all the while he did this, he would be talking to him, and telling him one story or another of his travels, and of what had happened to him abroad, to divert him. In fhort, if the fame filial affection was to be found in christians to their parents, in our parts of the world, one would be tempted to fay, there hardly would have been any need of the fifth command

ment.

But this is a digreffion; I return to my landing. It would be endless to take notice of all the ceremo nies and civilities that the Spaniards received me with. The firft Spaniard, whom, as I faid, I knew very well was he whofe life I faved, he came towards the boat, attended by one more, carrying a flag of truce also ; and he did not only not know me at first, but he had no thoughts, no notion, of its being me that was come, till I spoke to him: Seignor, faid I, in Portuguefe, do you not know me? at which he spoke not a word; but giving his mufquet to the man that was with him, threw his arms abroad, and saying something in Spanish, that I did not perfectly hear, came forward, and embraced me, telling me, he was inexcufable not to know that face again that he had once feen, as of an angel from Heaven fent to fave, his life: he faid abundance of very handfome things, as a well-bred Spaniard always knows how; and then beckoning to the perfon that attended him, bade him go and call out his comrades. He then asked me, if I would walk to my old habitation, where he would give me poffeffion of my own house again, and where I fhould fee there had been but mean improvements; fo I walked along with him; but, alas! I could no more find the place again, than

if I had never been there; for they had planted fo many trees, and placed them in fuch a pofture, fo thick and clofe to one another, in ten years time they were grown fo big, that, in fhort, the place was inacceffible, except by fuch windings and blind ways, as they themselves only who made them could find.

I asked them, what put them upon all these fortifications? He told me, I would fay there was need enough of it, when they had given an account how they had paffed their time fince their arriving in the ifland, especially after they had the misfortune to find that I was gone: he told me he could not but have fome fatisfaction in my good fortune, when he heard that I was gone in a good ship, and to my fatisfaction; and that he had oftentimes & ftrong perfuafion, that one time or other he fhould fee me again: but nothing that ever befel him in his life, he faid, was fo furprising and afflicting to him at firft, as the difappointment he was under when he came back to the ifland, and found I was not there.

As to the three Barbarians (so he called them) that were left behind, and of whom he faid he had a long story to tell me; the Spaniards all thought themfelves much better among the favages, only that their number was so small. And, fays he, had they been ftrong enough, we had been all long ago in purgatory; and with that he croffed himself upon the breast. But Sir, fays he, I hope you will not be difpleafed, when I fhall tell you how, forced by neceffity, we were obliged, for our own prefervation, to difarm them, and making them our fubjects, who would not be content with being moderately our mafters, but would be our murderers. I anfwered, I

was

was heartily afraid of it when I left them there; and nothing troubled me at my parting from the island, but that they were not come back, that I might have put them in poffeffion of every thing first, and left the other in a state of fubjection, as they deserved: but if they had reduced them to it, I was very glad, and fhould be very far from finding any fault with it; for I knew they were a parcel of refractory ungovernable villains, and were fit for any manner of mifchief.

While I was faying this, came the man whom he had fent back, and with him eleven men more: in the dress they were in, it was impoffible to guess what nation they were of; but he made all clear both to them and to me. Firft he turned to me, and pointing to them, faid, Thefe, Sir, are fome of the gentlemen who owe their lives to you; and then turning to them, and pointing to me, he let them know who I was; upon which they all came up one by one, not as if they had been failors, and ordinary fellows, and I the like, but really, as if they had been ambaffadors or noblemen, and I a monarch, or a great conqueror their behaviour was to the laft degree obliging and courteous, and yet mixed with a manly majestic gravity, which very well became them; and in short, they had fo much more manners than I, that I fcarce knew how to receive their civilities, much lefs how to return them in kind.

The history of their coming to, and conduct in the island, after my going away, is fo remarkable, and has fo many incidents, which the former part of my relation will help to understand, and which will, in most of the particulars, refer to that account I have

already

already given, that I cannot but commit them with great delight to the reading of thofe that come after

me.

I fhall no longer trouble the ftory with a relation in the first perfon, which will put me to the expence of ten thousand faid I's, and faid he's, and he told me's, and I told him's, and the like; but I fhall collect the facts hiftorically, as near as I can gather them out of my memory from what they related to me, and from what I met with in my converfing with then, and with the place.

In order to do this fuccinctly, and as intelligibly as I can, I must go back to the circumftance in which I left the island, and which the perfons were in, of whom I am to fpeak. At first, it is neceffary to repeat, that I had fent away Friday's father and the Spaniard, the two whofe lives I had rescued from the favages; I fay, I had sent them away in a large canoe to the main, as I then thought it, to fetch over the Spaniard's companions whom he had left behind him, in order to fave them from the like calamity that he had been in; and in order to fuccour them for the prefent, and that, if poffible, we might together find fome way for our deliverance afterward.

When I fent them away, I had no visible appearance of, or the least room to hope for, my own deliverance, any more than I had twenty years before; much lefs had I any foreknowledge of what after happened, I mean of an English fhip coming on fhore there to fetch them off; and it could not but be a very great surprise to them, when they came back, not only to find that I was gone, but to find three

ftrangers

ftrangers left on the fpot, poffeffed of all that I had left behind me, which would otherwife have been their own.

He

The first thing, however, which I enquired into, that I might begin where I left off, was of their own part and I defired he would give me a particular account of his voyage back to his countrymen with the boat, when I fent him to fetch them over. told me there was little variety in that part; for nothing remarkable happened to them on the way, they having very calm weather, and a fmooth fea; for his countrymen, it could not be doubted, he said, but that they were overjoyed to fee him (it feems he was the principal man among them, the captain of the veffel they had been fhipwrecked in, having been dead fome time): they were, he faid, the more furprised to see him, because they knew that he was fallen into the hands of favages, who, they were fatisfied, would devour him, as they did all the rest of their prifoners; that when he told them the story of the deliverance, and in what manner he was furnished for carrying them away, it was like a dream to them: and their aftonishment, they faid, was fomething like that of Jofeph's brethren, when he told them who he was, and told them the ftory of his exaltation in Pharaoh's court: but when he fhewed them the arms, the powder, the ball, and the provifions that he brought them for their journey or voyage, they were restored to themselves, took a just share of the joy of their deliverance, and immediately prepared to come away with him.

Their firft business was to get canoes; and in this they were obliged not to flick fo much upon the

honeft