The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808)

by Daniel Defoe

consultation, they agreed,it seems, that the ship was really a wreck; that we were all at workendeavouring to save her, or to save our lives by the help of our boats;and when we handed our arms into the boats, they concluded by thatmotion that we were endeavouring to save some of our goods. Upon thisthey took it for granted they all belonged to them, and away they camedirectly upon our men, as if it had been in a line of battle.

  Our men seeing so many of them began to be frighted, for we lay but inan ill posture to fight, and cried out to us to know what they shoulddo? I immediately called to the men who worked upon the stages, to slipthem down and get up the side into the ship, and bade those in the boatto row round and come on board; and those few of us who were on boardworked with all the strength and hands we had to bring the ship torights; but, however, neither the men upon the stage, nor those in theboats, could do as they were ordered, before the Cochinchinese were uponthem, and with two of their boats boarded our long-boat, and began tolay hold of the men as their prisoners.

  The first man they laid hold of was an English seaman, a stout, strongfellow, who having a musket in his hand, never offered to fire it, butlaid it down in the boat, like a fool as I thought. But he understoodhis business better than I could teach him; for he grappled the Pagan,and dragged him by main force out of their own boat into ours; wheretaking him by the two ears, he beat his head so against the boat'sgunnel, that the fellow died instantly in his hands; and in the meantime a Dutchman, who stood next, took up the musket, and with thebut-end of it so laid about him, that he knocked down five of them whoattempted to enter the boat. But this was little towards resistingthirty or forty men, who fearless, because ignorant of their danger,began to throw themselves into the long-boat, where we had but five mento defend it. But one accident gave our men a complete victory, whichdeserved our laughter rather than any thing else, and that was this:--

  Our carpenter being prepared to grave the outside of the ship, as wellas to pay the seams where he had caulked her to stop the leaks, had gottwo kettles just let down into the boat; one filled with boiling pitch,and the other with rosin, tallow, and oil, and such stuff as theshipwrights used for that work; and the man that tended the carpenterhad a great iron ladle in his hand, with which he supplied the men thatwere at work with that hot stuff: two of the enemy's men entered theboat just where this fellow stood, being in the fore-sheets; heimmediately sainted them with a ladleful of the stuff, boiling hot,which so burnt and scalded them, being half naked, that they roared outlike two bulls, and, enraged with the fire, leaped both into the sea.The carpenter saw it, and cried out, "Well done, Jack, give them somemore of it;" when stepping forward himself, he takes one of their mops,and dipping it in the pitch-pot, he and his man threw it among them soplentifully, that, in short, of all the men in three boats, there wasnot one that was not scalded and burnt with it in a most frightful,pitiful manner, and made such a howling and crying, that I never heard aworse noise, and, indeed, nothing like it; for it was worth observing,that though pain naturally makes all people cry out, yet every nationhave a particular way of exclamation, and make noises as different fromone another as their speech. I cannot give the noise these creaturesmade a better name than howling, nor a name more proper to the tone ofit; for I never heard any thing more like the noise of the wolves,which, as I have said, I heard howl in the forest on the frontiers ofLanguedoc.

  I was never pleased with a victory better in my life; not only as it wasa perfect surprise to me, and that our danger was imminent before; butas we got this victory without any bloodshed, except of that man thefellow killed with his naked hands, and which I was very much concernedat; for I was sick of killing such poor savage wretches, even though itwas in my own defence, knowing they came on errands which they thoughtjust, and knew no better; and that though it may be a just thing,because necessary, for there is no necessary wickedness in nature; yet Ithought it was a sad life, when we must be always obliged to be killingour fellow-creatures to preserve ourselves; and, indeed, I think sostill; and I would, even now, suffer a great deal, rather than I wouldtake away the life even of the worst person injuring me. I believe also,all considering people, who know the value of life, would be of myopinion, if they entered seriously into the consideration of it.

  But to return to my story. All the while this was doing, my partner andI, who managed the rest of the men on board, had, with great dexterity,brought the ship almost to rights; and, having gotten the guns intotheir places again, the gunner called to me to bid our boat get out ofthe way, for he would let fly among them. I called back again to him,and bid him not offer to fire, for the carpenter would do the workwithout him; but bade him heat another pitch-kettle, which our cook, whowas on board, took care of. But the enemy was so terrified with whatthey met with in their first attack, that they would not come on again;and some of them that were farthest off, seeing the ship swim, as itwere, upright, began, as we supposed, to see their mistake, and gaveover the enterprise, finding it was not as they expected. Thus we gotclear of this merry fight; and having gotten some rice, and some rootsand bread, with about sixteen good big hogs on board two days before, weresolved to stay here no longer, but go forward, whatever came of it;for we made no doubt but we should be surrounded the next day withrogues enough, perhaps more than our pitch-kettle would dispose offor us.

  We therefore got all our things on board the same evening, and the nextmorning were ready to sail. In the meantime, lying at an anchor somedistance from the shore, we were not so much concerned, being now in alighting posture, as well as in a sailing posture, if any enemy hadpresented. The next day, having finished our work within board, andfinding our ship was perfectly healed of all her leaks, we set sail. Wewould have gone into the bay of Tonquin, for we wanted to informourselves of what was to be known concerning the Dutch ships that hadbeen there; but we durst not stand in there, because we had seen severalships go in, as we supposed, but a little before; so we kept on N.E.towards the isle of Formosa, as much afraid of being seen by a Dutch orEnglish merchant-ship, as a Dutch or English merchant-ship in theMediterranean is of an Algerine man of war.

  When we were thus got to sea, we kept on N.E. as if we would go to theManillas or the Philippine islands, and this we did, that we might notfall into the way of any of the European ships; and then we steerednorth again, till we came to the latitude of 22 degrees 20 minutes, bywhich means we made the island of Formosa directly, where we came to ananchor, in order to get water and fresh provisions, which the peoplethere, who are very courteous and civil in their manners, supplied uswith willingly, and dealt very fairly and punctually with us in alltheir agreements and bargains, which is what we did not find amongother people, and may be owing to the remains of Christianity, which wasonce planted here by a Dutch mission of Protestants, and is a testimonyof what I have often observed, viz. that the Christian religion alwayscivilizes the people and reforms their manners, where it is received,whether it works saving effects upon them or not.

  From hence we sailed still north, keeping the coast of China at an equaldistance, till we knew we were beyond all the ports of China where ourEuropean ships usually come: but being resolved, if possible, not tofall into any of their hands, especially in this country, where, as ourcircumstances were, we could not fail of being entirely ruined; nay, sogreat was my fear in particular, as to my being taken by them, that Ibelieve firmly I would much rather have chosen to fall into the hands ofthe Spanish Inquisition.

  Being now come to the latitude of 30 degrees, we resolved to put intothe first trading port we should come at, and standing in for the shore,a boat came off two leagues to us, with an old Portuguese pilot onboard, who, knowing us to be an European ship, came to offer hisservice, which indeed we were very glad of, and took him on board; uponwhich, without asking us whither we would go, he dismissed the boat hecame in, and sent it back.

  I thought it was now so much in our choice to make the old man carry uswhither we would, that I began to talk with him about carrying us to thegulf of Nanquin
, which is the most northern part of the coast of China.The old man said he knew the gulf of Nanquin very well; but smiling,asked us what we would do there?

  I told him we would sell our cargo, and purchase China wares, calicoes,raw silks, tea, wrought silks, &c. and so would return by the samecourse we came. He told us our best port had been to have put in atMacao, where we could not fail of a market for our opium to oursatisfaction, and might, for our money, have purchased all sorts ofChina goods as cheap as we could at Nanquin.

  Not being able to put the old man out of his talk, of which he was veryopinionated, or conceited, I told him we were gentlemen as well asmerchants, and that we had a mind to go and see the great city of Pekin,and the famous court of the monarch of China. "Why then," says the oldman, "you should go to Ningpo, where, by the river that runs into thesea there, you may go up within five leagues of the great canal. Thiscanal is a navigable made stream, which goes