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thrown into my hands, by the unexpected driving of the fhip on fhore, was fuch a help as would have encouraged any creature in the world to have applied himfelf as I had done: Seignior, fays the Spaniard, had we poor Spaniards been in your cafe, we should never have gotten half those things out of the ship as you did: nay, fays he, we fhould never have found means to have gotten a raft to carry them, or to have gotten a raft on fhore without boat or fail; and how much lefs fhould we have done, faid he, if any of us had been alone! Well, I defired him to abate his compliment, and go on with the history of their coming on fhore, where they landed he told me, they unhappily landed at a place where there were people without provifions; whereas, had they had the common fenfe to have put off to fea again, and gone to another island a little farther, they had found provifions, though without people; there being an ifland that way, as they had been told, where there were provifions, though no people; that is to fay, that the Spaniards of Trinidad had frequently been there, and filled the ifland with goats and hogs at feveral times; where they have bred in fuch multitudes, and where turtle and fea fowls were in fuch plenty, that they could have been in no want of flefh, though they had found no bread; whereas here they were only fuftained with a few roots and herbs, which they understood not, and which had no fubftance in them, and which the inhabitants gave them fparingly enough, and who could treat them no better, unless they would turn canibals, and eat men's flesh, which was the great dainty of the country.

They

They gave me an account how many ways they ftrove to civilize the favages they were with, and to teach them rational cuftoms in the ordinary way of living; but in vain: and how they retorted it upon them, as unjuft, that they, who came thither for affiftance and fupport, fhould attempt to fet up for inftructors of thofe that gave them bread; intimating, it seems, that none fhould fet up for the inftructors of others, but those who could live without them.

They gave me difmal accounts of the extremities they were driven to; how fometimes they were many days without any food at all; the island they were upon being inhabited by a fort of favages that lived. more indolent, and, for that reason, were less supplied with the neceffaries of life, than they had reafon to believe others were in the fame part of the ̧ · world; and yet they found that thefe favages were lefs ravenous and voracious, than thofe who had better fupplies of food.

Also they added, that they could not but fee with what demonstrations of wifdom and goodness, the governing Providence of GOD directs the event of things in the world; which, they faid, appeared in their circumstances; for if, preffed by the hardships they were under, and the barrenness of the country where they were, they had searched after a better place to live in, they had then been out of the way of the relief that happened to them by my means.

Then they gave me an account, how the favages, whom they lived among, expected them to go out with them into their wars; and it was true, that, as they had fire-arms with them, had they not had the

difafter

difafter to lofe their ammunition, they fhould not have been ferviceable only to their friends, but have made themfelves terrible both to friends and enemies; but being without powder and fhot, and in a condition, that they could not in reason deny to go out with their landlords to their wars; when they came in the field of battle, they were in a worse condition than the favages themfelves; for they neither had bows nor arrows, nor could they use those the favages gave them; fo that they could do nothing but ftand ftill, and be wounded with arrows, till they came up to the teeth of their enemy; and then, indeed, the three halberts they had were of ufe to them; and they would often drive a whole little army before them, with those halberts and fharpened fticks put into the muzzles of their mufkets: but that for all this, they were fometimes furrounded with multitudes, and in great danger from their arrows; till at last they found the way to make themfelves large targets of wood, which they covered with fkins of wild beafts, whofe names they knew not; and thefe covered them from the arrows of the favages; that, notwithstanding thefe, they were fometimes in great danger, and were once five of them knocked down together, with the clubs of the favages, which was the time when one of them was taken prifoner, that is to fay, the Spaniard whom I had relieved: That at first they thought he had been killed, but when afterwards they heard he was taken prifoner, they were under the greatest grief imaginable, and would willingly have all ventured their lives to have rescued him.

They

They told me, that when they were fo knocked down, the rest of their company rescued them, and flood over them fighting, till they were come to themfelves, all but he who they thought had been dead; and then they made their way with their halberts and pieces, ftanding close together in a line, through a body of above a thoufand favages, beating down all that came in their way, got the victory over their enemies, but to their great forrow, because it was with the lofs of their friend; whom the other party, finding him alive, carried off with fome others, as gave an account in my former.

I

They defcribed most affectionately, how they were furprised with joy at the return of their friend and companion in mifery, who they thought had been deyoured by wild beasts of the worst of kind, viz. by wild men ; and, yet how more and more they were furprised with the account he gave them of his errand, and that there was a Christian in a place near, much more one that was able, and had humanity enough to contribute to their deliverance.

They defcribed how they were astonished at the fight of the relief I fent them, and at the appearance of loaves of bread, things they had not seen fince their coming to that miferable place; how often they croffed it, and bleffed it as bread fent from Heaven; and what a reviving cordial it was to their fpirits to tafte it; as alfo, of the other things I had fent for their fupply. And, after all, they would. have told me fomething of the joy they were in at the fight of a boat and pilots to carry them away to the perfon and place, from whence all thefe new comforts came; but they told me, it was impoffible

.to

to exprefs it by words; for their exceffive joy driving them to unbecoming extravagancies, they had no way to defcribe them, but by telling me, that they bordered upon lunacy, having no way to give vent to their paffion, fuitable to the fenfe that was upon them; that in fome it worked one way, and in fome another; and that fome of them, through a furprise of joy, would burst out into tears; others be half mad, and others immediately faint. This dif course extremely affected me, and called to my mind Friday's extacy, when he met his father, and the poor people's extacy, when I took them up at fea, after their fhip was on fire; the mate of the fhip's joy, when he found himself delivered in the place where he expected to perish; and my own joy, when after twenty-eight years captivity, I found a good fhip ready to carry me to my own country: All these things made me more fenfible of the relation of thefe poor men, and more affected with it.

Having thus given a view of the state of things, as I found them, I must relate the heads of what I did for these people, and the condition in which I left them. It was their opinion, and mine too, that they would be troubled no more with the favages; or that, if they were, they would be able to cut them off, if they were twice as many as before; fo that they had no concern about that. Then I entered into a ferious difcourfe with the Spaniard, whom I called governor, about their stay in the ifland; for as I was not come to carry any of them off, fo it would not be just to carry off some, and leave others, who perhaps would be unwilling to stay if their ftrength was diminished.

VOL. II

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