Chapter V. A Great Victory

by Daniel Defoe

　　It was five or six months after this before they heard any more ofthe savages, in which time our men were in hopes they had eitherforgot their former bad luck, or given over hopes of better; when,on a sudden, they were invaded with a most formidable fleet of noless than eight-and-twenty canoes, full of savages, armed with bowsand arrows, great clubs, wooden swords, and such like engines ofwar; and they brought such numbers with them, that, in short, itput all our people into the utmost consternation.As they came on shore in the evening, and at the easternmost sideof the island, our men had that night to consult and consider whatto do. In the first place, knowing that their being entirelyconcealed was their only safety before and would be much more sonow, while the number of their enemies would be so great, theyresolved, first of all, to take down the huts which were built forthe two Englishmen, and drive away their goats to the old cave;because they supposed the savages would go directly thither, assoon as it was day, to play the old game over again, though theydid not now land within two leagues of it. In the next place, theydrove away all the flocks of goats they had at the old bower, as Icalled it, which belonged to the Spaniards; and, in short, left aslittle appearance of inhabitants anywhere as was possible; and thenext morning early they posted themselves, with all their force, atthe plantation of the two men, to wait for their coming. As theyguessed, so it happened: these new invaders, leaving their canoesat the east end of the island, came ranging along the shore,directly towards the place, to the number of two hundred and fifty,as near as our men could judge. Our army was but small indeed;but, that which was worse, they had not arms for all their number.The whole account, it seems, stood thus: first, as to men,seventeen Spaniards, five Englishmen, old Friday, the three slavestaken with the women, who proved very faithful, and three otherslaves, who lived with the Spaniards. To arm these, they hadeleven muskets, five pistols, three fowling-pieces, five muskets orfowling-pieces which were taken by me from the mutinous seamen whomI reduced, two swords, and three old halberds.To their slaves they did not give either musket or fusee; but theyhad each a halberd, or a long staff, like a quarter-staff, with agreat spike of iron fastened into each end of it, and by his side ahatchet; also every one of our men had a hatchet. Two of the womencould not be prevailed upon but they would come into the fight, andthey had bows and arrows, which the Spaniards had taken from thesavages when the first action happened, which I have spoken of,where the Indians fought with one another; and the women hadhatchets too.The chief Spaniard, whom I described so often, commanded the whole;and Will Atkins, who, though a dreadful fellow for wickedness, wasa most daring, bold fellow, commanded under him. The savages cameforward like lions; and our men, which was the worst of their fate,had no advantage in their situation; only that Will Atkins, who nowproved a most useful fellow, with six men, was planted just behinda small thicket of bushes as an advanced guard, with orders to letthe first of them pass by and then fire into the middle of them,and as soon as he had fired, to make his retreat as nimbly as hecould round a part of the wood, and so come in behind theSpaniards, where they stood, having a thicket of trees before them.When the savages came on, they ran straggling about every way inheaps, out of all manner of order, and Will Atkins let about fiftyof them pass by him; then seeing the rest come in a very thickthrong, he orders three of his men to fire, having loaded theirmuskets with six or seven bullets apiece, about as big as largepistol-bullets. How many they killed or wounded they knew not, butthe consternation and surprise was inexpressible among the savages;they were frightened to the last degree to hear such a dreadfulnoise, and see their men killed, and others hurt, but see nobodythat did it; when, in the middle of their fright, Will Atkins andhis other three let fly again among the thickest of them; and inless than a minute the first three, being loaded again, gave them athird volley.Had Will Atkins and his men retired immediately, as soon as theyhad fired, as they were ordered to do, or had the rest of the bodybeen at hand to have poured in their shot continually, the savageshad been effectually routed; for the terror that was among themcame principally from this, that they were killed by the gods withthunder and lightning, and could see nobody that hurt them. ButWill Atkins, staying to load again, discovered the cheat: some ofthe savages who were at a distance spying them, came upon thembehind; and though Atkins and his men fired at them also, two orthree times, and killed above twenty, retiring as fast as theycould, yet they wounded Atkins himself, and killed one of hisfellow-Englishmen with their arrows, as they did afterwards oneSpaniard, and one of the Indian slaves who came with the women.This slave was a most gallant fellow, and fought most desperately,killing five of them with his own hand, having no weapon but one ofthe armed staves and a hatchet.Our men being thus hard laid at, Atkins wounded, and two other menkilled, retreated to a rising ground in the wood; and theSpaniards, after firing three volleys upon them, retreated also;for their number was so great, and they were so desperate, thatthough above fifty of them were killed, and more than as manywounded, yet they came on in the teeth of our men, fearless ofdanger, and shot their arrows like a cloud; and it was observedthat their wounded men, who were not quite disabled, were madeoutrageous by their wounds, and fought like madmen.When our men retreated, they left the Spaniard and the Englishmanthat were killed behind them: and the savages, when they came upto them, killed them over again in a wretched manner, breakingtheir arms, legs, and heads, with their clubs and wooden swords,like true savages; but finding our men were gone, they did not seeminclined to pursue them, but drew themselves up in a ring, whichis, it seems, their custom, and shouted twice, in token of theirvictory; after which, they had the mortification to see several oftheir wounded men fall, dying with the mere loss of blood.The Spaniard governor having drawn his little body up together upona rising ground, Atkins, though he was wounded, would have had themmarch and charge again all together at once: but the Spaniardreplied, "Seignior Atkins, you see how their wounded men fight; letthem alone till morning; all the wounded men will be stiff and sorewith their wounds, and faint with the loss of blood; and so weshall have the fewer to engage." This advice was good: but WillAtkins replied merrily, "That is true, seignior, and so shall Itoo; and that is the reason I would go on while I am warm." "Well,Seignior Atkins," says the Spaniard, "you have behaved gallantly,and done your part; we will fight for you if you cannot come on;but I think it best to stay till morning:" so they waited.But as it was a clear moonlight night, and they found the savagesin great disorder about their dead and wounded men, and a greatnoise and hurry among them where they lay, they afterwards resolvedto fall upon them in the night, especially if they could come togive them but one volley before they were discovered, which theyhad a fair opportunity to do; for one of the Englishmen in whosequarter it was where the fight began, led them round between thewoods and the seaside westward, and then turning short south, theycame so near where the thickest of them lay, that before they wereseen or heard eight of them fired in among them, and did dreadfulexecution upon them; in half a minute more eight others fired afterthem, pouring in their small shot in such a quantity that abundancewere killed and wounded; and all this while they were not able tosee who hurt them, or which way to fly.The Spaniards charged again with the utmost expedition, and thendivided themselves into three bodies, and resolved to fall in amongthem all together. They had in each body eight persons, that is tosay, twenty-two men and the two women, who, by the way, foughtdesperately. They divided the firearms equally in each party, aswell as the halberds and staves. They would have had the womenkept back, but they said they were resolved to die with theirhusbands. Having thus formed their little army, they marched outfrom among the trees, and came up to the teeth of the enemy,shouting and hallooing as loud as they could; the savages stood alltogether, but were in the utmost confusion, hearing the noise ofour men shouting from three quarters together. They would havefought if they had seen us; for as soon as we came near enough tobe seen, some arrows were shot, and poor old Friday was wounded,though not dangerously. But our men gave them no time, but runningup to them, fired among them three ways, and then fell in with thebutt-ends of their muskets, their swords, armed staves, andhatchets, and laid about them so well that, in a word, they set upa dismal screaming and howling, flying to save their lives whichway soever they could.Our men were tired with the execution, and killed or mortallywounded in the two fights about one hundred and eighty of them; therest, being frightened out of their wits, scoured through the woodsand over the hills, with all the speed that fear and nimble feetcould help them to; and as we did not trouble ourselves much topursue them, they got all together to the seaside, where theylanded, and where their canoes lay. But their disaster was not atan end yet; for it blew a terrible storm of wind that evening fromthe sea, so that it was impossible for them to go off; nay, thestorm continuing all night, when the tide came up their canoes weremost of them driven by the surge of the sea so high upon the shorethat it required infinite toil to get them off; and some of themwere even dashed to pieces against the beach. Our men, though gladof their victory, yet got little rest that night; but havingrefreshed themselves as well as they could, they resolved to marchto that part of the island where the savages were fled, and seewhat posture they were in. This necessarily led them over theplace where the fight had been, and where they found several of thepoor creatures not quite dead, and yet past recovering life; asight disagreeable enough to generous minds, for a truly great manthough obliged by the law of battle to destroy his enemy, takes nodelight in his misery. However, there was no need to give anyorders in this case; for their own savages, who were theirservants, despatched these poor creatures with their hatchets.At length they came in view of the place where the more miserableremains of the savages' army lay, where there appeared about ahundred still; their posture was generally sitting upon the ground,with their knees up towards their mouth, and the head put betweenthe two hands, leaning down upon the knees. When our men camewithin two musket-shots of them, the Spaniard governor ordered twomuskets to be fired without ball, to alarm them; this he did, thatby their countenance he might know what to expect, whether theywere still in heart to fight, or were so heartily beaten as to bediscouraged, and so he might manage accordingly. This stratagemtook: for as soon as the savages heard the first gun, and saw theflash of the second, they started up upon their feet in thegreatest consternation imaginable; and as our men advanced swiftlytowards them, they all ran screaming and yelling away, with a kindof howling noise, which our men did not understand, and had neverheard before; and thus they ran up the hills into the country.At first our men had much rather the weather had been calm, andthey had all gone away to sea: but they did not then consider thatthis might probably have been the occasion of their coming again insuch multitudes as not to be resisted, or, at least, to come somany and so often as would quite desolate the island, and starvethem. Will Atkins, therefore, who notwithstanding his wound keptalways with them, proved the best counsellor in this case: hisadvice was, to take the advantage that offered, and step in betweenthem and their boats, and so deprive them of the capacity of everreturning any more to plague the island. They consulted long aboutthis; and some were against it for fear of making the wretches flyto the woods and live there desperate, and so they should have themto hunt like wild beasts, be afraid to stir out about theirbusiness, and have their plantations continually rifled, all theirtame goats destroyed, and, in short, be reduced to a life ofcontinual distress.Will Atkins told them they had better have to do with a hundred menthan with a hundred nations; that, as they must destroy theirboats, so they must destroy the men, or be all of them destroyedthemselves. In a word, he showed them the necessity of it soplainly that they all came into it; so they went to workimmediately with the boats, and getting some dry wood together froma dead tree, they tried to set some of them on fire, but they wereso wet that they would not burn; however, the fire so burned theupper part that it soon made them unfit for use at sea.When the Indians saw what they were about, some of them camerunning out of the woods, and coming as near as they could to ourmen, kneeled down and cried, "Oa, Oa, Waramokoa," and some otherwords of their language, which none of the others understoodanything of; but as they made pitiful gestures and strange noises,it was easy to understand they begged to have their boats spared,and that they would be gone, and never come there again. But ourmen were now satisfied that they had no way to preserve themselves,or to save their colony, but effectually to prevent any of thesepeople from ever going home again; depending upon this, that ifeven so much as one of them got back into their country to tell thestory, the colony was undone; so that, letting them know that theyshould not have any mercy, they fell to work with their canoes, anddestroyed every one that the storm had not destroyed before; at thesight of which, the savages raised a hideous cry in the woods,which our people heard plain enough, after which they ran about theisland like distracted men, so that, in a word, our men did notreally know what at first to do with them. Nor did the Spaniards,with all their prudence, consider that while they made those peoplethus desperate, they ought to have kept a good guard at the sametime upon their plantations; for though it is true they had drivenaway their cattle, and the Indians did not find out their mainretreat, I mean my old castle at the hill, nor the cave in thevalley, yet they found out my plantation at the bower, and pulledit all to pieces, and all the fences and planting about it; trodall the corn under foot, tore up the vines and grapes, being justthen almost ripe, and did our men inestimable damage, though tothemselves not one farthing's worth of service.Though our men were able to fight them upon all occasions, yet theywere in no condition to pursue them, or hunt them up and down; foras they were too nimble of foot for our people when they found themsingle, so our men durst not go abroad single, for fear of beingsurrounded with their numbers. The best was they had no weapons;for though they had bows, they had no arrows left, nor anymaterials to make any; nor had they any edge-tool among them. Theextremity and distress they were reduced to was great, and indeeddeplorable; but, at the same time, our men were also brought tovery bad circumstances by them, for though their retreats werepreserved, yet their provision was destroyed, and their harvestspoiled, and what to do, or which way to turn themselves, they knewnot. The only refuge they had now was the stock of cattle they hadin the valley by the cave, and some little corn which grew there,and the plantation of the three Englishmen. Will Atkins and hiscomrades were now reduced to two; one of them being killed by anarrow, which struck him on the side of his head, just under thetemple, so that he never spoke more; and it was very remarkablethat this was the same barbarous fellow that cut the poor savageslave with his hatchet, and who afterwards intended to havemurdered the Spaniards.I looked upon their case to have been worse at this time than minewas at any time, after I first discovered the grains of barley andrice, and got into the manner of planting and raising my corn, andmy tame cattle; for now they had, as I may say, a hundred wolvesupon the island, which would devour everything they could come at,yet could be hardly come at themselves.When they saw what their circumstances were, the first thing theyconcluded was, that they would, if possible, drive the savages upto the farther part of the island, south-west, that if any morecame on shore they might not find one another; then, that theywould daily hunt and harass them, and kill as many of them as theycould come at, till they had reduced their number; and if theycould at last tame them, and bring them to anything, they wouldgive them corn, and teach them how to plant, and live upon theirdaily labour. In order to do this, they so followed them, and soterrified them with their guns, that in a few days, if any of themfired a gun at an Indian, if he did not hit him, yet he would falldown for fear. So dreadfully frightened were they that they keptout of sight farther and farther; till at last our men followedthem, and almost every day killing or wounding some of them, theykept up in the woods or hollow places so much, that it reduced themto the utmost misery for want of food; and many were afterwardsfound dead in the woods, without any hurt, absolutely starved todeath.When our men found this, it made their hearts relent, and pitymoved them, especially the generous-minded Spaniard governor; andhe proposed, if possible, to take one of them alive and bring himto understand what they meant, so far as to be able to act asinterpreter, and go among them and see if they might be brought tosome conditions that might be depended upon, to save their livesand do us no harm.It was some while before any of them could be taken; but being weakand half-starved, one of them was at last surprised and made aprisoner. He was sullen at first, and would neither eat nor drink;but finding himself kindly used, and victuals given to him, and noviolence offered him, he at last grew tractable, and came tohimself. They often brought old Friday to talk to him, who alwaystold him how kind the others would be to them all; that they wouldnot only save their lives, but give them part of the island to livein, provided they would give satisfaction that they would keep intheir own bounds, and not come beyond it to injure or prejudiceothers; and that they should have corn given them to plant and makeit grow for their bread, and some bread given them for theirpresent subsistence; and old Friday bade the fellow go and talkwith the rest of his countrymen, and see what they said to it;assuring them that, if they did not agree immediately, they shouldbe all destroyed.The poor wretches, thoroughly humbled, and reduced in number toabout thirty-seven, closed with the proposal at the first offer,and begged to have some food given them; upon which twelveSpaniards and two Englishmen, well armed, with three Indian slavesand old Friday, marched to the place where they were. The threeIndian slaves carried them a large quantity of bread, some riceboiled up to cakes and dried in the sun, and three live goats; andthey were ordered to go to the side of a hill, where they sat down,ate their provisions very thankfully, and were the most faithfulfellows to their words that could be thought of; for, except whenthey came to beg victuals and directions, they never came out oftheir bounds; and there they lived when I came to the island and Iwent to see them. They had taught them both to plant corn, makebread, breed tame goats, and milk them: they wanted nothing butwives in order for them soon to become a nation. They wereconfined to a neck of land, surrounded with high rocks behind them,and lying plain towards the sea before them, on the south-eastcorner of the island. They had land enough, and it was very goodand fruitful; about a mile and a half broad, and three or fourmiles in length. Our men taught them to make wooden spades, suchas I made for myself, and gave among them twelve hatchets and threeor four knives; and there they lived, the most subjected, innocentcreatures that ever were heard of.After this the colony enjoyed a perfect tranquillity with respectto the savages, till I came to revisit them, which was about twoyears after; not but that, now and then, some canoes of savagescame on shore for their triumphal, unnatural feasts; but as theywere of several nations, and perhaps had never heard of those thatcame before, or the reason of it, they did not make any search orinquiry after their countrymen; and if they had, it would have beenvery hard to have found them out.Thus, I think, I have given a full account of all that happened tothem till my return, at least that was worth notice. The Indianswere wonderfully civilised by them, and they frequently went amongthem; but they forbid, on pain of death, any one of the Indianscoming to them, because they would not have their settlementbetrayed again. One thing was very remarkable, viz. that theytaught the savages to make wicker-work, or baskets, but they soonoutdid their masters: for they made abundance of ingenious thingsin wicker-work, particularly baskets, sieves, bird-cages,cupboards, &c.; as also chairs, stools, beds, couches, being veryingenious at such work when they were once put in the way of it.My coming was a particular relief to these people, because wefurnished them with knives, scissors, spades, shovels, pick-axes,and all things of that kind which they could want. With the helpof those tools they were so very handy that they came at last tobuild up their huts or houses very handsomely, raddling or workingit up like basket-work all the way round. This piece of ingenuity,although it looked very odd, was an exceeding good fence, as wellagainst heat as against all sorts of vermin; and our men were sotaken with it that they got the Indians to come and do the like forthem; so that when I came to see the two Englishmen's colonies,they looked at a distance as if they all lived like bees in a hive.As for Will Atkins, who was now become a very industrious, useful,and sober fellow, he had made himself such a tent of basket-work asI believe was never seen; it was one hundred and twenty paces roundon the outside, as I measured by my steps; the walls were as closeworked as a basket, in panels or squares of thirty-two in number,and very strong, standing about seven feet high; in the middle wasanother not above twenty-two paces round, but built stronger, beingoctagon in its form, and in the eight corners stood eight verystrong posts; round the top of which he laid strong pieces, knittogether with wooden pins, from which he raised a pyramid for ahandsome roof of eight rafters, joined together very well, thoughhe had no nails, and only a few iron spikes, which he made himself,too, out of the old iron that I had left there. Indeed, thisfellow showed abundance of ingenuity in several things which he hadno knowledge of: he made him a forge, with a pair of woodenbellows to blow the fire; he made himself charcoal for his work;and he formed out of the iron crows a middling good anvil to hammerupon: in this manner he made many things, but especially hooks,staples, and spikes, bolts and hinges. But to return to the house:after he had pitched the roof of his innermost tent, he worked itup between the rafters with basket-work, so firm, and thatched thatover again so ingeniously with rice-straw, and over that a largeleaf of a tree, which covered the top, that his house was as dry asif it had been tiled or slated. He owned, indeed, that the savageshad made the basket-work for him. The outer circuit was covered asa lean-to all round this inner apartment, and long rafters lay fromthe thirty-two angles to the top posts of the inner house, beingabout twenty feet distant, so that there was a space like a walkwithin the outer wicker-wall, and without the inner, near twentyfeet wide.The inner place he partitioned off with the same wickerwork, butmuch fairer, and divided into six apartments, so that he had sixrooms on a floor, and out of every one of these there was a door:first into the entry, or coming into the main tent, another doorinto the main tent, and another door into the space or walk thatwas round it; so that walk was also divided into six equal parts,which served not only for a retreat, but to store up anynecessaries which the family had occasion for. These six spacesnot taking up the whole circumference, what other apartments theouter circle had were thus ordered: As soon as you were in at thedoor of the outer circle you had a short passage straight beforeyou to the door of the inner house; but on either side was a wickerpartition and a door in it, by which you went first into a largeroom or storehouse, twenty feet wide and about thirty feet long,and through that into another not quite so long; so that in theouter circle were ten handsome rooms, six of which were only to become at through the apartments of the inner tent, and served asclosets or retiring rooms to the respective chambers of the innercircle; and four large warehouses, or barns, or what you please tocall them, which went through one another, two on either hand ofthe passage, that led through the outer door to the inner tent.Such a piece of basket-work, I believe, was never seen in theworld, nor a house or tent so neatly contrived, much less so built.In this great bee-hive lived the three families, that is to say,Will Atkins and his companion; the third was killed, but his wiferemained with three children, and the other two were not at allbackward to give the widow her full share of everything, I mean asto their corn, milk, grapes, &c., and when they killed a kid, orfound a turtle on the shore; so that they all lived well enough;though it was true they were not so industrious as the other two,as has been observed already.One thing, however, cannot be omitted, viz. that as for religion, Ido not know that there was anything of that kind among them; theyoften, indeed, put one another in mind that there was a God, by thevery common method of seamen, swearing by His name: nor were theirpoor ignorant savage wives much better for having been married toChristians, as we must call them; for as they knew very little ofGod themselves, so they were utterly incapable of entering into anydiscourse with their wives about a God, or to talk anything to themconcerning religion.The utmost of all the improvement which I can say the wives hadmade from them was, that they had taught them to speak Englishpretty well; and most of their children, who were near twenty inall, were taught to speak English too, from their first learning tospeak, though they at first spoke it in a very broken manner, liketheir mothers. None of these children were above six years oldwhen I came thither, for it was not much above seven years sincethey had fetched these five savage ladies over; they had allchildren, more or less: the mothers were all a good sort of well-governed, quiet, laborious women, modest and decent, helpful to oneanother, mighty observant, and subject to their masters (I cannotcall them husbands), and lacked nothing but to be well instructedin the Christian religion, and to be legally married; both of whichwere happily brought about afterwards by my means, or at least inconsequence of my coming among them.