by Daniel Defoe
them as unjust that they who came there for assistance and support
should attempt to set up for instructors to those that gave them
food; intimating, it seems, that none should set up for the
instructors of others but those who could live without them. They
gave me dismal accounts of the extremities they were driven to; how
sometimes they were many days without any food at all, the island
they were upon being inhabited by a sort of savages that lived more
indolent, and for that reason were less supplied with the
necessaries of life, than they had reason to believe others were in
the same part of the world; and yet they found that these savages
were less ravenous and voracious than those who had better supplies
of food. Also, they added, they could not but see with what
demonstrations of wisdom and goodness the governing providence of
God directs the events of things in this world, which, they said,
appeared in their circumstances: for if, pressed by the hardships
they were under, and the barrenness of the country where they were,
they had searched after a better to live in, they had then been out
of the way of the relief that happened to them by my means.
They then gave me an account how the savages whom they lived
amongst expected them to go out with them into their wars; and, it
was true, that as they had firearms with them, had they not had the
disaster to lose their ammunition, they could have been serviceable
not only to their friends, but have made themselves terrible both
to friends and enemies; but being without powder and shot, and yet
in a condition that they could not in reason decline to go out with
their landlords to their wars; so when they came into the field of
battle they were in a worse condition than the savages themselves,
for they had neither bows nor arrows, nor could they use those the
savages gave them. So they could do nothing but stand still and be
wounded with arrows, till they came up to the teeth of the enemy;
and then, indeed, the three halberds they had were of use to them;
and they would often drive a whole little army before them with
those halberds, and sharpened sticks put into the muzzles of their
muskets. But for all this they were sometimes surrounded with
multitudes, and in great danger from their arrows, till at last
they found the way to make themselves large targets of wood, which
they covered with skins of wild beasts, whose names they knew not,
and these covered them from the arrows of the savages: that,
notwithstanding these, they were sometimes in great danger; and
five of them were once knocked down together with the clubs of the
savages, which was the time when one of them was taken prisoner--
that is to say, the Spaniard whom I relieved. At first they
thought he had been killed; but when they afterwards heard he was
taken prisoner, they were under the greatest grief imaginable, and
would willingly have all ventured their lives to have rescued him.
They told me that when they were so knocked down, the rest of their
company rescued them, and stood over them fighting till they were
come to themselves, all but him whom they thought had been dead;
and then they made their way with their halberds and pieces,
standing close together in a line, through a body of above a
thousand savages, beating down all that came in their way, got the
victory over their enemies, but to their great sorrow, because it
was with the loss of their friend, whom the other party finding
alive, carried off with some others, as I gave an account before.
They described, most affectionately, how they were surprised with
joy at the return of their friend and companion in misery, who they
thought had been devoured by wild beasts of the worst kind--wild
men; and yet, how more and more they were surprised with the
account he gave them of his errand, and that there was a Christian
in any place near, much more one that was able, and had humanity
enough, to contribute to their deliverance.
They described how they were astonished at the sight of the relief
I sent them, and at the appearance of loaves of bread--things they
had not seen since their coming to that miserable place; how often
they crossed it and blessed it as bread sent from heaven; and what
a reviving cordial it was to their spirits to taste it, as also the
other things I had sent for their supply; and, after all, they
would have told me something of the joy they were in at the sight
of a boat and pilots, to carry them away to the person and place
from whence all these new comforts came. But it was impossible to
express it by words, for their excessive joy naturally driving them
to unbecoming extravagances, they had no way to describe them but
by telling me they bordered upon lunacy, having no way to give vent
to their passions suitable to the sense that was upon them; that in
some it worked one way and in some another; and that some of them,
through a surprise of joy, would burst into tears, others be stark
mad, and others immediately faint. This discourse extremely
affected me, and called to my mind Friday's ecstasy when he met his
father, and the poor people's ecstasy when I took them up at sea
after their ship was on fire; the joy of the mate of the ship when
he found himself delivered in the place where he expected to
perish; and my own joy, when, after twenty-eight years' captivity,
I found a good ship ready to carry me to my own country. All these
things made me more sensible of the relation of these poor men, and
more affected with it.
Having thus given a view of the state of things as I found them, I
must relate the heads of what I did for these people, and the
condition in which I left them. It was their opinion, and mine
too, that they would be troubled no more with the savages, or if
they were, they would be able to cut them off, if they were twice
as many as before; so they had no concern about that. Then I
entered into a serious discourse with the Spaniard, whom I call
governor, about their stay in the island; for as I was not come to
carry any of them off, so it would not be just to carry off some
and leave others, who, perhaps, would be unwilling to stay if their
strength was diminished. On the other hand, I told them I came to
establish them there, not to remove them; and then I let them know
that I had brought with me relief of sundry kinds for them; that I
had been at a great charge to supply them with all things
necessary, as well for their convenience as their defence; and that
I had such and such particular persons with me, as well to increase
and recruit their number, as by the particular necessary
employments which they were bred to, being artificers, to assist
them in those things in which at present they were in want.
They were all together when I talked thus to them; and before I
delivered to them the stores I had brought, I asked them, one by
one, if they had entirely forgot and buried the first animosities
that had been among
them, and would shake hands with one another,
and engage in a strict friendship and union of interest, that so
there might be no more misunderstandings and jealousies.
Will Atkins, with abundance of frankness and good humour, said they
had met with affliction enough to make them all sober, and enemies
enough to make them all friends; that, for his part, he would live
and die with them, and was so far from designing anything against
the Spaniards, that he owned they had done nothing to him but what
his own mad humour made necessary, and what he would have done, and
perhaps worse, in their case; and that he would ask them pardon, if
I desired it, for the foolish and brutish things he had done to
them, and was very willing and desirous of living in terms of
entire friendship and union with them, and would do anything that
lay in his power to convince them of it; and as for going to
England, he cared not if he did not go thither these twenty years.
The Spaniards said they had, indeed, at first disarmed and excluded
Will Atkins and his two countrymen for their ill conduct, as they
had let me know, and they appealed to me for the necessity they
were under to do so; but that Will Atkins had behaved himself so
bravely in the great fight they had with the savages, and on
several occasions since, and had showed himself so faithful to, and
concerned for, the general interest of them all, that they had
forgotten all that was past, and thought he merited as much to be
trusted with arms and supplied with necessaries as any of them;
that they had testified their satisfaction in him by committing the
command to him next to the governor himself; and as they had entire
confidence in him and all his countrymen, so they acknowledged they
had merited that confidence by all the methods that honest men
could merit to be valued and trusted; and they most heartily
embraced the occasion of giving me this assurance, that they would
never have any interest separate from one another.
Upon these frank and open declarations of friendship, we appointed
the next day to dine all together; and, indeed, we made a splendid
feast. I caused the ship's cook and his mate to come on shore and
dress our dinner, and the old cook's mate we had on shore assisted.
We brought on shore six pieces of good beef and four pieces of
pork, out of the ship's provisions, with our punch-bowl and
materials to fill it; and in particular I gave them ten bottles of
French claret, and ten bottles of English beer; things that neither
the Spaniards nor the English had tasted for many years, and which
it may be supposed they were very glad of. The Spaniards added to
our feast five whole kids, which the cooks roasted; and three of
them were sent, covered up close, on board the ship to the seamen,
that they might feast on fresh meat from on shore, as we did with
their salt meat from on board.
After this feast, at which we were very innocently merry, I brought
my cargo of goods; wherein, that there might be no dispute about
dividing, I showed them that there was a sufficiency for them all,
desiring that they might all take an equal quantity, when made up,
of the goods that were for wearing. As, first, I distributed linen
sufficient to make every one of them four shirts, and, at the
Spaniard's request, afterwards made them up six; these were
exceeding comfortable to them, having been what they had long since
forgot the use of, or what it was to wear them. I allotted the
thin English stuffs, which I mentioned before, to make every one a
light coat, like a frock, which I judged fittest for the heat of
the season, cool and loose; and ordered that whenever they decayed,
they should make more, as they thought fit; the like for pumps,
shoes, stockings, hats, &c. I cannot express what pleasure sat
upon the countenances of all these poor men when they saw the care
I had taken of them, and how well I had furnished them. They told
me I was a father to them; and that having such a correspondent as
I was in so remote a part of the world, it would make them forget
that they were left in a desolate place; and they all voluntarily
engaged to me not to leave the place without my consent.
Then I presented to them the people I had brought with me,
particularly the tailor, the smith, and the two carpenters, all of
them most necessary people; but, above all, my general artificer,
than whom they could not name anything that was more useful to
them; and the tailor, to show his concern for them, went to work
immediately, and, with my leave, made them every one a shirt, the
first thing he did; and, what was still more, he taught the women
not only how to sew and stitch, and use the needle, but made them
assist to make the shirts for their husbands, and for all the rest.
As to the carpenters, I scarce need mention how useful they were;
for they took to pieces all my clumsy, unhandy things, and made
clever convenient tables, stools, bedsteads, cupboards, lockers,
shelves, and everything they wanted of that kind. But to let them
see how nature made artificers at first, I carried the carpenters
to see Will Atkins' basket-house, as I called it; and they both
owned they never saw an instance of such natural ingenuity before,
nor anything so regular and so handily built, at least of its kind;
and one of them, when he saw it, after musing a good while, turning
about to me, "I am sure," says he, "that man has no need of us; you
need do nothing but give him tools."
Then I brought them out all my store of tools, and gave every man a
digging-spade, a shovel, and a rake, for we had no barrows or
ploughs; and to every separate place a pickaxe, a crow, a broad
axe, and a saw; always appointing, that as often as any were broken
or worn out, they should be supplied without grudging out of the
general stores that I left behind. Nails, staples, hinges,
hammers, chisels, knives, scissors, and all sorts of ironwork, they
had without reserve, as they required; for no man would take more
than he wanted, and he must be a fool that would waste or spoil
them on any account whatever; and for the use of the smith I left
two tons of unwrought iron for a supply.
My magazine of powder and arms which I brought them was such, even
to profusion, that they could not but rejoice at them; for now they
could march as I used to do, with a musket upon each shoulder, if
there was occasion; and were able to fight a thousand savages, if
they had but some little advantages of situation, which also they
could not miss, if they had occasion.
I carried on shore with me the young man whose mother was starved
to death, and the maid also; she was a sober, well-educated,
religious young woman, and behaved so inoffensively that every one
gave her a good word; she had, indeed, an unhappy life with us,
there being no woman in the ship but herself, but she bore it with
patience. After a while, seeing things so well ordered, and in so
fine a way of thrivi
ng upon my island, and considering that they
had neither business nor acquaintance in the East Indies, or reason
for taking so long a voyage, both of them came to me and desired I
would give them leave to remain on the island, and be entered among
my family, as they called it. I agreed to this readily; and they
had a little plot of ground allotted to them, where they had three
tents or houses set up, surrounded with a basket-work, palisadoed
like Atkins's, adjoining to his plantation. Their tents were
contrived so that they had each of them a room apart to lodge in,
and a middle tent like a great storehouse to lay their goods in,
and to eat and to drink in. And now the other two Englishmen
removed their habitation to the same place; and so the island was
divided into three colonies, and no more--viz. the Spaniards, with
old Friday and the first servants, at my habitation under the hill,
which was, in a word, the capital city, and where they had so
enlarged and extended their works, as well under as on the outside
of the hill, that they lived, though perfectly concealed, yet full
at large. Never was there such a little city in a wood, and so
hid, in any part of the world; for I verify believe that a thousand
men might have ranged the island a month, and, if they had not
known there was such a thing, and looked on purpose for it, they
would not have found it. Indeed the trees stood so thick and so
close, and grew so fast woven one into another, that nothing but
cutting them down first could discover the place, except the only
two narrow entrances where they went in and out could be found,
which was not very easy; one of them was close down at the water's
edge, on the side of the creek, and it was afterwards above two
hundred yards to the place; and the other was up a ladder at twice,
as I have already described it; and they had also a large wood,
thickly planted, on the top of the hill, containing above an acre,
which grew apace, and concealed the place from all discovery there,
with only one narrow place between two trees, not easily to be
discovered, to enter on that side.
The other colony was that of Will Atkins, where there were four
families of Englishmen, I mean those I had left there, with their
wives and children; three savages that were slaves, the widow and
children of the Englishman that was killed, the young man and the
maid, and, by the way, we made a wife of her before we went away.
There were besides the two carpenters and the tailor, whom I
brought with me for them: also the smith, who was a very necessary
man to them, especially as a gunsmith, to take care of their arms;
and my other man, whom I called Jack-of-all-trades, who was in
himself as good almost as twenty men; for he was not only a very
ingenious fellow, but a very merry fellow, and before I went away
we married him to the honest maid that came with the youth in the
ship I mentioned before.
And now I speak of marrying, it brings me naturally to say
something of the French ecclesiastic that I had brought with me out
of the ship's crew whom I took up at sea. It is true this man was
a Roman, and perhaps it may give offence to some hereafter if I
leave anything extraordinary upon record of a man whom, before I
begin, I must (to set him out in just colours) represent in terms
very much to his disadvantage, in the account of Protestants; as,
first, that he was a Papist; secondly, a Popish priest; and
thirdly, a French Popish priest. But justice demands of me to give
him a due character; and I must say, he was a grave, sober, pious,
and most religious person; exact in his life, extensive in his
charity, and exemplary in almost everything he did. What then can
any one say against being very sensible of the value of such a man,
notwithstanding his profession? though it may be my opinion
perhaps, as well as the opinion of others who shall read this, that
he was mistaken.
The first hour that I began to converse with him after he had
agreed to go with me to the East Indies, I found reason to delight
