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Robinson Crusoe
CHAPTER II - SLAVERY AND ESCAPE
THAT evil influence which carried me first away from my father's house
- which hurried me into the wild and indigested notion of raising my
fortune, and that impressed those conceits so forcibly upon me as to
make me deaf to all good advice, and to the entreaties and even the
commands of my father - I say, the same influence, whatever it was,
presented the most unfortunate of all enterprises to my view; and I
went on board a vessel bound to the coast of Africa; or, as our
sailors vulgarly called it, a voyage to Guinea.
It was my great misfortune that in all these adventures I did not ship
myself as a sailor; when, though I might indeed have worked a little
harder than ordinary, yet at the same time I should have learnt the
duty and office of a fore-mast man, and in time might have qualified
myself for a mate or lieutenant, if not for a master. But as it was
always my fate to choose for the worse, so I did here; for having
money in my pocket and good clothes upon my back, I would always go on
board in the habit of a gentleman; and so I neither had any business
in the ship, nor learned to do any.
It was my lot first of all to fall into pretty good company in London,
which does not always happen to such loose and misguided young fellows
as I then was; the devil generally not omitting to lay some snare for
them very early; but it was not so with me. I first got acquainted
with the master of a ship who had been on the coast of Guinea; and
who, having had very good success there, was resolved to go again.
This captain taking a fancy to my conversation, which was not at all
disagreeable at that time, hearing me say I had a mind to see the
world, told me if I would go the voyage with him I should be at no
expense; I should be his messmate and his companion; and if I could
carry anything with me, I should have all the advantage of it that the
trade would admit; and perhaps I might meet with some encouragement.
I embraced the offer; and entering into a strict friendship with this
captain, who was an honest, plain-dealing man, I went the voyage with
him, and carried a small adventure with me, which, by the
disinterested honesty of my friend the captain, I increased very
considerably; for I carried about 40 pounds in such toys and trifles
as the captain directed me to buy. These 40 pounds I had mustered
together by the assistance of some of my relations whom I corresponded
with; and who, I believe, got my father, or at least my mother, to
contribute so much as that to my first adventure.
This was the only voyage which I may say was successful in all my
adventures, which I owe to the integrity and honesty of my friend the
captain; under whom also I got a competent knowledge of the
mathematics and the rules of navigation, learned how to keep an
account of the ship's course, take an observation, and, in short, to
understand some things that were needful to be understood by a sailor;
for, as he took delight to instruct me, I took delight to learn; and,
in a word, this voyage made me both a sailor and a merchant; for I
brought home five pounds nine ounces of gold-dust for my adventure,
which yielded me in London, at my return, almost 300 pounds; and this
filled me with those aspiring thoughts which have since so completed
my ruin.
Yet even in this voyage I had my misfortunes too; particularly, that I
was continually sick, being thrown into a violent calenture by the
excessive heat of the climate; our principal trading being upon the
coast, from latitude of 15 degrees north even to the line itself.
I was now set up for a Guinea trader; and my friend, to my great
misfortune, dying soon after his arrival, I resolved to go the same
voyage again, and I embarked in the same vessel with one who was his
mate in the former voyage, and had now got the command of the ship.
This was the unhappiest voyage that ever man made; for though I did
not carry quite 100 pounds of my new-gained wealth, so that I had 200
pounds left, which I had lodged with my friend's widow, who was very
just to me, yet I fell into terrible misfortunes. The first was this:
our ship making her course towards the Canary Islands, or rather
between those islands and the African shore, was surprised in the grey
of the morning by a Turkish rover of Sallee, who gave chase to us with
all the sail she could make. We crowded also as much canvas as our
yards would spread, or our masts carry, to get clear; but finding the
pirate gained upon us, and would certainly come up with us in a few
hours, we prepared to fight; our ship having twelve guns, and the
rogue eighteen. About three in the afternoon he came up with us, and
bringing to, by mistake, just athwart our quarter, instead of athwart
our stern, as he intended, we brought eight of our guns to bear on
that side, and poured in a broadside upon him, which made him sheer
off again, after returning our fire, and pouring in also his small
shot from near two hundred men which he had on board. However, we had
not a man touched, all our men keeping close. He prepared to attack
us again, and we to defend ourselves. But laying us on board the next
time upon our other quarter, he entered sixty men upon our decks, who
immediately fell to cutting and hacking the sails and rigging. We
plied them with small shot, half-pikes, powder-chests, and such like,
and cleared our deck of them twice. However, to cut short this
melancholy part of our story, our ship being disabled, and three of
our men killed, and eight wounded, we were obliged to yield, and were
carried all prisoners into Sallee, a port belonging to the Moors.
The usage I had there was not so dreadful as at first I apprehended;
nor was I carried up the country to the emperor's court, as the rest
of our men were, but was kept by the captain of the rover as his
proper prize, and made his slave, being young and nimble, and fit for
his business. At this surprising change of my circumstances, from a
merchant to a miserable slave, I was perfectly overwhelmed; and now I
looked back upon my father's prophetic discourse to me, that I should
be miserable and have none to relieve me, which I thought was now so
effectually brought to pass that I could not be worse; for now the
hand of Heaven had overtaken me, and I was undone without redemption;
but, alas! this was but a taste of the misery I was to go through, as
will appear in the sequel of this story.
As my new patron, or master, had taken me home to his house, so I was
in hopes that he would take me with him when he went to sea again,
believing that it would some time or other be his fate to be taken by
a Spanish or Portugal man-of-war; and that then I should be set at
liberty. But this hope of mine was soon taken away; for when he went
to sea, he left me on shore to look after his little garden, and do
the common drudgery of slaves about his house; and when he came home
again from his cruise, he ordered me to lie in the cabin to look after
the ship.
Here I meditated nothing but my escape, and what method I might take
to effect it, but found no way that had the least probability in it;
nothing presented to make the supposition of it rational; for I had
nobody to communicate it to that would embark with me - no
fellow-slave, no Englishman, Irishman, or Scotchman there but myself;
so that for two years, though I often pleased myself with the
imagination, yet I never had the least encouraging prospect of putting
it in practice.
After about two years, an odd circumstance presented itself, which put
the old thought of making some attempt for my liberty again in my
head. My patron lying at home longer than usual without fitting out
his ship, which, as I heard, was for want of money, he used
constantly, once or twice a week, sometimes oftener if the weather was
fair, to take the ship's pinnace and go out into the road a- fishing;
and as he always took me and young Maresco with him to row the boat,
we made him very merry, and I proved very dexterous in catching fish;
insomuch that sometimes he would send me with a Moor, one of his
kinsmen, and the youth - the Maresco, as they called him - to catch a
dish of fish for him.
It happened one time, that going a-fishing in a calm morning, a fog
rose so thick that, though we were not half a league from the shore,
we lost sight of it; and rowing we knew not whither or which way, we
laboured all day, and all the next night; and when the morning came we
found we had pulled off to sea instead of pulling in for the shore;
and that we were at least two leagues from the shore. However, we got
well in again, though with a great deal of labour and some danger; for
the wind began to blow pretty fresh in the morning; but we were all
very hungry.
But our patron, warned by this disaster, resolved to take more care of
himself for the future; and having lying by him the longboat of our
English ship that he had taken, he resolved he would not go a- fishing
any more without a compass and some provision; so he ordered the
carpenter of his ship, who also was an English slave, to build a
little state-room, or cabin, in the middle of the long- boat, like
that of a barge, with a place to stand behind it to steer, and haul
home the main-sheet; the room before for a hand or two to stand and
work the sails. She sailed with what we call a shoulder-of-mutton
sail; and the boom jibed over the top of the cabin, which lay very
snug and low, and had in it room for him to lie, with a slave or two,
and a table to eat on, with some small lockers to put in some bottles
of such liquor as he thought fit to drink; and his bread, rice, and
coffee.
We went frequently out with this boat a-fishing; and as I was most
dexterous to catch fish for him, he never went without me. It
happened that he had appointed to go out in this boat, either for
pleasure or for fish, with two or three Moors of some distinction in
that place, and for whom he had provided extraordinarily, and had,
therefore, sent on board the boat overnight a larger store of
provisions than ordinary; and had ordered me to get ready three fusees
with powder and shot, which were on board his ship, for that they
designed some sport of fowling as well as fishing.
I got all things ready as he had directed, and waited the next morning
with the boat washed clean, her ancient and pendants out, and
everything to accommodate his guests; when by-and-by my patron came on
board alone, and told me his guests had put off going from some
business that fell out, and ordered me, with the man and boy, as
usual, to go out with the boat and catch them some fish, for that his
friends were to sup at his house, and commanded that as soon as I got
some fish I should bring it home to his house; all which I prepared to
do.
This moment my former notions of deliverance darted into my thoughts,
for now I found I was likely to have a little ship at my command; and
my master being gone, I prepared to furnish myself, not for fishing
business, but for a voyage; though I knew not, neither did I so much
as consider, whither I should steer - anywhere to get out of that
place was my desire.
My first contrivance was to make a pretence to speak to this Moor, to
get something for our subsistence on board; for I told him we must not
presume to eat of our patron's bread. He said that was true; so he
brought a large basket of rusk or biscuit, and three jars of fresh
water, into the boat. I knew where my patron's case of bottles stood,
which it was evident, by the make, were taken out of some English
prize, and I conveyed them into the boat while the Moor was on shore,
as if they had been there before for our master. I conveyed also a
great lump of beeswax into the boat, which weighed about half a
hundred-weight, with a parcel of twine or thread, a hatchet, a saw,
and a hammer, all of which were of great use to us afterwards,
especially the wax, to make candles. Another trick I tried upon him,
which he innocently came into also: his name was Ismael, which they
call Muley, or Moely; so I called to him - "Moely," said I, "our
patron's guns are on board the boat; can you not get a little powder
and shot? It may be we may kill some alcamies (a fowl like our
curlews) for ourselves, for I know he keeps the gunner's stores in the
ship." "Yes," says he, "I'll bring some;" and accordingly he brought
a great leather pouch, which held a pound and a half of powder, or
rather more; and another with shot, that had five or six pounds, with
some bullets, and put all into the boat. At the same time I had found
some powder of my master's in the great cabin, with which I filled one
of the large bottles in the case, which was almost empty, pouring what
was in it into another; and thus furnished with everything needful, we
sailed out of the port to fish. The castle, which is at the entrance
of the port, knew who we were, and took no notice of us; and we were
not above a mile out of the port before we hauled in our sail and set
us down to fish. The wind blew from the N.N.E., which was contrary to
my desire, for had it blown southerly I had been sure to have made the
coast of Spain, and at least reached to the bay of Cadiz; but my
resolutions were, blow which way it would, I would be gone from that
horrid place where I was, and leave the rest to fate.