him; and having, partly by money and promises, andpartly by threatening and torture, brought two fellows to confess theparticulars, and the names of the persons concerned, they were presentlyapprehended, till, one accusing another, no less than sixteen men wereseized and put into irons, whereof I was one.
The captain, who was made desperate by his danger, resolving to clearthe ship of his enemies, tried us all, and we were all condemned to die.The manner of his process I was too young to take notice of; but thepurser and one of the gunners were hanged immediately, and I expected itwith the rest. I do not remember any great concern I was under about it,only that I cried very much, for I knew little then of this world, andnothing at all of the next.
However, the captain contented himself with executing these two, andsome of the rest, upon their humble submission and promise of futuregood behaviour, were pardoned; but five were ordered to be set on shoreon the island and left there, of which I was one. My master used all hisinterest with the captain to have me excused, but could not obtain it;for somebody having told him that I was one of them who was singled outto have killed him, when my master desired I might not be set on shore,the captain told him I should stay on board if he desired it, but thenI should be hanged, so he might choose for me which he thought best. Thecaptain, it seems, was particularly provoked at my being concerned inthe treachery, because of his having been so kind to me, and of hishaving singled me out to serve him, as I have said above; and this,perhaps, obliged him to give my master such a rough choice, eitherto set me on shore or to have me hanged on board. And had my master,indeed, known what good-will I had for him, he would not have been longin choosing for me; for I had certainly determined to do him a mischiefthe first opportunity I had for it. This was, therefore, a goodprovidence for me to keep me from dipping my hands in blood, and it mademe more tender afterwards in matters of blood than I believe I shouldotherwise have been. But as to my being one of them that was to killthe captain, that I was wronged in, for I was not the person, but it wasreally one of them that were pardoned, he having the good luck not tohave that part discovered.
I was now to enter upon a part of independent life, a thing I was indeedvery ill prepared to manage, for I was perfectly loose and dissolutein my behaviour, bold and wicked while I was under government, and nowperfectly unfit to be trusted with liberty, for I was as ripe for anyvillainy as a young fellow that had no solid thought ever placed in hismind could be supposed to be. Education, as you have heard, I had none;and all the little scenes of life I had passed through had been fullof dangers and desperate circumstances; but I was either so young or sostupid, that I escaped the grief and anxiety of them, for want of havinga sense of their tendency and consequences.
This thoughtless, unconcerned temper had one felicity indeed in it, thatit made me daring and ready for doing any mischief, and kept off thesorrow which otherwise ought to have attended me when I fell into anymischief; that this stupidity was instead of a happiness to me, for itleft my thoughts free to act upon means of escape and deliverance in mydistress, however great it might be; whereas my companions in the miserywere so sunk by their fear and grief, that they abandoned themselves tothe misery of their condition, and gave over all thought but of theirperishing and starving, being devoured by wild beasts, murdered, andperhaps eaten by cannibals, and the like.
I was but a young fellow, about seventeen or eighteen; but hearing whatwas to be my fate, I received it with no appearance of discouragement;but I asked what my master said to it, and being told that he had usedhis utmost interest to save me, but the captain had answered I shouldeither go on shore or be hanged on board, which he pleased, I then gaveover all hope of being received again. I was not very thankful in mythoughts to my master for his soliciting the captain for me, because Iknew that what he did was not in kindness to me so much as in kindnessto himself; I mean, to preserve the wages which he got for me, whichamounted to above six dollars a month, including what the captainallowed him for my particular service to him.
When I understood that my master was so apparently kind, I asked if Imight not be admitted to speak with him, and they told me I might, if mymaster would come down to me, but I could not be allowed to come up tohim; so then I desired my master might be spoke to to come to me, and heaccordingly came to me. I fell on my knees to him, and begged he wouldforgive me what I had done to displease him; and indeed the resolutionI had taken to murder him lay with some horror upon my mind just atthat time, so that I was once just a-going to confess it, and beg himto forgive me, but I kept it in. He told me he had done all he could toobtain my pardon of the captain, but could not and he knew no way for mebut to have patience, and submit to my fate; and if they came to speakwith any ship of their nation at the Cape, he would endeavour to havethem stand in, and fetch us off again, if we might be found.
Then I begged I might have my clothes on shore with me. He told me hewas afraid I should have little need of clothes, for he did not see howwe could long subsist on the island, and that he had been told that theinhabitants were cannibals or men-eaters (though he had no reason forthat suggestion), and we should not be able to live among them. Itold him I was not so afraid of that as I was of starving for want ofvictuals; and as for the inhabitants being cannibals, I believed weshould be more likely to eat them than they us, if we could but get atthem. But I was mightily concerned, I said, we should have no weaponswith us to defend ourselves, and I begged nothing now, but that he wouldgive me a gun and a sword, with a little powder and shot.
He smiled, and said they would signify nothing to us, for it wasimpossible for us to pretend to preserve our lives among such a populousand desperate nation as the people of this island were. I told him that,however, it would do us this good, for we should not be devoured ordestroyed immediately; so I begged hard for the gun. At last he told mehe did not know whether the captain would give him leave to give me agun, and if not, he durst not do it; but he promised to use his interestto obtain it for me, which he did, and the next day he sent me a gun,with some ammunition, but told me the captain would not suffer theammunition to be given us till we were set all on shore, and till hewas just going to set sail. He also sent me the few clothes I had in theship, which indeed were not many.
Two days after this, we were all carried on shore together; the restof my fellow-criminals hearing I had a gun, and some powder and shot,solicited for liberty to carry the like with them, which was alsogranted them; and thus we were set on shore to shift for ourselves.
At our first coming into the island we were terrified exceedingly withthe sight of the barbarous people, whose figure was made more terribleto us than it really was by the report we had of them from the seamen;but when we came to converse with them awhile, we found they were notcannibals, as was reported, or such as would fall immediately upon usand eat us up; but they came and sat down by us, and wondered much atour clothes and arms, and made signs to give us some victuals, such asthey had, which was only roots and plants dug out of the ground for thepresent, but they brought us fowls and flesh afterwards in good plenty.
This encouraged the other four men that were with me very much, for theywere quite dejected before; but now they began to be very familiar withthem, and made signs, that if they would use us kindly, we would stayand live with them; which they seemed glad of, though they knew littleof the necessity we were under to do so, or how much we were afraid ofthem.
However, upon second thoughts we resolved that we would only stay inthat part so long as the ship rid in the bay, and then making thembelieve we were gone with the ship, we would go and place ourselves, ifpossible, where there were no inhabitants to be seen, and so live as wecould, or perhaps watch for a ship that might be driven upon the coastas we were.
The ship continued a fortnight in the roads, repairing some damage whichhad been done her in the late storm, and taking in wood and water; andduring this time, the boat coming often on shore, the men brought usseveral refreshments, and the natives believing we only belonged to theship, were c
ivil enough. We lived in a kind of a tent on the shore, orrather a hut, which we made with the boughs of trees, and sometimes inthe night retired to a wood a little out of their way, to let themthink we were gone on board the ship. However, we found them barbarous,treacherous, and villainous enough in their nature, only civil fromfear, and therefore concluded we should soon fall into their hands whenthe ship was gone.
The sense of this wrought upon my fellow-sufferers even to distraction;and one of them, being a carpenter, in his mad fit, swam off to the shipin the night, though she lay then a league to sea, and made such pitifulmoan to be taken in, that the captain was prevailed with at last to takehim in, though they let him lie swimming three hours in the water beforehe consented to it.
Upon this, and his humble submission, the captain received him, and, ina word, the importunity of this man (who for some time petitioned to betaken in, though they hanged him as soon as they had him) was such ascould not be resisted; for, after he had