by Daniel Defoe
and came to the place, and called the Englishmen bytheir names, telling a Spaniard that answered, that they wanted to speakwith them.
It happened that the day before two of the Spaniards, having been in thewoods, had seen one of the two Englishmen, whom, for distinction, I callthe honest men; and he had made a sad complaint to the Spaniards, of thebarbarous usage they had met with from their three countrymen, and howthey had ruined their plantation, and destroyed their corn, that theyhad laboured so hard to bring forward, and killed the milch-goat, andtheir three kids, which was all they had provided for their sustenance;and that if he and his friends, meaning the Spaniards, did not assistthem again, they should be starved. When the Spaniards came home atnight, and they were all at supper, he took the freedom to reprove thethree Englishmen, though in gentle and mannerly terms, and asked them,how they could be so cruel, they being harmless inoffensive fellows, andthat they were putting themselves in a way to subsist by their labour,and that it had cost them a great deal of pains to bring things to suchperfection as they had?
One of the Englishmen returned very briskly, "What had they to do there?That they came on shore without leave, and that they should not plantor build upon the island; it was none of their ground."--"Why," says theSpaniard, very calmly, "Seignior Inglese, they must not starve." TheEnglishman replied, like a true rough-hewn tarpaulin, "they might starveand be d--ed, they should not plant nor build in that place."--"But whatmust they do then, Seignior?" says the Spaniard. Another of the brutesreturned, "Do! d--n them, they should be servants, and work forthem."--"But how can you expect that of them? They are not bought withyour money; you have no right to make them servants." The Englishmananswered, "The island was theirs, the governor had given it to them, andno man had any thing to do there but themselves;" and with that swore byhis Maker, that he would go and burn all their new huts; they shouldbuild none upon their land.
"Why, Seignior," says the Spaniard, "by the same rule, we must be yourservants too."--"Ay," says the bold dog, "and so you shall too, beforewe have done with you;" mixing two or three G--d d--mme's in the properintervals of his speech. The Spaniard only smiled at that, and made himno answer. However, this little discourse had heated them; and startingup, one says to the other, I think it was he they called Will Atkins,"Come, Jack, let us go and have the other brush with them; we willdemolish their castle, I will warrant you; they shall plant no colony inour dominions."
Upon this they were all trooping away, with every man a gun, a pistol,and a sword, and muttered some insolent things among themselves, of whatthey would do to the Spaniards too, when opportunity offered; but theSpaniards, it seems, did not so perfectly understand them as to know allthe particulars; only that, in general, they threatened them hard fortaking the two Englishmen's part.
Whither they went, or how they bestowed their time that evening, theSpaniards said they did not know; but it seems they wandered about thecountry part of the night; and then lying down in the place which Iused to call my bower, they were weary, and overslept themselves. Thecase was this: they had resolved to stay till midnight, and so to takethe poor men when they were asleep; and they acknowledged it afterwards,intending to set fire to their huts while they were in them, and eitherburn them in them, or murder them as they came out: and, as maliceseldom sleeps very sound, it was very strange they should not have beenkept waking.
However, as the two men had also a design upon them, as I have said,though a much fairer one than that of burning and murdering, ithappened, and very luckily for them all, that they were up, and goneabroad, before the bloody-minded rogues came to their huts.
When they came thither, and found the men gone, Atkins, who it seems wasthe forwardest man, called out to his comrades, "Ha! Jack, here's thenest; but d--n them, the birds are flown." They mused awhile to thinkwhat should be the occasion of their being gone abroad so soon, andsuggested presently, that the Spaniards had given them notice of it; andwith that they shook hands, and swore to one another, that they would berevenged of the Spaniards. As soon as they had made this bloody bargain,they fell to work with the poor men's habitation; they did not set fireindeed to any thing, but they pulled down both their houses, and pulledthem so limb from limb, that they left not the least stick standing, orscarce any sign on the ground where they stood; they tore all theirlittle collected household-stuff in pieces, and threw every thing aboutin such a manner, that the poor men found, afterwards, some of theirthings a mile off from their habitation.
When they had done this, they pulled up all the young trees which thepoor men had planted; pulled up the enclosure they had made to securetheir cattle and their corn; and, in a word, sacked and plundered everything, as completely as a herd of Tartars would have done.
The two men were at this juncture gone to find them out, and hadresolved to fight them wherever they had been, though they were but twoto three; so that, had they met, there certainly would have beenbloodshed among them; for they were all very stout, resolute fellows, togive them their due.
But Providence took more care to keep them asunder, than they themselvescould do to meet; for, as they had dogged one another, when the threewere gone thither, the two were here; and afterwards, when the two wentback to find them, the three were come to the old habitation again: weshall see their differing conduct presently. When the three came back,like furious creatures, flushed with the rage which the work they hadbeen about put them into, they came up to the Spaniards, and told themwhat they had done, by way of scoff and bravado; and one of themstepping up to one of the Spaniards, as if they had been a couple ofboys at play, takes hold of his hat, as it was upon his head, and givingit a twirl about, jeering in his face, says he to him, "And you,Seignior Jack Spaniard, shall have the same sauce, if you do not mendyour manners." The Spaniard, who, though quite a civil man, was as braveas a man could desire to be, and withal a strong well-made man, lookedsteadily at him for a good while; and then, having no weapon in hishand, stepped gravely up to him, and with one blow of his fist knockedhim down, as an ox is felled with a pole-axe; at which one of therogues, insolent as the first, fixed his pistol at the Spaniardimmediately; he missed his body indeed, for the bullets went through hishair, but one of them touched the tip of his ear, and he bled prettymuch. The blood made the Spaniard believe he was more hurt than hereally was, and that put him into some heat, for before he acted all ina perfect calm; but now resolving to go through with his work, hestooped and took the fellow's musket whom he had knocked down, and wasjust going to shoot the man who had fired at him; when the rest of theSpaniards, being in the cave, came out, and calling to him not toshoot, they stepped in, secured the other two, and took their armsfrom them.
When they were thus disarmed, and found they had made all the Spaniardstheir enemies, as well as their own countrymen, they began to cool; andgiving the Spaniards better words, would have had their arms again; butthe Spaniards, considering the feud that was between them and the othertwo Englishmen, and that it would be the best method they could take tokeep them from one another, told them they would do them no harm; and ifthey would live peaceably they would be very willing to assist andassociate with them, as they did before; but that they could not thinkof giving them their arms again, while they appeared so resolved to domischief with them to their own countrymen, and had even threatened themall to make them their servants.
The rogues were now more capable to hear reason than to act reason; butbeing refused their arms, they went raving away, and raging like madmen,threatening what they would do, though they had no fire-arms: but theSpaniards, despising their threatening, told them they should take carehow they offered any injury to their plantation or cattle; for if theydid, they would shoot them, as they would do ravenous beasts, whereverthey found them; and if they fell into their hands alive, they wouldcertainly be hanged. However, this was far from cooling them; but awaythey went, swearing and raging like furies of hell. As soon as they weregone, came back the two men in passion and rage enough also, though ofanother kind; for, havi
ng been at their plantation, and finding it alldemolished and destroyed, as above, it will easily be supposed they hadprovocation enough; they could scarce have room to tell their tale, theSpaniards were so eager to tell them theirs; and it was strange enoughto find, that three men should thus bully nineteen, and receive nopunishment at all.
The Spaniards indeed despised them, and especially having thus disarmedthem, made light of their threatenings; but the two Englishmen resolvedto have their remedy against them, what pains soever it cost tofind them out.
But the Spaniards interposed here too, and told them, that they werealready disarmed: they could not consent that they (the two) shouldpursue them with fire-arms, and perhaps kill them: "But," said the graveSpaniard, who was their governor, "we will endeavour to make them do youjustice, if
