Chapter X. He is Left on Shore

by Daniel Defoe

　　I was very angry with my nephew, the captain, and indeed with allthe men, but with him in particular, as well for his acting so outof his duty as a commander of the ship, and having the charge ofthe voyage upon him, as in his prompting, rather than cooling, therage of his blind men in so bloody and cruel an enterprise. Mynephew answered me very respectfully, but told me that when he sawthe body of the poor seaman whom they had murdered in so cruel andbarbarous a manner, he was not master of himself, neither could hegovern his passion; he owned he should not have done so, as he wascommander of the ship; but as he was a man, and nature moved him,he could not bear it. As for the rest of the men, they were notsubject to me at all, and they knew it well enough; so they took nonotice of my dislike. The next day we set sail, so we never heardany more of it. Our men differed in the account of the number theyhad killed; but according to the best of their accounts, put alltogether, they killed or destroyed about one hundred and fiftypeople, men, women, and children, and left not a house standing inthe town. As for the poor fellow Tom Jeffry, as he was quite dead(for his throat was so cut that his head was half off), it would dohim no service to bring him away; so they only took him down fromthe tree, where he was hanging by one hand.However just our men thought this action, I was against them in it,and I always, after that time, told them God would blast thevoyage; for I looked upon all the blood they shed that night to bemurder in them. For though it is true that they had killed TomJeffry, yet Jeffry was the aggressor, had broken the truce, and hadill-used a young woman of theirs, who came down to them innocently,and on the faith of the public capitulation.The boatswain defended this quarrel when we were afterwards onboard. He said it was true that we seemed to break the truce, butreally had not; and that the war was begun the night before by thenatives themselves, who had shot at us, and killed one of our menwithout any just provocation; so that as we were in a capacity tofight them now, we might also be in a capacity to do ourselvesjustice upon them in an extraordinary manner; that though the poorman had taken a little liberty with the girl, he ought not to havebeen murdered, and that in such a villainous manner: and that theydid nothing but what was just and what the laws of God allowed tobe done to murderers. One would think this should have been enoughto have warned us against going on shore amongst the heathens andbarbarians; but it is impossible to make mankind wise but at theirown expense, and their experience seems to be always of most use tothem when it is dearest bought.We were now bound to the Gulf of Persia, and from thence to thecoast of Coromandel, only to touch at Surat; but the chief of thesupercargo's design lay at the Bay of Bengal, where, if he missedhis business outward-bound, he was to go out to China, and returnto the coast as he came home. The first disaster that befell uswas in the Gulf of Persia, where five of our men, venturing onshore on the Arabian side of the gulf, were surrounded by theArabians, and either all killed or carried away into slavery; therest of the boat's crew were not able to rescue them, and had butjust time to get off their boat. I began to upbraid them with thejust retribution of Heaven in this case; but the boatswain verywarmly told me, he thought I went further in my censures than Icould show any warrant for in Scripture; and referred to Luke xiii.4, where our Saviour intimates that those men on whom the Tower ofSiloam fell were not sinners above all the Galileans; but thatwhich put me to silence in the case was, that not one of these fivemen who were now lost were of those who went on shore to themassacre of Madagascar, so I always called it, though our men couldnot bear to hear the word MASSACRE with any patience.But my frequent preaching to them on this subject had worseconsequences than I expected; and the boatswain, who had been thehead of the attempt, came up boldly to me one time, and told me hefound that I brought that affair continually upon the stage; that Imade unjust reflections upon it, and had used the men very ill onthat account, and himself in particular; that as I was but apassenger, and had no command in the ship, or concern in thevoyage, they were not obliged to bear it; that they did not knowbut I might have some ill-design in my head, and perhaps to callthem to an account for it when they came to England; and that,therefore, unless I would resolve to have done with it, and alsonot to concern myself any further with him, or any of his affairs,he would leave the ship; for he did not think it safe to sail withme among them.I heard him patiently enough till he had done, and then told himthat I confessed I had all along opposed the massacre ofMadagascar, and that I had, on all occasions, spoken my mind freelyabout it, though not more upon him than any of the rest; that as tohaving no command in the ship, that was true; nor did I exerciseany authority, only took the liberty of speaking my mind in thingswhich publicly concerned us all; and what concern I had in thevoyage was none of his business; that I was a considerable owner inthe ship. In that claim I conceived I had a right to speak evenfurther than I had done, and would not be accountable to him or anyone else, and began to be a little warm with him. He made butlittle reply to me at that time, and I thought the affair had beenover. We were at this time in the road at Bengal; and beingwilling to see the place, I went on shore with the supercargo inthe ship's boat to divert myself; and towards evening was preparingto go on board, when one of the men came to me, and told me hewould not have me trouble myself to come down to the boat, for theyhad orders not to carry me on board any more. Any one may guesswhat a surprise I was in at so insolent a message; and I asked theman who bade him deliver that message to me? He told me thecoxswain.I immediately found out the supercargo, and told him the story,adding that I foresaw there would be a mutiny in the ship; andentreated him to go immediately on board and acquaint the captainof it. But I might have spared this intelligence, for before I hadspoken to him on shore the matter was effected on board. Theboatswain, the gunner, the carpenter, and all the inferiorofficers, as soon as I was gone off in the boat, came up, anddesired to speak with the captain; and then the boatswain, making along harangue, and repeating all he had said to me, told thecaptain that as I was now gone peaceably on shore, they were loathto use any violence with me, which, if I had not gone on shore,they would otherwise have done, to oblige me to have gone. Theytherefore thought fit to tell him that as they shipped themselvesto serve in the ship under his command, they would perform it welland faithfully; but if I would not quit the ship, or the captainoblige me to quit it, they would all leave the ship, and sail nofurther with him; and at that word ALL he turned his face towardsthe main-mast, which was, it seems, a signal agreed on, when theseamen, being got together there, cried out, "ONE AND ALL! ONE ANDALL!"My nephew, the captain, was a man of spirit, and of great presenceof mind; and though he was surprised, yet he told them calmly thathe would consider of the matter, but that he could do nothing in ittill he had spoken to me about it. He used some arguments withthem, to show them the unreasonableness and injustice of the thing,but it was all in vain; they swore, and shook hands round beforehis face, that they would all go on shore unless he would engage tothem not to suffer me to come any more on board the ship.This was a hard article upon him, who knew his obligation to me,and did not know how I might take it. So he began to talk smartlyto them; told them that I was a very considerable owner of theship, and that if ever they came to England again it would costthem very dear; that the ship was mine, and that he could not putme out of it; and that he would rather lose the ship, and thevoyage too, than disoblige me so much: so they might do as theypleased. However, he would go on shore and talk with me, andinvited the boatswain to go with him, and perhaps they mightaccommodate the matter with me. But they all rejected theproposal, and said they would have nothing to do with me any more;and if I came on board they would all go on shore. "Well," saidthe captain, "if you are all of this mind, let me go on shore andtalk with him." So away he came to me with this account, a littleafter the message had been brought to me from the coxswain.I was very glad to see my nephew, I must confess; for I was notwithout apprehensions that they would confine him by violence, setsail, and run away with the ship; and then I had been strippednaked in a remote country, having nothing to help myself; in short,I had been in a worse case than when I was alone in the island.But they had not come to that length, it seems, to my satisfaction;and when my nephew told me what they had said to him, and how theyhad sworn and shook hands that they would, one and all, leave theship if I was suffered to come on board, I told him he should notbe concerned at it at all, for I would stay on shore. I onlydesired he would take care and send me all my necessary things onshore, and leave me a sufficient sum of money, and I would find myway to England as well as I could. This was a heavy piece of newsto my nephew, but there was no way to help it but to comply; so, inshort, he went on board the ship again, and satisfied the men thathis uncle had yielded to their importunity, and had sent for hisgoods from on board the ship; so that the matter was over in a fewhours, the men returned to their duty, and I began to consider whatcourse I should steer.I was now alone in a most remote part of the world, for I was nearthree thousand leagues by sea farther off from England than I wasat my island; only, it is true, I might travel here by land overthe Great Mogul's country to Surat, might go from thence to Bassoraby sea, up the Gulf of Persia, and take the way of the caravans,over the desert of Arabia, to Aleppo and Scanderoon; from thence bysea again to Italy, and so overland into France. I had another waybefore me, which was to wait for some English ships, which werecoming to Bengal from Achin, on the island of Sumatra, and getpassage on board them from England. But as I came hither withoutany concern with the East Indian Company, so it would be difficultto go from hence without their licence, unless with great favour ofthe captains of the ships, or the company's factors: and to both Iwas an utter stranger.Here I had the mortification to see the ship set sail without me;however, my nephew left me two servants, or rather one companionand one servant; the first was clerk to the purser, whom he engagedto go with me, and the other was his own servant. I then took agood lodging in the house of an Englishwoman, where severalmerchants lodged, some French, two Italians, or rather Jews, andone Englishman. Here I stayed above nine months, considering whatcourse to take. I had some English goods with me of value, and aconsiderable sum of money; my nephew furnishing me with a thousandpieces of eight, and a letter of credit for more if I had occasion,that I might not be straitened, whatever might happen. I quicklydisposed of my goods to advantage; and, as I originally intended, Ibought here some very good diamonds, which, of all other things,were the most proper for me in my present circumstances, because Icould always carry my whole estate about me.During my stay here many proposals were made for my return toEngland, but none falling out to my mind, the English merchant wholodged with me, and whom I had contracted an intimate acquaintancewith, came to me one morning, saying: "Countryman, I have aproject to communicate, which, as it suits with my thoughts, may,for aught I know, suit with yours also, when you shall havethoroughly considered it. Here we are posted, you by accident andI by my own choice, in a part of the world very remote from our owncountry; but it is in a country where, by us who understand tradeand business, a great deal of money is to be got. If you will putone thousand pounds to my one thousand pounds, we will hire a shiphere, the first we can get to our minds. You shall be captain,I'll be merchant, and we'll go a trading voyage to China; for whatshould we stand still for? The whole world is in motion; whyshould we be idle?"I liked this proposal very well; and the more so because it seemedto be expressed with so much goodwill. In my loose, unhingedcircumstances, I was the fitter to embrace a proposal for trade, orindeed anything else. I might perhaps say with some truth, that iftrade was not my element, rambling was; and no proposal for seeingany part of the world which I had never seen before could possiblycome amiss to me. It was, however, some time before we could get aship to our minds, and when we had got a vessel, it was not easy toget English sailors - that is to say, so many as were necessary togovern the voyage and manage the sailors which we should pick upthere. After some time we got a mate, a boatswain, and a gunner,English; a Dutch carpenter, and three foremast men. With these wefound we could do well enough, having Indian seamen, such as theywere, to make up.When all was ready we set sail for Achin, in the island of Sumatra,and from thence to Siam, where we exchanged some of our wares foropium and some arrack; the first a commodity which bears a greatprice among the Chinese, and which at that time was much wantedthere. Then we went up to Saskan, were eight months out, and onour return to Bengal I was very well satisfied with my adventure.Our people in England often admire how officers, which the companysend into India, and the merchants which generally stay there, getsuch very great estates as they do, and sometimes come home worthsixty or seventy thousand pounds at a time; but it is little matterfor wonder, when we consider the innumerable ports and places wherethey have a free commerce; indeed, at the ports where the Englishships come there is such great and constant demands for the growthof all other countries, that there is a certain vent for thereturns, as well as a market abroad for the goods carried out.I got so much money by my first adventure, and such an insight intothe method of getting more, that had I been twenty years younger, Ishould have been tempted to have stayed here, and sought no fartherfor making my fortune; but what was all this to a man upwards ofthreescore, that was rich enough, and came abroad more in obedienceto a restless desire of seeing the world than a covetous desire ofgaining by it? A restless desire it really was, for when I was athome I was restless to go abroad; and when I was abroad I wasrestless to be at home. I say, what was this gain to me? I wasrich enough already, nor had I any uneasy desires about gettingmore money; therefore the profit of the voyage to me was of nogreat force for the prompting me forward to further undertakings.Hence, I thought that by this voyage I had made no progress at all,because I was come back, as I might call it, to the place fromwhence I came, as to a home: whereas, my eye, like that whichSolomon speaks of, was never satisfied with seeing. I was comeinto a part of the world which I was never in before, and thatpart, in particular, which I heard much of, and was resolved to seeas much of it as I could: and then I thought I might say I hadseen all the world that was worth seeing.But my fellow-traveller and I had different notions: I acknowledgehis were the more suited to the end of a merchant's life: who,when he is abroad upon adventures, is wise to stick to that, as thebest thing for him, which he is likely to get the most money by.On the other hand, mine was the notion of a mad, rambling boy, thatnever cares to see a thing twice over. But this was not all: Ihad a kind of impatience upon me to be nearer home, and yet anunsettled resolution which way to go. In the interval of theseconsultations, my friend, who was always upon the search forbusiness, proposed another voyage among the Spice Islands, to bringhome a loading of cloves from the Manillas, or thereabouts.We were not long in preparing for this voyage; the chief difficultywas in bringing me to come into it. However, at last, nothing elseoffering, and as sitting still, to me especially, was theunhappiest part of life, I resolved on this voyage too, which wemade very successfully, touching at Borneo and several otherislands, and came home in about five months, when we sold ourspices, with very great profit, to the Persian merchants, whocarried them away to the Gulf. My friend, when we made up thisaccount, smiled at me: "Well, now," said he, with a sort offriendly rebuke on my indolent temper, "is not this better thanwalking about here, like a man with nothing to do, and spending ourtime in staring at the nonsense and ignorance of the Pagans?" -"Why, truly," said I, "my friend, I think it is, and I begin to bea convert to the principles of merchandising; but I must tell you,by the way, you do not know what I am doing; for if I once conquermy backwardness, and embark heartily, old as I am, I shall harassyou up and down the world till I tire you; for I shall pursue it soeagerly, I shall never let you lie still."