cannot say they were either a prayer attended with desires or with hopes: it was rather the voice of mere fright
and distress. My thoughts were confused, the convictions great upon my mind, and the horror of dying in
such a miserable condition raised vapours into my head with the mere apprehensions; and in these hurries of
my soul I knew not what my tongue might express. But it was rather exclamation, such as, "Lord, what a
miserable creature am I! If I should be sick, I shall certainly die for want of help; and what will become of
me!" Then the tears burst out of my eyes, and I could say no more for a good while. In this interval the good
advice of my father came to my mind, and presently his prediction, which I mentioned at the beginning of
this story . viz. that if I did take this foolish step, God would not bless me, and I would have leisure hereafter
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to reflect upon having neglected his counsel when there might be none to assist in my recovery. "Now," said
I, aloud, "my dear father's words are come to pass; God's justice has overtaken me, and I have none to help or
hear me. I rejected the voice of Providence, which had mercifully put me in a posture or station of life
wherein I might have been happy and easy; but I would neither see it myself nor learn to know the blessing of
it from my parents. I left them to mourn over my folly, and now I am left to mourn under the consequences of
it. I abused their help and assistance, who would have lifted me in the world, and would have made
everything easy to me; and now I have difficulties to struggle with, too great for even nature itself to support,
and no assistance, no help, no comfort, no advice." Then I cried out, "Lord, be my help, for I am in great
distress." This was the first prayer, if I may call it so, that I had made for many years.
But to return to my Journal.
JUNE 28. . Having been somewhat refreshed with the sleep I had had, and the fit being entirely off, I got up;
and though the fright and terror of my dream was very great, yet I considered that the fit of the ague would
return again the next day, and now was my time to get something to refresh and support myself when I should
be ill; and the first thing I did, I filled a large square case.bottle with water, and set it upon my table, in reach
of my bed; and to take off the chill or aguish disposition of the water, I put about a quarter of a pint of rum
into it, and mixed them together. Then I got me a piece of the goat's flesh and broiled it on the coals, but
could eat very little. I walked about, but was very weak, and withal very sad and heavy.hearted under a sense
of my miserable condition, dreading, the return of my distemper the next day. At night I made my supper of
three of the turtle's eggs, which I roasted in the ashes, and ate, as we call it, in the shell, and this was the first
bit of meat I had ever asked God's blessing to, that I could remember, in my whole life. After I had eaten I
tried to walk, but found myself so weak that I could hardly carry a gun, for I never went out without that; so I
went but a little way, and sat down upon the ground, looking out upon the sea, which was just before me, and
very calm and smooth. As I sat here some such thoughts as these occurred to me: What is this earth and sea,
of which I have seen so much? Whence is it produced? And what am I, and all the other creatures wild and
tame, human and brutal? Whence are we? Sure we are all made by some secret Power, who formed the earth
and sea, the air and sky. And who is that? Then it followed most naturally, it is God that has made all. Well,
but then it came on strangely, if God has made all these things, He guides and governs them all, and all things
that concern them; for the Power that could make all things must certainly have power to guide and direct
them. If so, nothing can happen in the great circuit of His works, either without His knowledge or
appointment.
And if nothing happens without His knowledge, He knows that I am here, and am in this dreadful condition;
and if nothing happens without His appointment, He has appointed all this to befall me. Nothing occurred to
my thought to contradict any of these conclusions, and therefore it rested upon me with the greater force, that
it must needs be that God had appointed all this to befall me; that I was brought into this miserable
circumstance by His direction, He having the sole power, not of me only, but of everything that happened in
the world. Immediately it followed: Why has God done this to me? What have I done to be thus used? My
conscience presently checked me in that inquiry, as if I had blasphemed, and methought it spoke to me like a
voice: "Wretch! dost THOU ask what thou hast done? Look back upon a dreadful misspent life, and ask
thyself what thou hast NOT done? Ask, why is it that thou wert not long ago destroyed? Why wert thou not
drowned in Yarmouth Roads; killed in the fight when the ship was taken by the Sallee man.of.war;
devoured by the wild beasts on the coast of Africa; or drowned HERE, when all the crew perished but
thyself? Dost THOU ask, what have I done?" I was struck dumb with these reflections, as one astonished, and
had not a word to say . no, not to answer to myself, but rose up pensive and sad, walked back to my retreat,
and went up over my wall, as if I had been going to bed; but my thoughts were sadly disturbed, and I had no
inclination to sleep; so I sat down in my chair, and lighted my lamp, for it began to be dark. Now, as the
apprehension of the return of my distemper terrified me very much, it occurred to my thought that the
Brazilians take no physic but their tobacco for almost all distempers, and I had a piece of a roll of tobacco in
one of the chests, which was quite cured, and some also that was green, and not quite cured.
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I went, directed by Heaven no doubt; for in this chest I found a cure both for soul and body. I opened the
chest, and found what I looked for, the tobacco; and as the few books I had saved lay there too, I took out one
of the Bibles which I mentioned before, and which to this time I had not found leisure or inclination to look
into. I say, I took it out, and brought both that and the tobacco with me to the table. What use to make of the
tobacco I knew not, in my distemper, or whether it was good for it or no: but I tried several experiments with
it, as if I was resolved it should hit one way or other. I first took a piece of leaf, and chewed it in my mouth,
which, indeed, at first almost stupefied my brain, the tobacco being green and strong, and that I had not been
much used to. Then I took some and steeped it an hour or two in some rum, and resolved to take a dose of it
when I lay down; and lastly., I burnt some upon a pan of coals, and held my nose close over the smoke of it
as long as I could bear it, as well for the heat as almost for suffocation. In the interval of this operation I took
up the Bible and began to read; but my head was too much disturbed with the tobacco to bear reading, at least
at that time; only, having opened the book casually, the first words that occurred to me were these, "Call on
Me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me." These words were very apt to my
case, and made some impression upon my thoughts at the time of reading them, though not so much as they
did afterwards; for, as for being DELIVERED, the word had no sound, as I may say, to me; the thing was so
remote, so impossible in my apprehension of things, that I began to say, as the children of Israel did when
they were promised flesh to eat, "Can God spread a table in the wilderness?" so I began to say, "Can God
Himself deliver me from this place?" And as it was not for many years that any hopes appeared, this
prevailed very often upon my thoughts; but, however, the words made a great impression upon me, and I
mused upon them very often. It grew now late, and the tobacco had, as I said, dozed my head so much that I
inclined to sleep; so I left my lamp burning in the cave, lest I should want anything in the night, and went to
bed. But before I lay down, I did what I never had done in all my life . I kneeled down, and prayed to God to
fulfil the promise to me, that if I called upon Him in the day of trouble, He would deliver me. After my
broken and imperfect prayer was over, I drank the rum in which I had steeped the tobacco, which was so
strong and rank of the tobacco that I could scarcely get it down; immediately upon this I went to bed. I found
presently it flew up into my head violently; but I fell into a sound sleep, and waked no more till, by the sun, it
must necessarily be near three o'clock in the afternoon the next day . nay, to this hour I am partly of opinion
that I slept all the next day and night, and till almost three the day after; for otherwise I know not how I
should lose a day out of my reckoning in the days of the week, as it appeared some years after I had done; for
if I had lost it by crossing and recrossing the line, I should have lost more than one day; but certainly I lost a
day in my account, and never knew which way. Be that, however, one way or the other, when I awaked I
found myself exceedingly refreshed, and my spirits lively and cheerful; when I got up I was stronger than I
was the day before, and my stomach better, for I was hungry; and, in short, I had no fit the next day, but
continued much altered for the better. This was the 29th.
The 30th was my well day, of course, and I went abroad with my gun, but did not care to travel too far. I
killed a sea.fowl or two, something like a brandgoose, and brought them home, but was not very forward to
eat them; so I ate some more of the turtle's eggs, which were very good. This evening I renewed the
medicine, which I had supposed did me good the day before . the tobacco steeped in rum; only I did not take
so much as before, nor did I chew any of the leaf, or hold my head over the smoke; however, I was not so
well the next day, which was the first of July, as I hoped I should have been; for I had a little spice of the cold
fit, but it was not much.
JULY 2. . I renewed the medicine all the three ways; and dosed myself with it as at first, and doubled the
quantity which I drank.
JULY 3. . I missed the fit for good and all, though I did not recover my full strength for some weeks after.
While I was thus gathering strength, my thoughts ran exceedingly upon this Scripture, "I will deliver thee";
and the impossibility of my deliverance lay much upon my mind, in bar of my ever expecting it; but as I was
discouraging myself with such thoughts, it occurred to my mind that I pored so much upon my deliverance
from the main affliction, that I disregarded the deliverance I had received, and I was as it were made to ask
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myself such questions as these . viz. Have I not been delivered, and wonderfully too, from sickness . from
the most distressed condition that could be, and that was so frightful to me? and what notice had I taken of it?
Had I done my part? God had delivered me, but I had not glorified Him . that is to say, I had not owned and
been thankful for that as a deliverance; and how could I expect greater deliverance? This touched my heart
very much; and immediately I knelt down and gave God thanks aloud for my recovery from my sickness.
JULY 4. . In the morning I took the Bible; and beginning at the New Testament, I began seriously to read it,
and imposed upon myself to read a while every morning and every night; not tying myself to the number of
chapters, but long as my thoughts should engage me. It was not long after I set seriously to this work till I
found my heart more deeply and sincerely affected with the wickedness of my past life. The impression of
my dream revived; and the words, "All these things have not brought thee to repentance," ran seriously
through my thoughts. I was earnestly begging of God to give me repentance, when it happened
providentially, the very day, that, reading the Scripture, I came to these words: "He is exalted a Prince and a
Saviour, to give repentance and to give remission." I threw down the book; and with my heart as well as my
hands lifted up to heaven, in a kind of ecstasy of joy, I cried out aloud, "Jesus, thou son of David! Jesus, thou
exalted Prince and Saviour! give me repentance!" This was the first time I could say, in the true sense of the
words, that I prayed in all my life; for now I prayed with a sense of my condition, and a true Scripture view of
hope, founded on the encouragement of the Word of God; and from this time, I may say, I began to hope that
God would hear me.
Now I began to construe the words mentioned above, "Call on Me, and I will deliver thee," in a different
sense from what I had ever done before; for then I had no notion of anything being called DELIVERANCE,
but my being delivered from the captivity I was in; for though I was indeed at large in the place, yet the island
was certainly a prison to me, and that in the worse sense in the world. But now I learned to take it in another
sense: now I looked back upon my past life with such horror, and my sins appeared so dreadful, that my soul
sought nothing of God but deliverance from the load of guilt that bore down all my comfort. As for my
solitary life, it was nothing. I did not so much as pray to be delivered from it or think of it; it was all of no
consideration in comparison to this. And I add this part here, to hint to whoever shall read it, that whenever
they come to a true sense of things, they will find deliverance from sin a much greater blessing than
deliverance from affliction.
But, leaving this part, I return to my Journal.
My condition began now to be, though not less miserable as to my way of living, yet much easier to my
mind: and my thoughts being directed, by a constant reading the Scripture and praying to God, to things of a
higher nature, I had a great deal of comfort within, which till now I knew nothing of; also, my health and
