I thought my ftomach was full after this, as it would have been after, or at, a good dinner; but when I waked, I was exceedingly funk in my spirits to find myself in the extremity of famine: the last glass of wine we had, I drank, and put fugar into it, because of its having some spirit to supply nourishment; but there being no fubftance in the ftomach for the digefting office to work upon, I found the only effect of the wine was, to raise disagreeable fumes from the ftomach into the head; and I lay, as they told me, stupid and senseless, as one drunk, for fome time.

The third day in the morning, after a night of strange and confused inconsistent dreams, and rather dozing than fleeping, I awaked, ravenous and furious with hunger; and I queftion, had not my understanding returned, and conquered it; I fay, I question whether, if I had been a mother, and had had a little child with me, its life would have been fafe or no.

This lasted about three hours; during which time I was twice raging mad, as any creature in Bedlam, as my young mafter told me, and as he can now in

form you.

In one of these fits of lunacy, or distraction, whether by the motion of the ship, or fome flip of my foot, I know not; I fell down, and ftruck my face against the corner of a pallet-bed, in which my miftress lay; and with the blow the blood gushed out of my nofe; and the cabin-boy bringing me a little bafon, I fat down and bled into it a great deal; and as the blood ran from me, I came to myfelf; and the

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violence of the flame, or the fever I was in, abated, and fo did the ravenous part of the hunger.

Then I grew fick, and reached to vomit, but could not; for I had nothing in my ftomach to bring up: after I had bled fome time, I fwooned, and they all believed I was dead; but I came to myself foon after, and then had a most dreadful pain in my ftomach, not to be described; not like the cholic, but a gnawing eager pain for food; and, towards night, it went off with a kind of earnest wishing or longing for food; fomething like, as I fuppofe, the longing of a woman with child. I took another draught of water, with fugar in it, but my ftomach loathed the fugar, and brought it all up again: Then I took a draught of water, without fugar, and that ftayed with me; and I laid me down upon the bed, praying moft heartily, that it would please GOD to take me away; and compofing my mind in hopes of it, I flumbered awhile; and then waking, thought myfelf dying, being light with vapours from an empty ftomach: I recommended my foul to GOD, and earneftly wished that fomebody would throw me into the fea.

All this while my mistress lay by me, just, as I thought, expiring; but bore it with much more patience than I, and gave the last bit of bread she had to her child, my young mafter, who would not have taken it, but she obliged him to eat it; and, I believe, it faved his life.

Towards the morning, I flept again; and first, when I awaked, I fell into a violent paffion of crying; and after that, had a fecond fit of violent hunfo that I got up ravenous, and in a moft dread

ger,

ful condition: Had my mistress been dead, as much as I loved her, I am certain I fhould have eaten a piece of her flesh with as much relish, and as unconcerned, as ever I did the flesh of any creature appointed for food; and once or twice I was going to bite my own arm. At laft, I faw the bafon, in which was the blood I had bled at my nose the day. before; I ran to it, and swallowed it with fuch hafte, and fuch a greedy appetite, as if I had wondered nobody had taken it before, and afraid it should be taken from me now.

Though after it was down the thoughts of it filled me with horror, yet it checked the fit of hunger; and I drank a draught of fair water, and was composed and refreshed for fome hours after it. This was the fourth day; and thus I held it till towards night, when, within the compass of three hours, I had all these several circumstances over again, one after another; viz. fick, fleepy, eagerly hungry, pain in the ftomach, then ravenous again, then fick again, then lunatic, then crying, then ravenous again, and fo every quarter of an hour; and my strength wasted exceedingly. At night I laid me down, having no comfort, but in the hope that I fhould die before morning.

All this night I had no fleep, but the hunger was now turned into a disease; and I had a terrible cholic and griping; wind, instead of food, having found its way into the bowels; and in this condition I lay till morning, when I was furprized a little with the cries and lamentations of my young mafter, who called out to me, that his mother was dead. I lifted

myself up a little, for I had not ftrength to rife, but found the was not dead, though fhe was able to give little figns of life.

very

I had then fuch convulfions in my ftomach, for want of fome fuftenance, that I cannot describe them; with fuch frequent throes and pangs of appetite, that nothing but the tortures of death can imitate; and this condition I was in, when I heard the feamen above cry out, A fail! a fail! and halloo and jump about as if they were distracted.

I was not able to get off from the bed, and my mistress much less; and my master was fo fick, that I thought he had been expiring; fo we could not open the cabin door, or get any account what it was that occafioned fuch a combustion; nor had we any converfation with the fhip's company for two days, they having told us they had not a mouthful of any thing to eat in the fhip; and they told us afterwards, they thought we had been dead.

It was this dreadful condition we were in when you were fent to fave our lives; and how you found us, Sir, you know as well as I, and better too.

This was her own relation, and is fuch a distinct account of starving to death, as, I confefs, I never met with, and was exceeding entertaining to me: I am the rather apt to believe it to be a true account, because the youth gave me an account of a good part of it; though I muft own, not fo diftinct, and fo feelingly as his maid; and the rather, because, it seems, his mother fed him at the price of her own life but the poor maid, though her conftitution being stronger than that of her miftrefs, who was in

years,

years, and a weakly woman too, fhe might struggle harder with it; I fay, the poor maid might be fupposed to feel the extremity something fooner than her mistress, who might be allowed to keep the last bits fomething longer than fhe parted with any to relieve the maid. No question, as the cafe is here related, if our ship, or fome other, had not fo providentially met them, a few days more would have ended all their lives, unless they had prevented it by eating one another; and even that, as their cafe ftood, would have ferved them but a little while, they being 500 leagues from any land, or any poffibility of relief, other than in the miraculous manner it happened. But this is by the way; I return to my difpofition of things among the people.

And first, it is to be observed here, that for many reafons, I did not think fit to let them know any thing of the floop I had framed, and which I thought of fetting up among them; for I found, at least at my first coming, fuch feeds of divifion among them, that I faw it plainly, had I fet up the floop, and left it among them, they would, upon very light difgust, have separated, and gone away from one another; or perhaps have turned pirates, and fo made the îfland a den of thieves, instead of a plantation of fober and religious people, as I intended it to be; nor did I leave the two pieces of brass cannon that I had on board, or the two quarter deck guns, that my nephew took extraordinary, for the fame reafon : I thought they had enough to qualify them for a defenfive war, against any that should invade them; but I was not to fet them up for an offenfive war, or to encourage

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