The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe
affectionately upon my being alive, giving me an account how the estate
was improved, and what it produced a year; with the particulars of the
number of squares, or acres that it contained, how planted, how many
slaves there were upon it: and making two-and-twenty crosses for
blessings, told me he had said so many _Ave Marias_ to thank the
Blessed Virgin that I was alive; inviting me very passionately to come
over and take possession of my own, and in the meantime to give him
orders to whom he should deliver my effects if I did not come myself;
concluding with a hearty tender of his friendship, and that of his
family; and sent me as a present seven fine leopards’ skins, which he
had, it seems, received from Africa, by some other ship that he had
sent thither, and which, it seems, had made a better voyage than I. He
sent me also five chests of excellent sweetmeats, and a hundred pieces
of gold uncoined, not quite so large as moidores. By the same fleet my
two merchant-trustees shipped me one thousand two hundred chests of
sugar, eight hundred rolls of tobacco, and the rest of the whole
account in gold.
I might well say now, indeed, that the latter end of Job was better
than the beginning. It is impossible to express the flutterings of my
very heart when I found all my wealth about me; for as the Brazil ships
come all in fleets, the same ships which brought my letters brought my
goods: and the effects were safe in the river before the letters came
to my hand. In a word, I turned pale, and grew sick; and, had not the
old man run and fetched me a cordial, I believe the sudden surprise of
joy had overset nature, and I had died upon the spot: nay, after that I
continued very ill, and was so some hours, till a physician being sent
for, and something of the real cause of my illness being known, he
ordered me to be let blood; after which I had relief, and grew well:
but I verily believe, if I had not been eased by a vent given in that
manner to the spirits, I should have died.
I was now master, all on a sudden, of above five thousand pounds
sterling in money, and had an estate, as I might well call it, in the
Brazils, of above a thousand pounds a year, as sure as an estate of
lands in England: and, in a word, I was in a condition which I scarce
knew how to understand, or how to compose myself for the enjoyment of
it. The first thing I did was to recompense my original benefactor, my
good old captain, who had been first charitable to me in my distress,
kind to me in my beginning, and honest to me at the end. I showed him
all that was sent to me; I told him that, next to the providence of
Heaven, which disposed all things, it was owing to him; and that it now
lay on me to reward him, which I would do a hundred-fold: so I first
returned to him the hundred moidores I had received of him; then I sent
for a notary, and caused him to draw up a general release or discharge
from the four hundred and seventy moidores, which he had acknowledged
he owed me, in the fullest and firmest manner possible. After which I
caused a procuration to be drawn, empowering him to be the receiver of
the annual profits of my plantation: and appointing my partner to
account with him, and make the returns, by the usual fleets, to him in
my name; and by a clause in the end, made a grant of one hundred
moidores a year to him during his life, out of the effects, and fifty
moidores a year to his son after him, for his life: and thus I requited
my old man.
I had now to consider which way to steer my course next, and what to do
with the estate that Providence had thus put into my hands; and,
indeed, I had more care upon my head now than I had in my state of life
in the island where I wanted nothing but what I had, and had nothing
but what I wanted; whereas I had now a great charge upon me, and my
business was how to secure it. I had not a cave now to hide my money
in, or a place where it might lie without lock or key, till it grew
mouldy and tarnished before anybody would meddle with it; on the
contrary, I knew not where to put it, or whom to trust with it. My old
patron, the captain, indeed, was honest, and that was the only refuge I
had. In the next place, my interest in the Brazils seemed to summon me
thither; but now I could not tell how to think of going thither till I
had settled my affairs, and left my effects in some safe hands behind
me. At first I thought of my old friend the widow, who I knew was
honest, and would be just to me; but then she was in years, and but
poor, and, for aught I knew, might be in debt: so that, in a word, I
had no way but to go back to England myself and take my effects with
me.
It was some months, however, before I resolved upon this; and,
therefore, as I had rewarded the old captain fully, and to his
satisfaction, who had been my former benefactor, so I began to think of
the poor widow, whose husband had been my first benefactor, and she,
while it was in her power, my faithful steward and instructor. So, the
first thing I did, I got a merchant in Lisbon to write to his
correspondent in London, not only to pay a bill, but to go find her
out, and carry her, in money, a hundred pounds from me, and to talk
with her, and comfort her in her poverty, by telling her she should, if
I lived, have a further supply: at the same time I sent my two sisters
in the country a hundred pounds each, they being, though not in want,
yet not in very good circumstances; one having been married and left a
widow; and the other having a husband not so kind to her as he should
be. But among all my relations or acquaintances I could not yet pitch
upon one to whom I durst commit the gross of my stock, that I might go
away to the Brazils, and leave things safe behind me; and this greatly
perplexed me.
I had once a mind to have gone to the Brazils and have settled myself
there, for I was, as it were, naturalised to the place; but I had some
little scruple in my mind about religion, which insensibly drew me
back. However, it was not religion that kept me from going there for
the present; and as I had made no scruple of being openly of the
religion of the country all the while I was among them, so neither did
I yet; only that, now and then, having of late thought more of it than
formerly, when I began to think of living and dying among them, I began
to regret having professed myself a Papist, and thought it might not be
the best religion to die with.
But, as I have said, this was not the main thing that kept me from
going to the Brazils, but that really I did not know with whom to leave
my effects behind me; so I resolved at last to go to England, where, if
I arrived, I concluded that I should make some acquaintance, or find
some relations, that would be faithful to me; and, accordingly, I
prepared to go to England with all my wealth.
In order to prepare things for my going home, I first (the Brazil fleet
being just going away) resolved to give answers suitable to the just
and faithful account of things I had from thence; and, first, to the
Prior of St. Augustine I wrote a letter full of thanks for his just
dealings, and the offer of the eight hundred and seventy-two moidores
which were undisposed of, which I desired might be given, five hundred
to the monastery, and three hundred and seventy-two to the poor, as the
prior should direct; desiring the good padre’s prayers for me, and the
like. I wrote next a letter of thanks to my two trustees, with all the
acknowledgment that so much justice and honesty called for: as for
sending them any present, they were far above having any occasion of
it. Lastly, I wrote to my partner, acknowledging his industry in the
improving the plantation, and his integrity in increasing the stock of
the works; giving him instructions for his future government of my
part, according to the powers I had left with my old patron, to whom I
desired him to send whatever became due to me, till he should hear from
me more particularly; assuring him that it was my intention not only to
come to him, but to settle myself there for the remainder of my life.
To this I added a very handsome present of some Italian silks for his
wife and two daughters, for such the captain’s son informed me he had;
with two pieces of fine English broadcloth, the best I could get in
Lisbon, five pieces of black baize, and some Flanders lace of a good
value.
Having thus settled my affairs, sold my cargo, and turned all my
effects into good bills of exchange, my next difficulty was which way
to go to England: I had been accustomed enough to the sea, and yet I
had a strange aversion to go to England by the sea at that time, and
yet I could give no reason for it, yet the difficulty increased upon me
so much, that though I had once shipped my baggage in order to go, yet
I altered my mind, and that not once but two or three times.
It is true I had been very unfortunate by sea, and this might be one of
the reasons; but let no man slight the strong impulses of his own
thoughts in cases of such moment: two of the ships which I had singled
out to go in, I mean more particularly singled out than any other,
having put my things on board one of them, and in the other having
agreed with the captain; I say two of these ships miscarried. One was
taken by the Algerines, and the other was lost on the Start, near
Torbay, and all the people drowned except three; so that in either of
those vessels I had been made miserable.
Having been thus harassed in my thoughts, my old pilot, to whom I
communicated everything, pressed me earnestly not to go by sea, but
either to go by land to the Groyne, and cross over the Bay of Biscay to
Rochelle, from whence it was but an easy and safe journey by land to
Paris, and so to Calais and Dover; or to go up to Madrid, and so all
the way by land through France. In a word, I was so prepossessed
against my going by sea at all, except from Calais to Dover, that I
resolved to travel all the way by land; which, as I was not in haste,
and did not value the charge, was by much the pleasanter way: and to
make it more so, my old captain brought an English gentleman, the son
of a merchant in Lisbon, who was willing to travel with me; after which
we picked up two more English merchants also, and two young Portuguese
gentlemen, the last going to Paris only; so that in all there were six
of us and five servants; the two merchants and the two Portuguese,
contenting themselves with one servant between two, to save the charge;
and as for me, I got an English sailor to travel with me as a servant,
besides my man Friday, who was too much a stranger to be capable of
supplying the place of a servant on the road.
In this manner I set out from Lisbon; and our company being very well
mounted and armed, we made a little troop, whereof they did me the
honour to call me captain, as well because I was the oldest man, as
because I had two servants, and, indeed, was the origin of the whole
journey.
As I have troubled you with none of my sea journals, so I shall trouble
you now with none of my land journals; but some adventures that
happened to us in this tedious and difficult journey I must not omit.
When we came to Madrid, we, being all of us strangers to Spain, were
willing to stay some time to see the court of Spain, and what was worth
observing; but it being the latter part of the summer, we hastened
away, and set out from Madrid about the middle of October; but when we
came to the edge of Navarre, we were alarmed, at several towns on the
way, with an account that so much snow was falling on the French side
of the mountains, that several travellers were obliged to come back to
Pampeluna, after having attempted at an extreme hazard to pass on.
When we came to Pampeluna itself, we found it so indeed; and to me,