The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Page 3

themselves in the extravagances of their passions; for if an excess

  of joy can carry men out to such a length beyond the reach of their

  reason, what will not the extravagances of anger, rage, and a

  provoked mind carry us to? And, indeed, here I saw reason for

  keeping an exceeding watch over our passions of every kind, as well

  those of joy and satisfaction as those of sorrow and anger.

  We were somewhat disordered by these extravagances among our new

  guests for the first day; but after they had retired to lodgings

  provided for them as well as our ship would allow, and had slept

  heartily--as most of them did, being fatigued and frightened--they

  were quite another sort of people the next day. Nothing of good

  manners, or civil acknowledgments for the kindness shown them, was

  wanting; the French, it is known, are naturally apt enough to

  exceed that way. The captain and one of the priests came to me the

  next day, and desired to speak with me and my nephew; the commander

  began to consult with us what should be done with them; and first,

  they told us we had saved their lives, so all they had was little

  enough for a return to us for that kindness received. The captain

  said they had saved some money and some things of value in their

  boats, caught hastily out of the flames, and if we would accept it

  they were ordered to make an offer of it all to us; they only

  desired to be set on shore somewhere in our way, where, if

  possible, they might get a passage to France. My nephew wished to

  accept their money at first word, and to consider what to do with

  them afterwards; but I overruled him in that part, for I knew what

  it was to be set on shore in a strange country; and if the

  Portuguese captain that took me up at sea had served me so, and

  taken all I had for my deliverance, I must have been starved, or

  have been as much a slave at the Brazils as I had been at Barbary,

  the mere being sold to a Mahometan excepted; and perhaps a

  Portuguese is not a much better master than a Turk, if not in some

  cases much worse.

  I therefore told the French captain that we had taken them up in

  their distress, it was true, but that it was our duty to do so, as

  we were fellow-creatures; and we would desire to be so delivered if

  we were in the like or any other extremity; that we had done

  nothing for them but what we believed they would have done for us

  if we had been in their case and they in ours; but that we took

  them up to save them, not to plunder them; and it would be a most

  barbarous thing to take that little from them which they had saved

  out of the fire, and then set them on shore and leave them; that

  this would be first to save them from death, and then kill them

  ourselves: save them from drowning, and abandon them to starving;

  and therefore I would not let the least thing be taken from them.

  As to setting them on shore, I told them indeed that was an

  exceeding difficulty to us, for that the ship was bound to the East

  Indies; and though we were driven out of our course to the westward

  a very great way, and perhaps were directed by Heaven on purpose

  for their deliverance, yet it was impossible for us wilfully to

  change our voyage on their particular account; nor could my nephew,

  the captain, answer it to the freighters, with whom he was under

  charter to pursue his voyage by way of Brazil; and all I knew we

  could do for them was to put ourselves in the way of meeting with

  other ships homeward bound from the West Indies, and get them a

  passage, if possible, to England or France.

  The first part of the proposal was so generous and kind they could

  not but be very thankful for it; but they were in very great

  consternation, especially the passengers, at the notion of being

  carried away to the East Indies; they then entreated me that as I

  was driven so far to the westward before I met with them, I would

  at least keep on the same course to the banks of Newfoundland,

  where it was probable I might meet with some ship or sloop that

  they might hire to carry them back to Canada.

  I thought this was but a reasonable request on their part, and

  therefore I inclined to agree to it; for indeed I considered that

  to carry this whole company to the East Indies would not only be an

  intolerable severity upon the poor people, but would be ruining our

  whole voyage by devouring all our provisions; so I thought it no

  breach of charter-party, but what an unforeseen accident made

  absolutely necessary to us, and in which no one could say we were

  to blame; for the laws of God and nature would have forbid that we

  should refuse to take up two boats full of people in such a

  distressed condition; and the nature of the thing, as well

  respecting ourselves as the poor people, obliged us to set them on

  shore somewhere or other for their deliverance. So I consented

  that we would carry them to Newfoundland, if wind and weather would

  permit: and if not, I would carry them to Martinico, in the West

  Indies.

  The wind continued fresh easterly, but the weather pretty good; and

  as the winds had continued in the points between NE. and SE. a long

  time, we missed several opportunities of sending them to France;

  for we met several ships bound to Europe, whereof two were French,

  from St. Christopher's, but they had been so long beating up

  against the wind that they durst take in no passengers, for fear of

  wanting provisions for the voyage, as well for themselves as for

  those they should take in; so we were obliged to go on. It was

  about a week after this that we made the banks of Newfoundland;

  where, to shorten my story, we put all our French people on board a

  bark, which they hired at sea there, to put them on shore, and

  afterwards to carry them to France, if they could get provisions to

  victual themselves with. When I say all the French went on shore,

  I should remember that the young priest I spoke of, hearing we were

  bound to the East Indies, desired to go the voyage with us, and to

  be set on shore on the coast of Coromandel; which I readily agreed

  to, for I wonderfully liked the man, and had very good reason, as

  will appear afterwards; also four of the seamen entered themselves

  on our ship, and proved very useful fellows.

  From hence we directed our course for the West Indies, steering

  away S. and S. by E. for about twenty days together, sometimes

  little or no wind at all; when we met with another subject for our

  humanity to work upon, almost as deplorable as that before.

  CHAPTER II-- INTERVENING HISTORY OF COLONY

  It was in the latitude of 27 degrees 5 minutes N., on the 19th day

  of March 1694-95, when we spied a sail, our course SE. and by S.

  We soon perceived it was a large vessel, and that she bore up to

  us, but could not at first know what to make of her, till, after

  coming a little nearer, we found she had lost her main-topmast,

  fore-mast, and bowsprit; and presently she fired a gun as a signal

  of distress. The weather was pretty good, wind at NNW. a fresh

  gale, an
d we soon came to speak with her. We found her a ship of

  Bristol, bound home from Barbadoes, but had been blown out of the

  road at Barbadoes a few days before she was ready to sail, by a

  terrible hurricane, while the captain and chief mate were both gone

  on shore; so that, besides the terror of the storm, they were in an

  indifferent case for good mariners to bring the ship home. They

  had been already nine weeks at sea, and had met with another

  terrible storm, after the hurricane was over, which had blown them

  quite out of their knowledge to the westward, and in which they

  lost their masts. They told us they expected to have seen the

  Bahama Islands, but were then driven away again to the south-east,

  by a strong gale of wind at NNW., the same that blew now: and

  having no sails to work the ship with but a main course, and a kind

  of square sail upon a jury fore-mast, which they had set up, they

  could not lie near the wind, but were endeavouring to stand away

  for the Canaries.

  But that which was worst of all was, that they were almost starved

  for want of provisions, besides the fatigues they had undergone;

  their bread and flesh were quite gone--they had not one ounce left

  in the ship, and had had none for eleven days. The only relief

  they had was, their water was not all spent, and they had about

  half a barrel of flour left; they had sugar enough; some succades,

  or sweetmeats, they had at first, but these were all devoured; and

  they had seven casks of rum. There was a youth and his mother and

  a maid-servant on board, who were passengers, and thinking the ship

  was ready to sail, unhappily came on board the evening before the

  hurricane began; and having no provisions of their own left, they

  were in a more deplorable condition than the rest: for the seamen

  being reduced to such an extreme necessity themselves, had no

  compassion, we may be sure, for the poor passengers; and they were,

  indeed, in such a condition that their misery is very hard to

  describe.

  I had perhaps not known this part, if my curiosity had not led me,

  the weather being fair and the wind abated, to go on board the

  ship. The second mate, who upon this occasion commanded the ship,

  had been on board our ship, and he told me they had three

  passengers in the great cabin that were in a deplorable condition.

  "Nay," says he, "I believe they are dead, for I have heard nothing

  of them for above two days; and I was afraid to inquire after

  them," said he, "for I had nothing to relieve them with." We

  immediately applied ourselves to give them what relief we could

  spare; and indeed I had so far overruled things with my nephew,

  that I would have victualled them though we had gone away to

  Virginia, or any other part of the coast of America, to have

  supplied ourselves; but there was no necessity for that.

  But now they were in a new danger; for they were afraid of eating

  too much, even of that little we gave them. The mate, or

  commander, brought six men with him in his boat; but these poor

  wretches looked like skeletons, and were so weak that they could

  hardly sit to their oars. The mate himself was very ill, and half

  starved; for he declared he had reserved nothing from the men, and

  went share and share alike with them in every bit they ate. I

  cautioned him to eat sparingly, and set meat before him

  immediately, but he had not eaten three mouthfuls before he began

  to be sick and out of order; so he stopped a while, and our surgeon

  mixed him up something with some broth, which he said would be to

  him both food and physic; and after he had taken it he grew better.

  In the meantime I forgot not the men. I ordered victuals to be

  given them, and the poor creatures rather devoured than ate it:

  they were so exceedingly hungry that they were in a manner

  ravenous, and had no command of themselves; and two of them ate

  with so much greediness that they were in danger of their lives the

  next morning. The sight of these people's distress was very moving

  to me, and brought to mind what I had a terrible prospect of at my

  first coming on shore in my island, where I had not the least

  mouthful of food, or any prospect of procuring any; besides the

  hourly apprehensions I had of being made the food of other

  creatures. But all the while the mate was thus relating to me the

  miserable condition of the ship's company, I could not put out of

  my thought the story he had told me of the three poor creatures in

  the great cabin, viz. the mother, her son, and the maid-servant,

  whom he had heard nothing of for two or three days, and whom, he

  seemed to confess, they had wholly neglected, their own extremities

  being so great; by which I understood that they had really given

  them no food at all, and that therefore they must be perished, and

  be all lying dead, perhaps, on the floor or deck of the cabin.

  As I therefore kept the mate, whom we then called captain, on board

  with his men, to refresh them, so I also forgot not the starving

  crew that were left on board, but ordered my own boat to go on

  board the ship, and, with my mate and twelve men, to carry them a

  sack of bread, and four or five pieces of beef to boil. Our

  surgeon charged the men to cause the meat to be boiled while they

  stayed, and to keep guard in the cook-room, to prevent the men

  taking it to eat raw, or taking it out of the pot before it was

  well boiled, and then to give every man but a very little at a

  time: and by this caution he preserved the men, who would

  otherwise have killed themselves with that very food that was given

  them on purpose to save their lives.

  At the same time I ordered the mate to go into the great cabin, and

  see what condition the poor passengers were in; and if they were

  alive, to comfort them, and give them what refreshment was proper:

  and the surgeon gave him a large pitcher, with some of the prepared

  broth which he had given the mate that was on board, and which he

  did not question would restore them gradually. I was not satisfied

  with this; but, as I said above, having a great mind to see the

  scene of misery which I knew the ship itself would present me with,

  in a more lively manner than I could have it by report, I took the

  captain of the ship, as we now called him, with me, and went

  myself, a little after, in their boat.

  I found the poor men on board almost in a tumult to get the

  victuals out of the boiler before it was ready; but my mate

  observed his orders, and kept a good guard at the cook-room door,

  and the man he placed there, after using all possible persuasion to

  have patience, kept them off by force; however, he caused some

  biscuit-cakes to be dipped in the pot, and softened with the liquor

  of the meat, which they called brewis, and gave them every one some

  to stay their stomachs, and told them it was for their own safety

  that he was obliged to give them but little at a time. But it was

  all in vain; and had I not come on board, and their own commander

  and officers with m
e, and with good words, and some threats also of

  giving them no more, I believe they would have broken into the

  cook-room by force, and torn the meat out of the furnace--for words

  are indeed of very small force to a hungry belly; however, we

  pacified them, and fed them gradually and cautiously at first, and

  the next time gave them more, and at last filled their bellies, and

  the men did well enough.

  But the misery of the poor passengers in the cabin was of another

  nature, and far beyond the rest; for as, first, the ship's company

  had so little for themselves, it was but too true that they had at

  first kept them very low, and at last totally neglected them: so

  that for six or seven days it might be said they had really no food

  at all, and for several days before very little. The poor mother,

  who, as the men reported, was a woman of sense and good breeding,

  had spared all she could so affectionately for her son, that at

  last she entirely sank under it; and when the mate of our ship went

  in, she sat upon the floor on deck, with her back up against the

  sides, between two chairs, which were lashed fast, and her head

  sunk between her shoulders like a corpse, though not quite dead.

  My mate said all he could to revive and encourage her, and with a

  spoon put some broth into her mouth. She opened her lips, and

  lifted up one hand, but could not speak: yet she understood what

  he said, and made signs to him, intimating, that it was too late

  for her, but pointed to her child, as if she would have said they

  should take care of him. However, the mate, who was exceedingly

  moved at the sight, endeavoured to get some of the broth into her

  mouth, and, as he said, got two or three spoonfuls down--though I

  question whether he could be sure of it or not; but it was too

  late, and she died the same night.

  The youth, who was preserved at the price of his most affectionate

  mother's life, was not so far gone; yet he lay in a cabin bed, as

  one stretched out, with hardly any life left in him. He had a

  piece of an old glove in his mouth, having eaten up the rest of it;

  however, being young, and having more strength than his mother, the

  mate got something down his throat, and he began sensibly to

  revive; though by giving him, some time after, but two or three

  spoonfuls extraordinary, he was very sick, and brought it up again.

  But the next care was the poor maid: she lay all along upon the

  deck, hard by her mistress, and just like one that had fallen down

  in a fit of apoplexy, and struggled for life. Her limbs were

  distorted; one of her hands was clasped round the frame of the

  chair, and she gripped it so hard that we could not easily make her

  let it go; her other arm lay over her head, and her feet lay both

  together, set fast against the frame of the cabin table: in short,

  she lay just like one in the agonies of death, and yet she was

  alive too. The poor creature was not only starved with hunger, and

  terrified with the thoughts of death, but, as the men told us

  afterwards, was broken-hearted for her mistress, whom she saw dying

  for two or three days before, and whom she loved most tenderly. We

  knew not what to do with this poor girl; for when our surgeon, who

  was a man of very great knowledge and experience, had, with great

  application, recovered her as to life, he had her upon his hands

  still; for she was little less than distracted for a considerable

  time after.

  Whoever shall read these memorandums must be desired to consider

  that visits at sea are not like a journey into the country, where

  sometimes people stay a week or a fortnight at a place. Our

  business was to relieve this distressed ship's crew, but not lie by

  for them; and though they were willing to steer the same course

  with us for some days, yet we could carry no sail to keep pace with

  a ship that had no masts. However, as their captain begged of us

  to help him to set up a main-topmast, and a kind of a topmast to

  his jury fore-mast, we did, as it were, lie by him for three or