this for a plain and visible token that you are not to be a seafaring man." "Why, sir," said I, "will you go to
sea no more?" "That is another case," said he; "it is my calling, and therefore my duty; but as you made this
voyage on trial, you see what a taste Heaven has given you of what you are to expect if you persist. Perhaps
this has all befallen us on your account, like Jonah in the ship of Tarshish. Pray," continues he, "what are you;
Robinson Crusoe
Robinson Crusoe
and on what account did you go to sea?" Upon that I told him some of my story; at the end of which he burst
out into a strange kind of passion: "What had I done," says he, "that such an unhappy wretch should come
into my ship? I would not set my foot in the same ship with thee again for a thousand pounds." This indeed
was, as I said, an excursion of his spirits, which were yet agitated by the sense of his loss, and was farther
than he could have authority to go. However, he afterwards talked very gravely to me, exhorting me to go
back to my father, and not tempt Providence to my ruin, telling me I might see a visible hand of Heaven
against me. "And, young man," said he, "depend upon it, if you do not go back, wherever you go, you will
meet with nothing but disasters and disappointments, till your father's words are fulfilled upon you."
We parted soon after; for I made him little answer, and I saw him no more; which way he went I knew not.
As for me, having some money in my pocket, I travelled to London by land; and there, as well as on the road,
had many struggles with myself what course of life I should take, and whether I should go home or to sea.
As to going home, shame opposed the best motions that offered to my thoughts, and it immediately occurred
to me how I should be laughed at among the neighbours, and should be ashamed to see, not my father and
mother only, but even everybody else; from whence I have since often observed, how incongruous and
irrational the common temper of mankind is, especially of youth, to that reason which ought to guide them in
such cases . viz. that they are not ashamed to sin, and yet are ashamed to repent; not ashamed of the action
for which they ought justly to be esteemed fools, but are ashamed of the returning, which only can make them
be esteemed wise men.
In this state of life, however, I remained some time, uncertain what measures to take, and what course of life
to lead. An irresistible reluctance continued to going home; and as I stayed away a while, the remembrance of
the distress I had been in wore off, and as that abated, the little motion I had in my desires to return wore off
with it, till at last I quite laid aside the thoughts of it, and looked out for a voyage.
CHAPTER II . SLAVERY AND ESCAPE
THAT evil influence which carried me first away from my father's house . which hurried me into the wild
and indigested notion of raising my fortune, and that impressed those conceits so forcibly upon me as to
make me deaf to all good advice, and to the entreaties and even the commands of my father . I say, the same
influence, whatever it was, presented the most unfortunate of all enterprises to my view; and I went on board
a vessel bound to the coast of Africa; or, as our sailors vulgarly called it, a voyage to Guinea.
It was my great misfortune that in all these adventures I did not ship myself as a sailor; when, though I might
indeed have worked a little harder than ordinary, yet at the same time I should have learnt the duty and office
of a fore.mast man, and in time might have qualified myself for a mate or lieutenant, if not for a master. But
as it was always my fate to choose for the worse, so I did here; for having money in my pocket and good
clothes upon my back, I would always go on board in the habit of a gentleman; and so I neither had any
business in the ship, nor learned to do any.
It was my lot first of all to fall into pretty good company in London, which does not always happen to such
loose and misguided young fellows as I then was; the devil generally not omitting to lay some snare for them
very early; but it was not so with me. I first got acquainted with the master of a ship who had been on the
coast of Guinea; and who, having had very good success there, was resolved to go again. This captain taking
a fancy to my conversation, which was not at all disagreeable at that time, hearing me say I had a mind to see
the world, told me if I would go the voyage with him I should be at no expense; I should be his messmate and
his companion; and if I could carry anything with me, I should have all the advantage of it that the trade
would admit; and perhaps I might meet with some encouragement.
CHAPTER II . SLAVERY AND ESCAPE
Robinson Crusoe
I embraced the offer; and entering into a strict friendship with this captain, who was an honest, plain.dealing
man, I went the voyage with him, and carried a small adventure with me, which, by the disinterested honesty
of my friend the captain, I increased very considerably; for I carried about 40 pounds in such toys and trifles
as the captain directed me to buy. These 40 pounds I had mustered together by the assistance of some of my
relations whom I corresponded with; and who, I believe, got my father, or at least my mother, to contribute so
much as that to my first adventure.
This was the only voyage which I may say was successful in all my adventures, which I owe to the integrity
and honesty of my friend the captain; under whom also I got a competent knowledge of the mathematics and
the rules of navigation, learned how to keep an account of the ship's course, take an observation, and, in short,
to understand some things that were needful to be understood by a sailor; for, as he took delight to instruct
me, I took delight to learn; and, in a word, this voyage made me both a sailor and a merchant; for I brought
home five pounds nine ounces of gold.dust for my adventure, which yielded me in London, at my return,
almost 300 pounds; and this filled me with those aspiring thoughts which have since so completed my ruin.
Yet even in this voyage I had my misfortunes too; particularly, that I was continually sick, being thrown into
a violent calenture by the excessive heat of the climate; our principal trading being upon the coast, from
latitude of 15 degrees north even to the line itself.
I was now set up for a Guinea trader; and my friend, to my great misfortune, dying soon after his arrival, I
resolved to go the same voyage again, and I embarked in the same vessel with one who was his mate in the
former voyage, and had now got the command of the ship. This was the unhappiest voyage that ever man
made; for though I did not carry quite 100 pounds of my new.gained wealth, so that I had 200 pounds left,
which I had lodged with my friend's widow, who was very just to me, yet I fell into terrible misfortunes. The
first was this: our ship making her course towards the Canary Islands, or rather between those islands and the
African shore, was surprised in the grey of the morning by a Turkish rover of Sallee, who gave chase to us
with all the sail she could make. We crowded also as much canvas as our yards would spread, or our masts
carry, to get clear; but finding the pirate gained upon us, and would certainly come up with us in a few hours,
we prepared to fight; our ship having twelve guns, and the rogue eighteen. About three in the afternoon he
came up with us, and bringing to, by mistake, just athwart our quarter, instead of athwart our stern, as he
intended, we brought eight of our guns to bear on that side, and poured in a broadside upon him, which made
him sheer off again, after returning our fire, and pouring in also his small shot from near two hundred men
which he had on board. However, we had not a man touched, all our men keeping close. He prepared to
attack us again, and we to defend ourselves. But laying us on board the next time upon our other quarter, he
entered sixty men upon our decks, who immediately fell to cutting and hacking the sails and rigging. We
plied them with small shot, half.pikes, powder.chests, and such like, and cleared our deck of them twice.
However, to cut short this melancholy part of our story, our ship being disabled, and three of our men killed,
and eight wounded, we were obliged to yield, and were carried all prisoners into Sallee, a port belonging to
the Moors.
The usage I had there was not so dreadful as at first I apprehended; nor was I carried up the country to the
emperor's court, as the rest of our men were, but was kept by the captain of the rover as his proper prize, and
made his slave, being young and nimble, and fit for his business. At this surprising change of my
circumstances, from a merchant to a miserable slave, I was perfectly overwhelmed; and now I looked back
upon my father's prophetic discourse to me, that I should be miserable and have none to relieve me, which I
thought was now so effectually brought to pass that I could not be worse; for now the hand of Heaven had
overtaken me, and I was undone without redemption; but, alas! this was but a taste of the misery I was to go
through, as will appear in the sequel of this story.
As my new patron, or master, had taken me home to his house, so I was in hopes that he would take me with
him when he went to sea again, believing that it would some time or other be his fate to be taken by a Spanish
CHAPTER II . SLAVERY AND ESCAPE
Robinson Crusoe
or Portugal man.of.war; and that then I should be set at liberty. But this hope of mine was soon taken away;
for when he went to sea, he left me on shore to look after his little garden, and do the common drudgery of
slaves about his house; and when he came home again from his cruise, he ordered me to lie in the cabin to
look after the ship.
Here I meditated nothing but my escape, and what method I might take to effect it, but found no way that had
the least probability in it; nothing presented to make the supposition of it rational; for I had nobody to
communicate it to that would embark with me . no fellow.slave, no Englishman, Irishman, or Scotchman
there but myself; so that for two years, though I often pleased myself with the imagination, yet I never had
the least encouraging prospect of putting it in practice.
After about two years, an odd circumstance presented itself, which put the old thought of making some
attempt for my liberty again in my head. My patron lying at home longer than usual without fitting out his
ship, which, as I heard, was for want of money, he used constantly, once or twice a week, sometimes oftener
if the weather was fair, to take the ship's pinnace and go out into the road a. fishing; and as he always took
me and young Maresco with him to row the boat, we made him very merry, and I proved very dexterous in
catching fish; insomuch that sometimes he would send me with a Moor, one of his kinsmen, and the youth .
the Maresco, as they called him . to catch a dish of fish for him.
It happened one time, that going a.fishing in a calm morning, a fog rose so thick that, though we were not
half a league from the shore, we lost sight of it; and rowing we knew not whither or which way, we laboured
all day, and all the next night; and when the morning came we found we had pulled off to sea instead of
pulling in for the shore; and that we were at least two leagues from the shore. However, we got well in again,
though with a great deal of labour and some danger; for the wind began to blow pretty fresh in the morning;
but we were all very hungry.
But our patron, warned by this disaster, resolved to take more care of himself for the future; and having lying
by him the longboat of our English ship that he had taken, he resolved he would not go a. fishing any more
without a compass and some provision; so he ordered the carpenter of his ship, who also was an English
slave, to build a little state.room, or cabin, in the middle of the long. boat, like that of a barge, with a place
to stand behind it to steer, and haul home the main.sheet; the room before for a hand or two to stand and
work the sails. She sailed with what we call a shoulder.of.mutton sail; and the boom jibed over the top of
the cabin, which lay very snug and low, and had in it room for him to lie, with a slave or two, and a table to
eat on, with some small lockers to put in some bottles of such liquor as he thought fit to drink; and his bread,
rice, and coffee.
We went frequently out with this boat a.fishing; and as I was most dexterous to catch fish for him, he never
went without me. It happened that he had appointed to go out in this boat, either for pleasure or for fish, with
two or three Moors of some distinction in that place, and for whom he had provided extraordinarily, and had,
therefore, sent on board the boat overnight a larger store of provisions than ordinary; and had ordered me to
get ready three fusees with powder and shot, which were on board his ship, for that they designed some sport
of fowling as well as fishing.
I got all things ready as he had directed, and waited the next morning with the boat washed clean, her ancient
and pendants out, and everything to accommodate his guests; when by.and.by my patron came on board
alone, and told me his guests had put off going from some business that fell out, and ordered me, with the
man and boy, as usual, to go out with the boat and catch them some fish, for that his friends were to sup at his
house, and commanded that as soon as I got some fish I should bring it home to his house; all which I
prepared to do.
CHAPTER II . SLAVERY AND ESCAPE
Robinson Crusoe
This moment my former notions of deliverance darted into my thoughts, for now I found I was likely to have
a little ship at my command; and my master being gone, I prepared to furnish myself, not for fishing business,
but for a voyage; though I knew not, neither did I so much as consider, whither I should steer . anywhere to
get out of that place was my desire.
My first contrivance was to make a pretence to speak to this Moor, to get something for our subsistence on
board; for I told him we must not presume to eat of our patron's bread. He said that was true; so he brought a
