by Daniel Defoe
let him go; butfirst I told him, I would consult my partner, and give him an answer thenext day. My partner and I discoursed about it, and my partner made amost generous offer: he told me, "You know it has been an unlucky ship,and we both resolve not to go to sea in it again; if your steward (so hecalled my man) will venture the voyage, I'll leave my share of thevessel to him, and let him make the best of it; and if we live to meetin England, and he meets with success abroad, he shall account for onehalf of the profits of the ship's freight to us, the other shall behis own."
If my partner, who was no way concerned with my young man, made himsuch an offer, I could do no less than offer him the same; and all theship's company being willing to go with him, we made over half the shipto him in property, and took a writing from him, obliging him to accountfor the other; and away he went to Japan. The Japan merchant proved avery punctual honest man to him, protected him at Japan, and got him alicence to come on shore, which the Europeans in general have not latelyobtained, paid him his freight very punctually, sent him to thePhilippines, loaded him with Japan and China wares, and a supercargo oftheir own, who trafficking with the Spaniards, brought back Europeangoods again, and a great quantity of cloves and other spice; and therehe was not only paid his freight very well, and at a very good price,but being not willing to sell the ship then, the merchant furnished himwith goods on his own account; that for some money and some spices ofhis own, which he brought with him, he went back to the Manillas, to theSpaniards, where he sold his cargo very well. Here, having gotten a goodacquaintance at Manilla, he got his ship made a free ship; and thegovernor of Manilla hired him to go to Acapulco in America, on the coastof Mexico; and gave him a licence to land there, and travel to Mexico;and to pass in any Spanish ship to Europe, with all his men.
He made the voyage to Acapulco very happily, and there he sold his ship;and having there also obtained allowance to travel by land to PortoBello, he found means, some how or other, to go to Jamaica with all histreasure; and about eight years after came to England, exceeding rich;of which I shall take notice in its place; in the mean time, I return toour particular affairs.
Being now to part with the ship and ship's company, it came before us,of course, to consider what recompense we should give to the two menthat gave us such timely notice of the design against us in the riverof Cambodia. The truth was, they had done us a considerable service, anddeserved well at our hands; though, by the way, they were a couple ofrogues too: for, as they believed the story of our being pirates, andthat we had really run away with the ship, they came down to us, notonly to betray the design that was formed against us, but to go to seawith us as pirates; and one of them confessed afterwards, that nothingelse but the hopes of going a-roguing brought him to do it. However, theservice they did us was not the less; and therefore, as I had promisedto be grateful to them, I first ordered the money to be paid to them,which they said was due to them on board their respective ships; that isto say, the Englishman nineteen months pay, and to the Dutchman seven;and, over and above that, I gave each of them a small sum of money ingold, which contented them very well: then I made the Englishman gunnerof the ship, the gunner being now made second mate and purser; theDutchman I made boatswain: so they were both very well pleased, andproved very serviceable, being both able seamen, and very stout fellows.
We were now on shore in China. If I thought myself banished, and remotefrom my own country at Bengal, where I had many ways to get home for mymoney, what could I think of myself now, when I was gotten about athousand leagues farther off from home, and perfectly destitute of allmanner of prospect of return!
All we had for it was this, that in about four months time there was tobe another fair at that place where we were, and then we might be ableto purchase all sorts of the manufactures of the country, and withalmight possibly find some Chinese junks or vessels from Nanquin, thatwould be to be sold, and would carry us and our goods whither wepleased. This I liked very well, and resolved to wait; besides, as ourparticular persons were not obnoxious, so if any English or Dutch shipscame thither, perhaps we might have an opportunity to load our goods,and get passage to some other place in India nearer home.
Upon these hopes we resolved to continue here; but, to divert ourselves,we took two or three journies into the country; first, we went ten daysjourney to see the city of Nanquin, a city well worth seeing indeed:they say it has a million of people in it; which, however, I do notbelieve: it is regularly built, the streets all exactly straight, andcross one another in direct lines, which gives the figure of it greatadvantage.
But when I came to compare the miserable people of these countries withours; their fabrics, their manner of living, their government, theirreligion, their wealth, and their glory, (as some call it) I mustconfess, I do not so much as think it worth naming, or worth my while towrite of, or any that shall come after me to read.
It is very observable, that we wonder at the grandeur, the riches, thepomp, the ceremonies, the government, the manufactures, the commerce,and the conduct of these people; not that they are to be wondered at,or, indeed, in the least to be regarded; but because, having first anotion of the barbarity of those countries, the rudeness and theignorance that prevail there, we do not expect to find any such thingsso far off.
Otherwise, what are their buildings to the palaces and royal buildingsof Europe? What their trade to the universal commerce of England,Holland, France, and Spain? What their cities to ours, for wealth,strength, gaiety of apparel, rich furniture, and an infinite variety?What are their ports, supplied with a few junks and barks, to ournavigation, our merchants' fleets, our large and powerful navies? Ourcity of London has more trade than all their mighty empire. One English,or Dutch, or French man of war of eighty guns, would fight with anddestroy all the shipping of China. But the greatness of their wealth,their trade, the power of their government, and strength of theirarmies are surprising to us, because, as I have said, considering themas a barbarous nation of pagans, little better than savages, we did notexpect such things among them; and this, indeed, is the advantage withwhich all their greatness and power is represented to us: otherwise, itis in itself nothing at all; for, as I have said of their ships, so itmay be said of their armies and troops; all the forces of their empire,though they were to bring two millions of men into the field together,would be able to do nothing but ruin the country and starve themselves.If they were to besiege a strong town in Flanders, or to fight adisciplined army, one line of German cuirassiers, or of French cavalry,would overthrow all the horse of China; a million of their foot couldnot stand before one embattled body of our infantry, posted so as not tobe surrounded, though they were not to be one to twenty in number: nay,I do not boast if I say, that 30,000 German or English foot, and 10,000French horse, would fairly beat all the forces of China. And so of ourfortified towns, and of the art of our engineers, in assaulting anddefending towns; there is not a fortified town in China could hold outone month against the batteries and attacks of an European army; and atthe same time, all the armies of China could never take such a town asDunkirk, provided it was not starved; no, not in ten years siege. Theyhave fire-arms, it is true, but they are awkward, clumsy, and uncertainin going off; they have powder, but it is of no strength; they haveneither discipline in the field, exercise in their arms, skill toattack, nor temper to retreat. And therefore I must confess it seemedstrange to me when I came home, and heard our people say such finethings of the power, riches, glory, magnificence, and trade of theChinese, because I saw and knew that they were a contemptible herd orcrowd of ignorant, sordid slaves, subjected to a government qualifiedonly to rule such a people; and, in a word, for I am now launched quitebeside my design, I say, in a word, were not its distance inconceivablygreat from Muscovy, and were not the Muscovite empire almost as rude,impotent, and ill-governed a crowd of slaves as they, the czar ofMuscovy might, with much ease, drive them all out of their country, andconquer them in one campaign; and had the czar, who I since hear is agrowing prince, and begins to appe
ar formidable in the world, fallenthis way, instead of attacking the warlike Swedes, in which attempt noneof the powers of Europe would have envied or interrupted him; he might,by this time, have been emperor of China, instead of being beaten by theking of Sweden at Narva, when the latter was not one to six in number.As their strength and their grandeur, so their navigation, commerce, andhusbandry, are imperfect and impotent, compared to the same things inEurope. Also, in their knowledge, their learning, their skill in thesciences; they have globes and spheres, and a smatch of the knowledge ofthe mathematics; but when you come to inquire into their knowledge, howshort-sighted are the wisest of their students! They know nothing of themotion of the heavenly bodies; and so grossly, absurdly ignorant, thatwhen the sun is eclipsed, they think it is a great dragon has assaultedand run away with it; and they fall a-cluttering with all the drums andkettles in the country, to fright the monster away, just as we
