by Daniel Defoe
useless stuff lay; I had no manner ofbusiness for it; and I often thought with myself, that I would havegiven an handful of it for a gross of tobacco-pipes, or for an hand-millto grind my corn; nay, I would have given it all for six-penny-worth ofturnip and carrot seed out of England, or for an handful of peas andbeans, and a bottle of ink: as it was, I had not the least advantage byit, or benefit from it; but there it lay in a drawer, and grew mouldywith the damp of the cave, in the wet season; and if I had had thedrawer full of diamonds, it had been the same case; and they had been ofno manner of value to me, because of no use.
I had now brought my state of life to be much easier in itself than itwas at first, and much easier to my mind, as well as to my body. Ifrequently sat down to my meat with thankfulness, and admired the handof God's providence, which had thus spread my table in the wilderness: Ilearnt to look more upon the bright side of my condition, and less uponthe dark side; and to consider what I enjoyed, rather than what Iwanted; and this gave me sometimes such secret comforts, that I cannotexpress them; and which I take notice of here, to put those discontentedpeople in mind of it, who cannot enjoy comfortably what God hath giventhem, because they see and covet something that he has not given them:all our discontents about what we want, appeared to me to spring fromthe want of thankfulness for what we have.
Another reflection was of great use to me, and doubtless would be so toany one that should fall into such distress as mine was; and this was,to compare my present condition with what I at first expected it shouldbe; nay, with what it would certainly have been, if the good providenceof God had not wonderfully ordered the ship to be cast up near to theshore, where I not only could come at her, but could bring what I gotout of her to the shore for my relief and comfort; without which I hadwanted tools to work, weapons for defence, or gunpowder and shot forgetting my food.
I spent whole hours, I may say whole days, in representing to myself inthe most lively colours, how I must have acted, if I had got nothing outof the ship; how I could not have so much as got any food, except fishand turtles; and that, as it was long before I found any of them, I musthave perished first: that I should have lived, if I had not perished,like a mere savage: that if I had killed a goat or a fowl by anycontrivance, I had no way to flay or open them, or part the flesh fromthe skin and the bowels, or to cut it up; but must gnaw it with myteeth, and pull it with my claws, like a beast.
These reflections made me very sensible of the goodness of Providence tome, and very thankful for my present condition, with all its hardshipsand misfortunes: and this part also I cannot but recommend to thereflection of those who are apt in their misery to say, Is anyaffliction like mine? Let them consider, how much worse the cases ofsome people are, and what their case might have been, if Providence hadthought fit.
I had another reflection which assisted me also to comfort my mind withhopes; and this was, comparing my present condition with what I haddeserved, and had therefore reason to expect from the hand ofProvidence. I had lived a dreadful life, perfectly destitute of theknowledge and fear of God: I had been well instructed by father andmother; neither had they been wanting to me in their early endeavours toinfuse a religious awe of God into my mind, a sense of my duty, and ofwhat the nature and end of my being required of me. But, alas! fallingearly into the seafaring life, which of all the lives is the mostdestitute of the fear of God, though his terrors are always before them;I say, falling early into the seafaring life, and into seafaringcompany, all that little sense of religion which I had entertained, waslaughed out of me by my messmates; by an hardened despising of dangers,and the views of death, which grew habitual to me; by my long absencefrom all manner of opportunities to converse with any thing but what waslike myself, or to hear any thing of what was good, or tendedtowards it.
So void was I of every thing that was good, or of the least sense ofwhat I was, or was to be, that in the greatest deliverance I enjoyed,such as my escape from Sallee, my being taken up by the Portuguesemaster of the ship, my being planted so well in Brasil, my receiving thecargo from England, and the like, I never once had the words, Thank God,so much as on my mind, or in my mouth; nor in the greatest distress hadI so much thought as to pray to him; nor so much as to say, Lord, havemercy upon me! no, not to mention the name of God, unless it was toswear by, and blaspheme it.
I had terrible reflections upon my mind for many months, as I havealready observed, on the account of my wicked and hardened life past;and when I looked about me, and considered what particular providenceshad attended me, since my coming into this place, and how God had dealtbountifully with me; had not only punished me less than my iniquitydeserved, but had so plentifully provided for me; this gave me greathopes that my repentance was accepted, and that God had yet mercies instore for me.
With these reflections I worked my mind up, not only to resignation tothe will of God in the present disposition of my circumstances, but evento a sincere thankfulness of my condition; and that I, who was yet aliving man, ought not to complain, seeing I had not the due punishmentof my sins; that I enjoyed so many mercies, which I had no reason tohave expected in that place, that I ought never more to repine at mycondition, but to rejoice, and to give daily thanks, for that dailybread, which nothing but a cloud of wonders could have brought: that Iought to consider I had been fed even by a miracle, even as great asthat of feeding Elijah by ravens; nay, by a long series of miracles; andthat I could hardly have named a place in the uninhabited part of theworld, where I could have been cast more to my advantage: a place, whereas I had no society, which was my affliction on one hand, so I found noravenous beasts, no furious wolves or tigers, to threaten my life; novenomous creatures, or poisonous, which I might have fed on to my hurt;no savages to murder and devour me.
In a word, as my life was a life of sorrow one way, so it was a life ofmercy another; and I wanted nothing to make it a life of comfort, but tobe able to make my sense of God's goodness to me, and care over me inthis condition, be my daily consolation; and after I made a justimprovement of these things, I went away, and was no more sad.
I had now been here so long, that many things which I brought on shorefor my help, were either quite gone, or very much wasted, andnear spent.
My ink, as I observed, had been gone for some time, all but a verylittle, which I eked out with water a little and a little, till it wasso pale it scarce left any appearance of black upon the paper: as longas it lasted, I made use of it to minute down the days of the month onwhich any remarkable thing happened to me; and first, by casting uptimes past, I remember that there was a strange concurrence of days, inthe various providences which befel me, and which, if I had beensuperstitiously inclined to observe days as fatal or fortunate, I mighthave had reason to have looked upon with a great deal of curiosity.
First, I had observed, that the same day that I broke away from myfather and my friends, and ran away to Hull in order to go to sea, thesame day afterwards I was taken by the Sallee man of war, and madea slave.
The same day of the year that I escaped out of the wreck of the ship inYarmouth Roads, that same day of the year afterwards I made my escapefrom Sallee in the boat.
The same day of the year I was born on, viz. the 20th of September, thesame day I had my life so miraculously saved twenty-six years after,when I was cast on shore in this island; so that my wicked life, andsolitary life, both began on a day.
The next thing to my ink's being wasted, was that of my bread, I meanthe biscuit which I brought out of the ship. This I had husbanded to thelast degree, allowing myself but one cake of bread a day, for above ayear: and yet I was quite without bread for a year before I got any cornof my own: and great reason I had to be thankful that I had any at all,the getting it being, as has been already observed, next to miraculous.
My clothes too began to decay mightily: as to linen, I had none a goodwhile, except some chequered shirts which I found in the chests of theother seamen, and which I carefully preserved, because many times Icould bear no other clothes on but a shi
rt; and it was a very great helpto me, that I had among all the men's clothes of the ship almost threedozen of shirts. There were also several thick watch-coats of theseamen, which were left behind, but they were too hot to wear; andthough it is true, that the weather was so violent hot, that there wasno need of clothes, yet I could not go quite naked; no, though I hadbeen inclined to it, which I was not; nor could I abide the thought ofit, though I was all alone.
One reason why I could not go quite naked, was, I could not bear theheat of the sun so well when quite naked as with some clothes on; nay,the very heat frequently blistered my skin; whereas, with a shirt on,the air itself made some motion, and whistling under the shirt, wastwofold cooler than without it: no more could I ever bring myself to goout in the heat of the sun without a cap or a hat; the heat of the sunbeating with such violence as it does in that place, would give me theheadach presently, by darting so directly on my head, without a cap orhat on, so that I could not bear it;
