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the skin and the bowels, or to cut it up; but must gnaw it with my teeth, and pull it with my claws, like a beast.

These reflections made me very sensible of the goodness of Providence to me, and very thankful for my present condition, with all its hardships and misfortunes and this part also I cannot but recommend to the reflection of those who are apt, in their misery, to say, Is any affliction like mine? Let them consider how much worse the cases of some people are, and their case might have been, if Providence had thought fit.

I had another reflection, which assisted me also to comfort my mind with hopes; and this was comparing my present condition with what I had deserved, and had therefore reason to expect from the hand of Providence. I had lived a dreadful life, perfectly destitute of the knowledge and fear of God. I had been well instructed by my father and mother; neither had they been wanting to me, in their endeavours to infuse an early religious awe of God into my mind, a sense of my duty, and what the nature and end of my being required of me. But, alas! falling early into the seafaring life, which, of all lives, is the most destitute of the fear of God, though his terrors are always before them; I say, falling early into the seafaring life, and into seafaring company, all that little sense of religion which I had entertained was laughed out of me by my messmates; by a hardened despising of dangers, and the views of death, which grew habitual to me; by my long absence from all manner of opportunities to converse with any thing but what was like myself, or to hear any thing that was good, or tending towards it.

So void was I of every thing that was good, or of the least sense of what I was, or was to be, that in the greatest deliverances I enjoyed (such as my escape from Sallee, my being taken up by the Portuguese

master of a ship, my being planted so well in the Brazils, my receiving the cargo from England, and the like,) I never had once the words, Thank God, so much as on my mind, or in my mouth; nor in the greatest distress had I so much as a thought to pray to him, or so much as to say, Lord, have mercy on me! no, nor to mention the name of God, unless it was to swear by, and blaspheme it.

I had terrible reflections on my mind for many months, as I have already observed, on account of my wicked and hardened life past; and when I looked about me, and considered what particular providences had attended me since my coming into this place, and how God had dealt bountifully with me,-had not only punished me less than my iniquity had deserved, but had so plentifully provided for me,-this gave me great hopes that my repentance was accepted, and that God had yet mercies in store for me.

With these reflections, I worked my mind up, not only to a resignation to the will of God in the present disposition of my circumstances, but even to a sincere thankfulness for my condition; and that I, who was yet a living man, ought not to complain, seeing I had not the due punishment of my sins; that I enjoyed so many mercies which I had no reason to have expected in that place, that I ought never more to repine at my condition, but to rejoice, and to give daily thanks for that daily bread, which nothing but a crowd of wonders could have brought; that I ought to consider I had been fed by a miracle, even as great as that of feeding Elijah by ravens; nay, by a long series of miracles: and that I could hardly have named a place in the uninhabitable part of the world where I could have been cast more to my advantage; a place where, as I had no society, which was my afiliction on one hand, so I found no ravenous beasts, no furious wolves or tigers, to threaten my life; no venomous or poisonous creatures which I might feed on to my hurt; no

savages to murder and devour me. In a word, as my life was a life of sorrow one way, so it was a life of mercy another; and I wanted nothing to make it a life of comfort, but to make myself sensible of God's goodness to me, and care over me in this condition; and after I did make a just improvement of these things, I went away, and was no more sad.

I had now been here so long, that many things which I brought on shore for my help were either quite gone, or very much wasted, and near spent,

My ink, as I observed, had been gone for some time, all but a very little, which I eked out with water a little and a little, till it was so pale, it scarce left any appearance of black on the paper. As long as it lasted, I made use of it to minute down the days of the month on which any remarkable thing happened to me: and, first, by casting up times past, I remember that there was a strange concurrence of days in the various providences which befel me, and which, if I had been superstitiously inclined to observe days as fatal or fortunate, I might have had reason to have looked on with a great deal of curiosity.

First, I had observed, that the same day that I broke away from my father and my friends, and ran away to Hull, in order to go to sea, the same day afterwards I was taken by the Sallee man of war, and made a slave: the same day of the year that I escaped out of the wreck of the ship in Yarmouth Roads, that same day-year afterwards I made my escape from Sallee in the boat: and the same day of the year I was born on, viz. the 30th of September, that same day I had my life so miraculously saved twenty-six years after, when I was cast on shore in this island: so that my wicked life and my solitary life began both on one day.

The next thing to my ink being wasted, was that of my bread, I mean the biscuit which I brought out

of the ship: this I had husbanded to the last degree, allowing myself but one cake of bread a day for above a year; and yet I was quite without bread for near a year before I got any corn of my own; and great reason I had to be thankful that I had any at all, the getting it being, as has been already observed, next to miraculous.

My clothes, too, began to decay mightily: as to linen, I had none for a great while, except some chequered shirts which I found in the chests of the other seamen, and which I carefully preserved, because many times I could bear no clothes on but a shirt; and it was a very great help to me that I had, among all the men's clothes of the ship, almost three dozen of shirts. There were also, indeed, several thick watch-coats of the seamen's which were left, but they were too hot to wear: and though it is true that the weather was so violently hot that there was no need of clothes, yet I could not go quite naked, no, though I had been inclined to it, which I was not, nor could I abide the thought of it, though I was all alone. The reason why I could not go quite naked was, I could not bear the heat of the sun so well when quite naked as with some clothes on; nay, the very heat frequently blistered my skin: whereas, with a shirt on, the air itself made some motion, and whistling under the shirt, was twofold cooler than without it. No more could I ever bring myself to go out in the heat of the sun without a cap or hat; the heat of the sun beating with such violence as it does in that place, would give me the head-ach presently, by darting so directly on my head, without a cap or hat on, so that I could not bear it; whereas, if I put on my hat, it would presently go away.

On these views, I began to consider about putting the few rags I had, which I called clothes, into some order: I had worn out all the waistcoats I had,

and my business was now to try if I could not make jackets out of the great watch-coats that I had by me, and with such other materials as I had; so I set to work a tailoring, or rather, indeed, a botching, for I made most piteous work of it. However, I made shift to make two or three new waistcoats, which I hoped would serve me a great while as for breeches or drawers, I made but a very sorry shift indeed till afterwards.

I have mentioned, that I saved the skins of all the creatures that I killed, I mean four-footed ones; and I had hung them up, stretched out with sticks, in the sun, by which means some of them were so dry and hard that they were fit for little, but others I found very useful. The first thing I made of these was a great cap for my head, with the hair on the outside, to shoot off the rain; and this I performed so well, that after this I made me a suit of clothes wholly of the skins, that is to say, a waistcoat, and breeches open at the knees, and both loose; for they were rather wanting to keep me cool than warm. I must not omit to acknowledge that they were wretchedly made; for if I was a bad carpenter, I was a worse tailor. However, they were such as I made very good shift with; and when I was abroad, if it happened to rain, the hair of my waistcoat and cap being uppermost, I was kept very dry.

After this I spent a great deal of time and pains to make me an umbrella: I was indeed in great want of one, and had a great mind to make one; I had seen them made in the Brazils, where they were very useful in the great heats which are there; and I felt the heats every jot as great here, and greater too, being nearer the equinox: besides, as I was obliged to be much abroad, it was a most useful thing to me, as well for the rains as the heats. I took a world of pains at it, and was a great while before I could make any thing likely to hold; nay, after I thought I had hit

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