It is impossible to express the astonishment of these poor creatures at the noise and the fire of my gun; some of them were even ready to die for fear, and fell down as dead with the very terror. But when they saw the creature dead and sunk in the water, and that I made signs to them to come to the shore, they took heart and came to the shore, and began to search for the creature. I found him by his blood staining the water, and by the help of a rope which I flung round him and gave the Negroes to haul, they dragged him on shore, and found that it was a most curious leopard, spotted and fine to an admirable degree, and the Negroes held up their hands with admiration to think what it was I had killed him with.
The other creature, frighted with the flash of fire and the noise of the gun, swam on shore, and ran up directly to the mountains from whence they came, nor could I at that distance know what it was. I found quickly the Negroes were for eating the flesh of this creature, so I was willing to have them take it as a favour from me, which, when I made signs to them that they might take him, they were very thankful for. Immediately they fell to work with him; and though they had no knife, yet with a sharpened piece of wood they took off his skin as readily and much more readily than we could have done with a knife; they offered me some of the flesh, which I declined, making as if I would give it to them, but made signs for the skin, which they gave me very freely, and brought me a great deal more of their provision, which though I did not understand, yet I accepted; then I made signs to them for some water and held out one of my jars to them, turning it bottom upward, to show that it was empty, and that I wanted to have it filled. They called immediately to some of their friends, and there came two women and brought a great vessel made of earth, and burnt, as I suppose, in the sun; this they set down for me as before, and I sent Xury on shore with my jars and filled them all three. The women were as stark naked as the men.
I was now furnished with roots and corn, such as it was, and water, and leaving my friendly Negroes, I made forward for about eleven days more without offering to go near the shore, till I saw the land run out at a great length into the sea, at about the distance of four or five leagues before me, and the sea being very calm, I kept a large offing to make this point; at length, doubling the point at about two leagues from the land, I saw plainly land on the other side, to seaward; then I concluded, as it was most certain indeed, that this was the Cape Verde and those the islands, called from thence Cape Verde Islands. However, they were at a great distance, and I could not well tell what I had best to do; for if I should be taken with a fresh of wind, I might neither reach one or other.
In this dilemma, as I was very pensive, I stepped into the cabin and sat me down, Xury having the helm, when on a sudden the boy cried out, ‘‘Master, master, a ship with a sail!’’ and the foolish boy was frighted out of his wits, thinking it must needs be some of his master’s ships sent to pursue us, when I knew we were gotten far enough out of their reach. I jumped out of the cabin, and immediately saw, not only the ship, but what she was, viz., that it was a Portuguese ship, and, as I thought, was bound to the coast of Guinea for Negroes. But when I observed the course she steered, I was soon convinced they were bound some other way, and did not design to come any nearer to the shore; upon which I stretched out to sea as much as I could, resolving to speak with them if possible.
With all the sail I could make, I found I should not be able to come in their way, but that they would be gone by before I could make any signal to them; but after I had crowded to the utmost and began to despair, they, it seems, saw me by the help of their perspective-glasses, and that it was some European boat, which as they supposed must belong to some ship that was lost; so they shortened sail to let me come up. I was encouraged with this, and as I had my patron’s ancient on board, I made a waft of it to them for a signal of distress, and fired a gun, both which they saw, for they told me they saw the smoke, though they did not hear the gun; upon these signals they very kindly brought to and lay by for me, and in about three hours’ time I came up with them.
They asked me what I was, in Portuguese and in Spanish and in French, but I understood none of them; but at last a Scots sailor who was on board called to me, and I answered him and told him I was an Englishman, that I had made my escape out of slavery from the Moors at Sallee; then they bade me come on board and very kindly took me in, and all my goods.
It was an inexpressible joy to me that anyone will believe that I was thus delivered, as I esteemed it, from such a miserable and almost hopeless condition as I was in, and I immediately offered all I had to the captain of the ship as a return for my deliverance; but he generously told me he would take nothing from me, but that all I had should be delivered safe to me when I came to Brazil. ‘‘For,’’ says he, ‘‘I have saved your life on no other terms than I would be glad to be saved myself, and it may one time or other be my lot to be taken up in the same condition; besides,’’ said he, ‘‘when I carry you to Brazil, so great a way from your own country, if I should take from you what you have, you will be starved there, and then I only take away that life I have given. No, no, Seignior Inglese,’’ says he [Mr. Englishman] , ‘‘I will carry you thither in charity, and those things will help you to buy your subsistence there and your passage home again.’’
As he was charitable in his proposal, so he was just in the performance to a tittle, for he ordered the seamen that none should offer to touch anything I had; then he took everything into his own possession and gave me back an exact inventory of them, that I might have them, even so much as my three earthen jars.
As to my boat, it was a very good one, and that he saw, and told me he would buy it of me for the ship’s use and asked me what I would have for it. I told him he had been so generous to me in everything that I could not offer to make any price of the boat but left it entirely to him, upon which he told me he would give me a note of his hand to pay me eighty pieces of eight for it at Brazil, and when it came there, if anyone offered to give more, he would make it up; he offered me also sixty pieces of eight more for my boy Xury, which I was loath to take, not that I was not willing to let the captain have him, but I was very loath to sell the poor boy’s liberty who had assisted me so faithfully in procuring my own. However, when I let him know my reason, he owned it to be just and offered me this medium, that he would give the boy an obligation to set him free in ten years if he turned Christian; upon this, and Xury saying he was willing to go to him, I let the captain have him.
I Become a Brazilian Planter
WE HAD a very good voyage to Brazil and arrived in the Bay de Todos los Santos, or All Saints’ Bay, in about twenty-two days after. And now I was once more delivered from the most miserable of all conditions of life, and what to do next with myself I was now to consider.
The generous treatment the captain gave me I can never enough remember; he would take nothing of me for my passage, gave me twenty ducats for the leopard’s skin, and forty for the lion’s skin which I had in my boat, and caused everything I had in the ship to be punctually delivered to me; and what I was willing to sell he bought, such as the case of bottles, two of my guns, and a piece of the lump of beeswax, for I had made candles of the rest; in a word, I made about 220 pieces of eight of all my cargo, and with this stock I went on shore in Brazil.
I had not been long here, but being recommended to the house of a good honest man like himself, who had an ingenio, as they call it, that is, a plantation and a sugarhouse, I lived with him some time and acquainted myself by that means with the manner of their planting and making of sugar; and seeing how well the planters lived and how they grew rich suddenly, I resolved, if I could get licence to settle there, I would turn planter among them, resolving in the meantime to find out some way to get my money which I had left in London remitted to me. To this purpose, getting a kind of a letter of naturalization, I purchased as much land that was uncured as my money would reach, and formed a plan for my plantation and settlement, and such a one as might be suitable to the stock wh
ich I proposed to myself to receive from England.
I had a neighbour, a Portuguese of Lisbon, but born of English parents, whose name was Wells, and in much such circumstances as I was. I call him neighbour, because his plantation lay next to mine and we went on very sociably together. My stock was but low, as well as his; and we rather planted for food than anything else for about two years. However, we began to increase, and our land began to come into order; so that the third year we planted some tobacco and made each of us a large piece of ground ready for planting canes in the year to come; but we both wanted help, and now I found, more than before, I had done wrong in parting with my boy Xury.
But alas! for me to do wrong that never did right was no great wonder: I had no remedy but to go on; I was gotten into an employment quite remote to my genius and directly contrary to the life I delighted in and for which I forsook my father’s house and broke through all his good advice; nay, I was coming into the very middle station, or upper degree of low life, which my father advised me to before, and which, if I resolved to go on with, I might as well have stayed at home and never have fatigued myself in the world as I had done; and I used often to say to myself, I could have done this as well in England among my friends as have gone five thousand miles off to do it among strangers and savages in a wilderness, and at such a distance as never to hear from any part of the world that had the least knowledge of me.
In this manner I used to look upon my condition with the utmost regret. I had nobody to converse with but now and then this neighbour; no work to be done, but by the labour of my hands; and I used to say, I lived just like a man cast away upon some desolate island that had nobody there but himself. But how just has it been, and how should all men reflect, that when they compare their present conditions with others that are worse, Heaven may oblige them to make the exchange and be convinced of their former felicity by their experience. I say, how just has it been, that the truly solitary life I reflected on in an island of mere desolation should be my lot, who had so often unjustly compared it with the life which I then led, in which had I continued, I had in all probability been exceeding prosperous and rich.
I was in some degree settled in my measures for carrying on the plantation, before my kind friend, the captain of the ship that took me up at sea, went back; for the ship remained there in providing his loading, and preparing for his voyage, near three months; when, telling him what little stock I had left behind me in London, he gave me this friendly and sincere advice. ‘‘Seignior Inglese,’’ says he, for so he always called me, ‘‘if you will give me letters, and a procuration here in form to me, with orders to the person who has your money in London, to send your effects to Lisbon, to such persons as I shall direct, and in such goods as are proper for this country, I will bring you the produce of them, God willing, at my return; but since human affairs are all subject to changes and disasters, I would have you give orders but for one hundred pounds sterling, which you say is half your stock, and let the hazard be run for the first; so that if it come safe, you may order the rest the same way; and if it miscarry, you may have the other half to have recourse to for your supply.’’
This was so wholesome advice and looked so friendly that I could not but be convinced it was the best course I could take; so I accordingly prepared letters to the gentlewoman with whom I had left my money and a procuration to the Portuguese captain, as he desired.
I wrote the English captain’s widow a full account of all my adventures, my slavery, escape, and how I had met with the Portugal captain at sea, the humanity of his behaviour, and in what condition I was now in, with all other necessary directions for my supply; and when this honest captain came to Lisbon, he found means by some of the English merchants there to send over not the order only, but a full account of my story to a merchant at London, who represented it effectually to her; whereupon she not only delivered the money but out of her own pocket sent the Portugal captain a very handsome present for his humanity and charity to me.
The merchant in London vesting this hundred pounds in English goods, such as the captain had writ for, sent them directly to him at Lisbon, and he brought them all safe to me to Brazil; among which, without my direction (for I was too young in my business to think of them), he had taken care to have all sorts of tools, ironwork, and utensils necessary for my plantation, and which were of great use to me.
When this cargo arrived, I thought my fortune made, for I was surprised with the joy of it; and my good steward, the captain, had laid out the five pounds which my friend had sent him for a present for himself, to purchase and bring me over a servant under bond for six years’ service, and would not accept of any consideration, except a little tobacco which I would have him accept, being of my own produce.
Neither was this all; but my goods being all English manufactures, such as cloth, stuff, baize, and things particularly valuable and desirable in the country, I found means to sell them to a very great advantage; so that I may say I had more than four times the value of my first cargo, and was now infinitely beyond my poor neighbour, I mean in the advancement of my plantation; for the first thing I did, I bought me a Negro slave and an European servant also; I mean another besides that which the captain brought me from Lisbon.
But as abused prosperity is oftentimes made the very means of our greatest adversity, so was it with me. I went on the next year with great success in my plantation. I raised fifty great rolls of tobacco on my own ground, more than I had disposed of for necessaries among my neighbours; and these fifty rolls, being each of above a hundredweight, were well cured and laid by against the return of the fleet from Lisbon. And now increasing in business and in wealth, my head began to be full of projects and undertakings beyond my reach; such as are indeed often the ruin of the best heads in business.
Had I continued in the station I was now in, I had room for all the happy things to have yet befallen me, for which my father so earnestly recommended a quiet, retired life, and of which he had so sensibly described the middle station of life to be full of; but other things attended me, and I was still to be the wilful agent of all my own miseries; and particularly to increase my fault and double the reflections upon myself, which in my future sorrows I should have leisure to make; all these miscarriages were procured by my apparent obstinate adhering to my foolish inclination of wandering abroad, and pursuing that inclination, in contradiction to the clearest views of doing myself good in a fair and plain pursuit of those prospects and those measures of life which Nature and Providence concurred to present me with and to make my duty.
As I had once done thus in my breaking away from my parents, so I could not be content now but I must go and leave the happy view I had of being a rich and thriving man in my new plantation, only to pursue a rash and immoderate desire of rising faster than the nature of the thing admitted; and thus I cast myself down again into the deepest gulf of human misery that ever man fell into, or perhaps could be consistent with life and a state of health in the world.
To come then by just degrees to the particulars of this part of my story; you may suppose that, having now lived almost four years in Brazil and beginning to thrive and prosper very well upon my plantation, I had not only learned the language, but had contracted acquaintance and friendship among my fellow planters, as well as among the merchants at Sao Salvador, which was our port; and that in my discourse among them, I had frequently given them an account of my two voyages to the coast of Guinea, the manner of trading with the Negroes there, and how easy it was to purchase upon the coast, for trifles (such as beads, toys, knives, scissors, hatchets, bits of glass, and the like), not only gold dust, Guinea grains, elephants’ teeth, etc., but Negroes for the service of Brazil, in great numbers.
They listened always very attentively to my discourses on these heads, but especially to that part which related to the buying Negroes, which was a trade at that time not only not far entered into, but, as far as it was, had been carried on by the assientos, or permission, of
the kings of Spain and Portugal, and engrossed in the public; so that few Negroes were bought, and those excessive dear.
It happened, being in company with some merchants and planters of my acquaintance and talking of those things very earnestly, three of them came to me the next morning and told me they had been musing very much upon what I had discoursed with them of, the last night, and they came to make a secret proposal to me; and after enjoining me secrecy, they told me that they had a mind to fit out a ship to go to Guinea; that they had all plantations as well as I, and were straitened for nothing so much as servants; that as it was a trade that could not be carried on, because they could not publicly sell the Negroes when they came home, so they desired to make but one voyage, to bring the Negroes on shore privately, and divide them among their own plantations; and in a word, the question was whether I would go their supercargo in the ship to manage the trading part upon the coast of Guinea. And they offered me that I should have my equal share of the Negroes without providing any part of the stock.
This was a fair proposal, it must be confessed, had it been made to anyone that had not had a settlement and plantation of his own to look after which was in a fair way of coming to be very considerable and with a good stock upon it. But for me that was thus entered and established and had nothing to do but go on as I had begun for three or four years more, and to have sent for the other hundred pounds from England, and who in that time, and with that little addition, could scarce have failed of being worth three or four thousand pounds sterling, and that increasing too; for me to think of such a voyage was the most preposterous thing that ever man in such circumstances could be guilty of.