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第5章 四步亦至

　　It was now the beginning of the year 1693, when my nephew, whom, asI have observed before, I had brought up to the sea, and had madehim commander of a ship, was come home from a short voyage toBilbao, being the first he had made. He came to me, and told methat some merchants of his acquaintance had been proposing to himto go a voyage for them to the East Indies, and to China, asprivate traders. "And now, uncle," says he, "if you will go to seawith me, I will engage to land you upon your old habitation in theisland; for we are to touch at the Brazils."

　　In pursuit of this odd sort of game it was our hap to meet withabout forty Tartars: whether they were hunting mutton, as we were,or whether they looked for another kind of prey, we know not; butas soon as they saw us, one of them blew a hideous blast on a kindof horn. This was to call their friends about them, and in lessthan ten minutes a troop of forty or fifty more appeared, at abouta mile distance; but our work was over first, as it happened.

ejoice to see it.I saluted the brave Scots merchant with my first acknowledgment ofthis; and taking him by the hand, I said to him, "Blessed be God,we are once again amongst Christians." He smiled, and answered,"Do not rejoice too soon, countryman; these Muscovites are but anodd sort of Christians; and but for the name of it you may see verylittle of the substance for some months further of our journey." -"Well," says I, "but still it is better than paganism, andworshipping of devils." - "Why, I will tell you," says he; "exceptthe Russian soldiers in the garrisons, and a few of the inhabitantsof the cities upon the road, all the rest of this country, forabove a thousand miles farther, is inhabited by the worst and mostignorant of pagans." And so, indeed, we found it.

　　At first our men had much rather the weather had been calm, andthey had all gone away to sea: but they did not then consider thatthis might probably have been the occasion of their coming again insuch multitudes as not to be resisted, or, at least, to come somany and so often as would quite desolate the island, and starvethem. Will Atkins, therefore, who notwithstanding his wound keptalways with them, proved the best counsellor in this case: hisadvice was, to take the advantage that offered, and step in betweenthem and their boats, and so deprive them of the capacity of everreturning any more to plague the island. They consulted long aboutthis; and some were against it for fear of making the wretches flyto the woods and live there desperate, and so they should have themto hunt like wild beasts, be afraid to stir out about theirbusiness, and have their plantations continually rifled, all theirtame goats destroyed, and, in short, be reduced to a life ofcontinual distress.

　　When I came to London, I was still as uneasy as I was before; I hadno relish for the place, no employment in it, nothing to do but tosaunter about like an idle person, of whom it may be said he isperfectly useless in God's creation, and it is not one farthing'smatter to the rest of his kind whether he be dead or alive. Thisalso was the thing which, of all circumstances of life, was themost my aversion, who had been all my days used to an active life;and I would often say to myself, "A state of idleness is the verydregs of life;" and, indeed, I thought I was much more suitablyemployed when I was twenty-six days making a deal board.

own coin, and some in smallwedges, of about ten or twelves ounces each. While we were dealingwith him for our opium, it came into my head that he might perhapsdeal for the ship too, and I ordered the interpreter to propose itto him. He shrunk up his shoulders at it when it was firstproposed to him; but in a few days after he came to me, with one ofthe missionary priests for his interpreter, and told me he had aproposal to make to me, which was this: he had bought a greatquantity of our goods, when he had no thoughts of proposals made tohim of buying the ship; and that, therefore, he had not money topay for the ship: but if I would let the same men who were in theship navigate her, he would hire the ship to go to Japan; and wouldsend them from thence to the Philippine Islands with anotherloading, which he would pay the freight of before they went fromJapan: and that at their return he would buy the ship. I began tolisten to his proposal, and so eager did my head still run uponrambling, that I could not b

was so true - the base;villainous behaviour of these three hardened rogues was such, andhad been so much worse than all I can describe, that the dream hadtoo much similitude of the fact; and as I would afterwards havepunished them severely, so, if I had hanged them all, I had beenmuch in the right, and even should have been justified both by thelaws of God and man.

　　Here I had the mortification to see the ship set sail without me;however, my nephew left me two servants, or rather one companionand one servant; the first was clerk to the purser, whom he engagedto go with me, and the other was his own servant. I then took agood lodging in the house of an Englishwoman, where severalmerchants lodged, some French, two Italians, or rather Jews, andone Englishman. Here I stayed above nine months, considering whatcourse to take. I had some English goods with me of value, and aconsiderable sum of money; my nephew furnishing me with a thousandpieces of eight, and a letter of credit for more if I had occasion,that I might not be straitened, whatever might happen. I quicklydisposed of my goods to advantage; and, as I originally intended, Ibought here some very good diamonds, which, of all other things,were the most proper for me in my present circumstances, because Icould always carry my whole estate about me.

　　I had a great many discourses with them about their circumstanceswhen they were among the savages. They told me readily that theyhad no instances to give of their application or ingenuity in thatcountry; that they were a poor, miserable, dejected handful ofpeople; that even if means had been put into their hands, yet theyhad so abandoned themselves to despair, and were so sunk under theweight of their misfortune, that they thought of nothing butstarving. One of them, a grave and sensible man, told me he wasconvinced they were in the wrong; that it was not the part of wisemen to give themselves up to their misery, but always to take holdof the helps which reason offered, as well for present support asfor future deliverance: he told me that grief was the mostsenseless, insignificant passion in the world, for that it regardedonly things past, which were generally impossible to be recalled orto be remedied, but had no views of things to come, and had noshare in anything that looked like deliverance, but rath