract of marriage, and have it signed between them. And I know also,
sir, what the Spaniard governor has told you, I mean of the agreement
that he obliged them to make when they took those women, viz. that they
should choose them out by consent, and keep separately to them; which, by
the way, is nothing of a marriage, no agreement with the women as wives,
but only an agreement among themselves, to keep them from quarrelling.
But, sir, the essence of the sacrament of matrimony" (so he called it,
being a Roman) "consists not only in the mutual consent of the parties to
take one another as man and wife, but in the formal and legal obligation
that there is in the contract to compel the man and woman, at all times,
to own and acknowledge each other; obliging the man to abstain from all
other women, to engage in no other contract while these subsist; and, on
all occasions, as ability allows, to provide honestly for them and their
children; and to oblige the women to the same or like conditions, on
their side. Now, sir," says he, "these men may, when they please, or
when occasion presents, abandon these women, disown their children, leave
them to perish, and take other women, and marry them while these are
living;" and here he added, with some warmth, "How, sir, is God honoured
in this unlawful liberty? And how shall a blessing succeed your
endeavours in this place, however good in themselves, and however sincere
in your design, while these men, who at present are your subjects, under
your absolute government and dominion, are allowed by you to live in open
adultery?"

I confess I was struck with the thing itself, but much more with the
convincing arguments he supported it with; but I thought to have got off
my young priest by telling him that all that part was done when I was not
there: and that they had lived so many years with them now, that if it
was adultery, it was past remedy; nothing could be done in it now.

"Sir," says he, "asking your pardon for such freedom, you are right in
this, that, it being done in your absence, you could not be charged with
that part of the crime; but, I beseech you, flatter not yourself that you
are not, therefore, under an obligation to do your utmost now to put an
end to it. You should legally and effectually marry them; and as, sir,
my way of marrying may not be easy to reconcile them to, though it will
be effectual, even by your own laws, so your way may be as well before
God, and as valid among men. I mean by a written contract signed by both
man and woman, and by all the witnesses present, which all the laws of
Europe would decree to be valid."

I was amazed to see so much true piety, and so much sincerity of zeal,
besides the unusual impartiality in his discourse as to his own party or
church, and such true warmth for preserving people that he had no
knowledge of or relation to from transgressing the laws of God. But
recollecting what he had said of marrying them by a written contract,
which I knew he would stand to, I returned it back upon him, and told him
I granted all that he had said to be just, and on his part very kind;
that I would discourse with the men upon the point now, when I came to
them; and I knew no reason why they should scruple to let him marry them
all, which I knew well enough would be granted to be as authentic and
valid in England as if they were married by one of our own clergymen.

I then pressed him to tell me what was the second complaint which he had
to make, acknowledging that I was very much his debtor for the first, and
thanking him heartily for it. He told me he would use the same freedom
and plainness in the second, and hoped I would take it as well; and this
was, that notwithstanding these English subjects of mine, as he called
them, had lived with these women almost seven years, had taught them to
speak English, and even to read it, and that they were, as he perceived,
women of tolerable understanding, and capable of instruction, yet they
had not, to this hour, taught them anything of the Christian religion--no,
not so much as to know there was a God, or a worship, or in what manner
God was to be served, or that their own idolatry, and worshipping they
knew not whom, was false and absurd. This he said was an unaccountable
neglect, and what God would certainly call them to account for, and
perhaps at last take the work out of their hands. He spoke this very
affectionately and warmly.

"I am persuaded," says he, "had those men lived in the savage country
whence their wives came, the savages would have taken more pains to have
brought them to be idolaters, and to worship the devil, than any of these
men, so far as I can see, have taken with them to teach the knowledge of
the true God. Now, sir," said he, "though I do not acknowledge your
religion, or you mine, yet we would be glad to see the devil's servants
and the subjects of his kingdom taught to know religion; and that they
might, at least, hear of God and a Redeemer, and the resurrection, and of
a future state--things which we all believe; that they might, at least,
be so much nearer coming into the bosom of the true Church than they are
now in the public profession of idolatry and devil-worship."