The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe

our men in the dark, that they knew not which way to turn

  themselves; for if they fled one way they were met by one party, if

  back again by another, so that they were everywhere knocked down;

  nor did any of our men receive the least hurt, except one that

  sprained his foot, and another that had one of his hands burned.

  CHAPTER X--HE IS LEFT ON SHORE

  I was very angry with my nephew, the captain, and indeed with all

  the men, but with him in particular, as well for his acting so out

  of his duty as a commander of the ship, and having the charge of

  the voyage upon him, as in his prompting, rather than cooling, the

  rage of his blind men in so bloody and cruel an enterprise. My

  nephew answered me very respectfully, but told me that when he saw

  the body of the poor seaman whom they had murdered in so cruel and

  barbarous a manner, he was not master of himself, neither could he

  govern his passion; he owned he should not have done so, as he was

  commander of the ship; but as he was a man, and nature moved him,

  he could not bear it. As for the rest of the men, they were not

  subject to me at all, and they knew it well enough; so they took no

  notice of my dislike. The next day we set sail, so we never heard

  any more of it. Our men differed in the account of the number they

  had killed; but according to the best of their accounts, put all

  together, they killed or destroyed about one hundred and fifty

  people, men, women, and children, and left not a house standing in

  the town. As for the poor fellow Tom Jeffry, as he was quite dead

  (for his throat was so cut that his head was half off), it would do

  him no service to bring him away; so they only took him down from

  the tree, where he was hanging by one hand.

  However just our men thought this action, I was against them in it,

  and I always, after that time, told them God would blast the

  voyage; for I looked upon all the blood they shed that night to be

  murder in them. For though it is true that they had killed Tom

  Jeffry, yet Jeffry was the aggressor, had broken the truce, and had

  ill-used a young woman of theirs, who came down to them innocently,

  and on the faith of the public capitulation.

  The boatswain defended this quarrel when we were afterwards on

  board. He said it was true that we seemed to break the truce, but

  really had not; and that the war was begun the night before by the

  natives themselves, who had shot at us, and killed one of our men

  without any just provocation; so that as we were in a capacity to

  fight them now, we might also be in a capacity to do ourselves

  justice upon them in an extraordinary manner; that though the poor

  man had taken a little liberty with the girl, he ought not to have

  been murdered, and that in such a villainous manner: and that they

  did nothing but what was just and what the laws of God allowed to

  be done to murderers. One would think this should have been enough

  to have warned us against going on shore amongst the heathens and

  barbarians; but it is impossible to make mankind wise but at their

  own expense, and their experience seems to be always of most use to

  them when it is dearest bought.

  We were now bound to the Gulf of Persia, and from thence to the

  coast of Coromandel, only to touch at Surat; but the chief of the

  supercargo's design lay at the Bay of Bengal, where, if he missed

  his business outward-bound, he was to go out to China, and return

  to the coast as he came home. The first disaster that befell us

  was in the Gulf of Persia, where five of our men, venturing on

  shore on the Arabian side of the gulf, were surrounded by the

  Arabians, and either all killed or carried away into slavery; the

  rest of the boat's crew were not able to rescue them, and had but

  just time to get off their boat. I began to upbraid them with the

  just retribution of Heaven in this case; but the boatswain very

  warmly told me, he thought I went further in my censures than I

  could show any warrant for in Scripture; and referred to Luke xiii.

  4, where our Saviour intimates that those men on whom the Tower of

  Siloam fell were not sinners above all the Galileans; but that

  which put me to silence in the case was, that not one of these five

  men who were now lost were of those who went on shore to the

  massacre of Madagascar, so I always called it, though our men could

  not bear to hear the word MASSACRE with any patience.

  But my frequent preaching to them on this subject had worse

  consequences than I expected; and the boatswain, who had been the

  head of the attempt, came up boldly to me one time, and told me he

  found that I brought that affair continually upon the stage; that I

  made unjust reflections upon it, and had used the men very ill on

  that account, and himself in particular; that as I was but a

  passenger, and had no command in the ship, or concern in the

  voyage, they were not obliged to bear it; that they did not know

  but I might have some ill-design in my head, and perhaps to call

  them to an account for it when they came to England; and that,

  therefore, unless I would resolve to have done with it, and also

  not to concern myself any further with him, or any of his affairs,

  he would leave the ship; for he did not think it safe to sail with

  me among them.

  I heard him patiently enough till he had done, and then told him

  that I confessed I had all along opposed the massacre of

  Madagascar, and that I had, on all occasions, spoken my mind freely

  about it, though not more upon him than any of the rest; that as to

  having no command in the ship, that was true; nor did I exercise

  any authority, only took the liberty of speaking my mind in things

  which publicly concerned us all; and what concern I had in the

  voyage was none of his business; that I was a considerable owner in

  the ship. In that claim I conceived I had a right to speak even

  further than I had done, and would not be accountable to him or any

  one else, and began to be a little warm with him. He made but

  little reply to me at that time, and I thought the affair had been

  over. We were at this time in the road at Bengal; and being

  willing to see the place, I went on shore with the supercargo in

  the ship's boat to divert myself; and towards evening was preparing

  to go on board, when one of the men came to me, and told me he

  would not have me trouble myself to come down to the boat, for they

  had orders not to carry me on board any more. Any one may guess

  what a surprise I was in at so insolent a message; and I asked the

  man who bade him deliver that message to me? He told me the

  coxswain.

  I immediately found out the supercargo, and told him the story,

  adding that I foresaw there would be a mutiny in the ship; and

  entreated him to go immediately on board and acquaint the captain

  of it. But I might have spared this intelligence, for before I had

  spoken to him on shore the matter was effected on board. The

  boatswain, the gunner, the carpenter, and all the inferior

  officers, as soon as I was
gone off in the boat, came up, and

  desired to speak with the captain; and then the boatswain, making a

  long harangue, and repeating all he had said to me, told the

  captain that as I was now gone peaceably on shore, they were loath

  to use any violence with me, which, if I had not gone on shore,

  they would otherwise have done, to oblige me to have gone. They

  therefore thought fit to tell him that as they shipped themselves

  to serve in the ship under his command, they would perform it well

  and faithfully; but if I would not quit the ship, or the captain

  oblige me to quit it, they would all leave the ship, and sail no

  further with him; and at that word ALL he turned his face towards

  the main-mast, which was, it seems, a signal agreed on, when the

  seamen, being got together there, cried out, "ONE AND ALL! ONE AND

  ALL!"

  My nephew, the captain, was a man of spirit, and of great presence

  of mind; and though he was surprised, yet he told them calmly that

  he would consider of the matter, but that he could do nothing in it

  till he had spoken to me about it. He used some arguments with

  them, to show them the unreasonableness and injustice of the thing,

  but it was all in vain; they swore, and shook hands round before

  his face, that they would all go on shore unless he would engage to

  them not to suffer me to come any more on board the ship.

  This was a hard article upon him, who knew his obligation to me,

  and did not know how I might take it. So he began to talk smartly

  to them; told them that I was a very considerable owner of the

  ship, and that if ever they came to England again it would cost

  them very dear; that the ship was mine, and that he could not put

  me out of it; and that he would rather lose the ship, and the

  voyage too, than disoblige me so much: so they might do as they

  pleased. However, he would go on shore and talk with me, and

  invited the boatswain to go with him, and perhaps they might

  accommodate the matter with me. But they all rejected the

  proposal, and said they would have nothing to do with me any more;

  and if I came on board they would all go on shore. "Well," said

  the captain, "if you are all of this mind, let me go on shore and

  talk with him." So away he came to me with this account, a little

  after the message had been brought to me from the coxswain.

  I was very glad to see my nephew, I must confess; for I was not

  without apprehensions that they would confine him by violence, set

  sail, and run away with the ship; and then I had been stripped

  naked in a remote country, having nothing to help myself; in short,

  I had been in a worse case than when I was alone in the island.

  But they had not come to that length, it seems, to my satisfaction;

  and when my nephew told me what they had said to him, and how they

  had sworn and shook hands that they would, one and all, leave the

  ship if I was suffered to come on board, I told him he should not

  be concerned at it at all, for I would stay on shore. I only

  desired he would take care and send me all my necessary things on

  shore, and leave me a sufficient sum of money, and I would find my

  way to England as well as I could. This was a heavy piece of news

  to my nephew, but there was no way to help it but to comply; so, in

  short, he went on board the ship again, and satisfied the men that

  his uncle had yielded to their importunity, and had sent for his

  goods from on board the ship; so that the matter was over in a few

  hours, the men returned to their duty, and I began to consider what

  course I should steer.

  I was now alone in a most remote part of the world, for I was near

  three thousand leagues by sea farther off from England than I was

  at my island; only, it is true, I might travel here by land over

  the Great Mogul's country to Surat, might go from thence to Bassora

  by sea, up the Gulf of Persia, and take the way of the caravans,

  over the desert of Arabia, to Aleppo and Scanderoon; from thence by

  sea again to Italy, and so overland into France. I had another way

  before me, which was to wait for some English ships, which were

  coming to Bengal from Achin, on the island of Sumatra, and get

  passage on board them from England. But as I came hither without

  any concern with the East Indian Company, so it would be difficult

  to go from hence without their licence, unless with great favour of

  the captains of the ships, or the company's factors: and to both I

  was an utter stranger.

  Here I had the mortification to see the ship set sail without me;

  however, my nephew left me two servants, or rather one companion

  and one servant; the first was clerk to the purser, whom he engaged

  to go with me, and the other was his own servant. I then took a

  good lodging in the house of an Englishwoman, where several

  merchants lodged, some French, two Italians, or rather Jews, and

  one Englishman. Here I stayed above nine months, considering what

  course to take. I had some English goods with me of value, and a

  considerable sum of money; my nephew furnishing me with a thousand

  pieces of eight, and a letter of credit for more if I had occasion,

  that I might not be straitened, whatever might happen. I quickly

  disposed of my goods to advantage; and, as I originally intended, I

  bought here some very good diamonds, which, of all other things,

  were the most proper for me in my present circumstances, because I

  could always carry my whole estate about me.

  During my stay here many proposals were made for my return to

  England, but none falling out to my mind, the English merchant who

  lodged with me, and whom I had contracted an intimate acquaintance

  with, came to me one morning, saying: "Countryman, I have a

  project to communicate, which, as it suits with my thoughts, may,

  for aught I know, suit with yours also, when you shall have

  thoroughly considered it. Here we are posted, you by accident and

  I by my own choice, in a part of the world very remote from our own

  country; but it is in a country where, by us who understand trade

  and business, a great deal of money is to be got. If you will put

  one thousand pounds to my one thousand pounds, we will hire a ship

  here, the first we can get to our minds. You shall be captain,

  I'll be merchant, and we'll go a trading voyage to China; for what

  should we stand still for? The whole world is in motion; why

  should we be idle?"

  I liked this proposal very well; and the more so because it seemed

  to be expressed with so much goodwill. In my loose, unhinged

  circumstances, I was the fitter to embrace a proposal for trade, or

  indeed anything else. I might perhaps say with some truth, that if

  trade was not my element, rambling was; and no proposal for seeing

  any part of the world which I had never seen before could possibly

  come amiss to me. It was, however, some time before we could get a

  ship to our minds, and when we had got a vessel, it was not easy to

  get English sailors--that is to say, so many as were necessary to

  govern the voyage a
nd manage the sailors which we should pick up

  there. After some time we got a mate, a boatswain, and a gunner,

  English; a Dutch carpenter, and three foremast men. With these we

  found we could do well enough, having Indian seamen, such as they

  were, to make up.

  When all was ready we set sail for Achin, in the island of Sumatra,

  and from thence to Siam, where we exchanged some of our wares for

  opium and some arrack; the first a commodity which bears a great

  price among the Chinese, and which at that time was much wanted

  there. Then we went up to Saskan, were eight months out, and on

  our return to Bengal I was very well satisfied with my adventure.

  Our people in England often admire how officers, which the company

  send into India, and the merchants which generally stay there, get

  such very great estates as they do, and sometimes come home worth

  sixty or seventy thousand pounds at a time; but it is little matter

  for wonder, when we consider the innumerable ports and places where

  they have a free commerce; indeed, at the ports where the English

  ships come there is such great and constant demands for the growth

  of all other countries, that there is a certain vent for the

  returns, as well as a market abroad for the goods carried out.

  I got so much money by my first adventure, and such an insight into

  the method of getting more, that had I been twenty years younger, I

  should have been tempted to have stayed here, and sought no farther

  for making my fortune; but what was all this to a man upwards of

  threescore, that was rich enough, and came abroad more in obedience

  to a restless desire of seeing the world than a covetous desire of

  gaining by it? A restless desire it really was, for when I was at

  home I was restless to go abroad; and when I was abroad I was

  restless to be at home. I say, what was this gain to me? I was

  rich enough already, nor had I any uneasy desires about getting

  more money; therefore the profit of the voyage to me was of no

  great force for the prompting me forward to further undertakings.

  Hence, I thought that by this voyage I had made no progress at all,

  because I was come back, as I might call it, to the place from

  whence I came, as to a home: whereas, my eye, like that which

  Solomon speaks of, was never satisfied with seeing. I was come

  into a part of the world which I was never in before, and that

  part, in particular, which I heard much of, and was resolved to see

  as much of it as I could: and then I thought I might say I had

  seen all the world that was worth seeing.

  But my fellow-traveller and I had different notions: I acknowledge

  his were the more suited to the end of a merchant's life: who,

  when he is abroad upon adventures, is wise to stick to that, as the

  best thing for him, which he is likely to get the most money by.

  On the other hand, mine was the notion of a mad, rambling boy, that

  never cares to see a thing twice over. But this was not all: I

  had a kind of impatience upon me to be nearer home, and yet an

  unsettled resolution which way to go. In the interval of these

  consultations, my friend, who was always upon the search for

  business, proposed another voyage among the Spice Islands, to bring

  home a loading of cloves from the Manillas, or thereabouts.

  We were not long in preparing for this voyage; the chief difficulty

  was in bringing me to come into it. However, at last, nothing else

  offering, and as sitting still, to me especially, was the

  unhappiest part of life, I resolved on this voyage too, which we

  made very successfully, touching at Borneo and several other

  islands, and came home in about five months, when we sold our

  spices, with very great profit, to the Persian merchants, who

  carried them away to the Gulf. My friend, when we made up this

  account, smiled at me: "Well, now," said he, with a sort of

  friendly rebuke on my indolent temper, "is not this better than

  walking about here, like a man with nothing to do, and spending our

  time in staring at the nonsense and ignorance of the Pagans?"--