The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton

far from honest;however, they thought me honest, which, by the way, was their very greatmistake. Upon this very mistake the captain took a particular liking tome, and employed me frequently on his own occasion; and, on the otherhand, in recompense for my officious diligence, I received severalparticular favours from him; particularly, I was, by the captain'scommand, made a kind of a steward under the ship's steward, for suchprovisions as the captain demanded for his own table. He had anothersteward for his private stores besides, but my office concerned onlywhat the captain called for of the ship's stores for his private use.

  However, by this means I had opportunity particularly to take care of mymaster's man, and to furnish myself with sufficient provisions to makeme live much better than the other people in the ship; for the captainseldom ordered anything out of the ship's stores, as above, but I sniptsome of it for my own share. We arrived at Goa, in the East Indies, inabout seven months from Lisbon, and remained there eight more; duringwhich time I had indeed nothing to do, my master being generally onshore, but to learn everything that is wicked among the Portuguese, anation the most perfidious and the most debauched, the most insolent andcruel, of any that pretend to call themselves Christians, in the world.

  Thieving, lying, swearing, forswearing, joined to the most abominablelewdness, was the stated practice of the ship's crew; adding to it,that, with the most insufferable boasts of their own courage, they were,generally speaking, the most complete cowards that I ever met with;and the consequence of their cowardice was evident upon many occasions.However, there was here and there one among them that was not so badas the rest; and, as my lot fell among them, it made me have the mostcontemptible thoughts of the rest, as indeed they deserved.

  I was exactly fitted for their society indeed; for I had no sense ofvirtue or religion upon me. I had never heard much of either, exceptwhat a good old parson had said to me when I was a child of about eightor nine years old; nay, I was preparing and growing up apace to be aswicked as anybody could be, or perhaps ever was. Fate certainly thusdirected my beginning, knowing that I had work which I had to do in theworld, which nothing but one hardened against all sense of honestyor religion could go through; and yet, even in this state of originalwickedness, I entertained such a settled abhorrence of the abandonedvileness of the Portuguese, that I could not but hate them most heartilyfrom the beginning, and all my life afterwards. They were so brutishlywicked, so base and perfidious, not only to strangers but to oneanother, so meanly submissive when subjected, so insolent, or barbarousand tyrannical, when superior, that I thought there was something inthem that shocked my very nature. Add to this that it is natural to anEnglishman to hate a coward, it all joined together to make the deviland a Portuguese equally my aversion.

  However, according to the English proverb, he that is shipped with thedevil must sail with the devil; I was among them, and I managed myselfas well as I could. My master had consented that I should assist thecaptain in the office, as above; but, as I understood afterwards thatthe captain allowed my master half a moidore a month for my service, andthat he had my name upon the ship's books also, I expected that whenthe ship came to be paid four months' wages at the Indies, as they, itseems, always do, my master would let me have something for myself.

  But I was wrong in my man, for he was none of that kind; he had takenme up as in distress, and his business was to keep me so, and make hismarket of me as well as he could, which I began to think of after adifferent manner than I did at first, for at first I thought he hadentertained me in mere charity, upon seeing my distressed circumstances,but did not doubt but when he put me on board the ship, I should havesome wages for my service.

  But he thought, it seems, quite otherwise; and when I procured one tospeak to him about it, when the ship was paid at Goa, he flew into thegreatest rage imaginable, and called me English dog, young heretic, andthreatened to put me into the Inquisition. Indeed, of all the namesthe four-and-twenty letters could make up, he should not have called meheretic; for as I knew nothing about religion, neither Protestant fromPapist, or either of them from a Mahometan, I could never be a heretic.However, it passed but a little, but, as young as I was, I had beencarried into the Inquisition, and there, if they had asked me if I wasa Protestant or a Catholic, I should have said yes to that which camefirst. If it had been the Protestant they had asked first, it hadcertainly made a martyr of me for I did not know what.

  But the very priest they carried with them, or chaplain of the ship,as we called him, saved me; for seeing me a boy entirely ignorant ofreligion, and ready to do or say anything they bid me, he asked me somequestions about it, which he found I answered so very simply, thathe took it upon him to tell them he would answer for my being a goodCatholic, and he hoped he should be the means of saving my soul, and hepleased himself that it was to be a work of merit to him; so he made meas good a Papist as any of them in about a week's time.

  I then told him my case about my master; how, it is true, he had takenme up in a miserable case on board a man-of-war at Lisbon; and I wasindebted to him for bringing me on board this ship; that if I had beenleft at Lisbon, I might have starved, and the like; and therefore Iwas willing to serve him, but that I hoped he would give me some littleconsideration for my service, or let me know how long he expected Ishould serve him for nothing.

  It was all one; neither the priest nor any one else could prevail withhim, but that I was not his servant but his slave, that he took me inthe Algerine, and that I was a Turk, only pretended to be an English boyto get my liberty, and he would carry me to the Inquisition as a Turk.

  This frighted me out of my wits, for I had nobody to vouch for me what Iwas, or from whence I came; but the good Padre Antonio, for that was hisname, cleared me of that part by a way I did not understand; for he cameto me one morning with two sailors, and told me they must search me, tobear witness that I was not a Turk. I was amazed at them, and frighted,and did not understand them, nor could I imagine what they intended todo to me. However, stripping me, they were soon satisfied, and FatherAntony bade me be easy, for they could all witness that I was no Turk.So I escaped that part of my master's cruelty.

  And now I resolved from that time to run away from him if I could, butthere was no doing of it there, for there were not ships of any nationin the world in that port, except two or three Persian vessels fromOrmus, so that if I had offered to go away from him, he would have hadme seized on shore, and brought on board by force; so that I had noremedy but patience. And this he brought to an end too as soon as hecould, for after this he began to use me ill, and not only to straitenmy provisions, but to beat and torture me in a barbarous manner forevery trifle, so that, in a word, my life began to be very miserable.

  The violence of this usage of me, and the impossibility of my escapefrom his hands, set my head a-working upon all sorts of mischief, and inparticular I resolved, after studying all other ways to deliver myself,and finding all ineffectual, I say, I resolved to murder him. With thishellish resolution in my head, I spent whole nights and days contrivinghow to put it in execution, the devil prompting me very warmly to thefact. I was indeed entirely at a loss for the means, for I had neithergun or sword, nor any weapon to assault him with; poison I had mythoughts much upon, but knew not where to get any; or, if I might havegot it, I did not know the country word for it, or by what name to askfor it.

  In this manner I quitted the fact, intentionally, a hundred and ahundred times; but Providence, either for his sake or for mine, alwaysfrustrated my designs, and I could never bring it to pass; so I wasobliged to continue in his chains till the ship, having taken in herloading, set sail for Portugal.

  I can say nothing here to the manner of our voyage, for, as I said, Ikept no journal; but this I can give an account of, that having beenonce as high as the Cape of Good Hope, as we call it, or Cabo de BonaSperanza, as they call it, we were driven back again by a violent stormfrom the W.S.W., which held us six days and nights a great way to theeastward, and after that, standing afore the wind for
several days more,we at last came to an anchor on the coast of Madagascar.

  The storm had been so violent that the ship had received a great deal ofdamage, and it required some time to repair her; so, standing in nearerthe shore, the pilot, my master, brought the ship into a very goodharbour, where we rid in twenty-six fathoms water, about half a milefrom the shore.

  While the ship rode here there happened a most desperate mutiny amongthe men, upon account of some deficiency in their allowance, which cameto that height that they threatened the captain to set him on shore, andgo back with the ship to Goa. I wished they would with all my heart,for I was full of mischief in my head, and ready enough to do any. So,though I was but a boy, as they called me, yet I prompted the mischiefall I could, and embarked in it so openly, that I escaped very littlebeing hanged in the first and most early part of my life; for thecaptain had some notice that there was a design laid by some of thecompany to murder