Chapter XII. The Carpenter's Whimsical Contrivance

by Daniel Defoe

　　The inhabitants came wondering down the shore to look at us; andseeing the ship lie down on one side in such a manner, and heelingin towards the shore, and not seeing our men, who were at work onher bottom with stages, and with their boats on the off-side, theypresently concluded that the ship was cast away, and lay fast onthe ground. On this supposition they came about us in two or threehours' time with ten or twelve large boats, having some of themeight, some ten men in a boat, intending, no doubt, to have come onboard and plundered the ship, and if they found us there, to havecarried us away for slaves.When they came up to the ship, and began to row round her, theydiscovered us all hard at work on the outside of the ship's bottomand side, washing, and graving, and stopping, as every seafaringman knows how. They stood for a while gazing at us, and we, whowere a little surprised, could not imagine what their design was;but being willing to be sure, we took this opportunity to get someof us into the ship, and others to hand down arms and ammunition tothose that were at work, to defend themselves with if there shouldbe occasion. And it was no more than need: for in less than aquarter of an hour's consultation, they agreed, it seems, that theship was really a wreck, and that we were all at work endeavouringto save her, or to save our lives by the help of our boats; andwhen we handed our arms into the boat, they concluded, by that act,that we were endeavouring to save some of our goods. Upon this,they took it for granted we all belonged to them, and away theycame directly upon our men, as if it had been in a line-of-battle.Our men, seeing so many of them, began to be frightened, for we laybut in an ill posture to fight, and cried out to us to know whatthey should do. I immediately called to the men that worked uponthe stages to slip them down, and get up the side into the ship,and bade those in the boat to row round and come on board. The fewwho were on board worked with all the strength and hands we had tobring the ship to rights; however, neither the men upon the stagesnor those in the boats could do as they were ordered before theCochin Chinese were upon them, when two of their boats boarded ourlongboat, and began to lay hold of the men as their prisoners.The first man they laid hold of was an English seaman, a stout,strong fellow, who having a musket in his hand, never offered tofire it, but laid it down in the boat, like a fool, as I thought;but he understood his business better than I could teach him, forhe grappled the Pagan, and dragged him by main force out of theirboat into ours, where, taking him by the ears, he beat his head soagainst the boat's gunnel that the fellow died in his hands. Inthe meantime, a Dutchman, who stood next, took up the musket, andwith the butt-end of it so laid about him, that he knocked downfive of them who attempted to enter the boat. But this was doinglittle towards resisting thirty or forty men, who, fearless becauseignorant of their danger, began to throw themselves into thelongboat, where we had but five men in all to defend it; but thefollowing accident, which deserved our laughter, gave our men acomplete victory.Our carpenter being prepared to grave the outside of the ship, aswell as to pay the seams where he had caulked her to stop theleaks, had got two kettles just let down into the boat, one filledwith boiling pitch, and the other with rosin, tallow, and oil, andsuch stuff as the shipwrights use for that work; and the man thatattended the carpenter had a great iron ladle in his hand, withwhich he supplied the men that were at work with the hot stuff.Two of the enemy's men entered the boat just where this fellowstood in the foresheets; he immediately saluted them with a ladlefull of the stuff, boiling hot which so burned and scalded them,being half-naked that they roared out like bulls, and, enraged withthe fire, leaped both into the sea. The carpenter saw it, andcried out, "Well done, Jack! give them some more of it!" andstepping forward himself, takes one of the mops, and dipping it inthe pitch-pot, he and his man threw it among them so plentifullythat, in short, of all the men in the three boats, there was notone that escaped being scalded in a most frightful manner, and madesuch a howling and crying that I never heard a worse noise.I was never better pleased with a victory in my life; not only asit was a perfect surprise to me, and that our danger was imminentbefore, but as we got this victory without any bloodshed, except ofthat man the seaman killed with his naked hands, and which I wasvery much concerned at. Although it maybe a just thing, becausenecessary (for there is no necessary wickedness in nature), yet Ithought it was a sad sort of life, when we must be always obligedto be killing our fellow-creatures to preserve ourselves; and,indeed, I think so still; and I would even now suffer a great dealrather than I would take away the life even of the worst personinjuring me; and I believe all considering people, who know thevalue of life, would be of my opinion, if they entered seriouslyinto the consideration of it.All the while this was doing, my partner and I, who managed therest of the men on board, had with great dexterity brought the shipalmost to rights, and having got the guns into their places again,the gunner called to me to bid our boat get out of the way, for hewould let fly among them. I called back again to him, and bid himnot offer to fire, for the carpenter would do the work without him;but bid him heat another pitch-kettle, which our cook, who was onbroad, took care of. However, the enemy was so terrified with whatthey had met with in their first attack, that they would not comeon again; and some of them who were farthest off, seeing the shipswim, as it were, upright, began, as we suppose, to see theirmistake, and gave over the enterprise, finding it was not as theyexpected. Thus we got clear of this merry fight; and having gotsome rice and some roots and bread, with about sixteen hogs, onboard two days before, we resolved to stay here no longer, but goforward, whatever came of it; for we made no doubt but we should besurrounded the next day with rogues enough, perhaps more than ourpitch-kettle would dispose of for us. We therefore got all ourthings on board the same evening, and the next morning were readyto sail: in the meantime, lying at anchor at some distance fromthe shore, we were not so much concerned, being now in a fightingposture, as well as in a sailing posture, if any enemy hadpresented. The next day, having finished our work within board,and finding our ship was perfectly healed of all her leaks, we setsail. We would have gone into the bay of Tonquin, for we wanted toinform ourselves of what was to be known concerning the Dutch shipsthat had been there; but we durst not stand in there, because wehad seen several ships go in, as we supposed, but a little before;so we kept on NE. towards the island of Formosa, as much afraid ofbeing seen by a Dutch or English merchant ship as a Dutch orEnglish merchant ship in the Mediterranean is of an Algerine man-of-war.When we were thus got to sea, we kept on NE., as if we would go tothe Manillas or the Philippine Islands; and this we did that wemight not fall into the way of any of the European ships; and thenwe steered north, till we came to the latitude of 22 degrees 30seconds, by which means we made the island of Formosa directly,where we came to an anchor, in order to get water and freshprovisions, which the people there, who are very courteous in theirmanners, supplied us with willingly, and dealt very fairly andpunctually with us in all their agreements and bargains. This iswhat we did not find among other people, and may be owing to theremains of Christianity which was once planted here by a Dutchmissionary of Protestants, and it is a testimony of what I haveoften observed, viz. that the Christian religion always civilisesthe people, and reforms their manners, where it is received,whether it works saving effects upon them or no.From thence we sailed still north, keeping the coast of China at anequal distance, till we knew we were beyond all the ports of Chinawhere our European ships usually come; being resolved, if possible,not to fall into any of their hands, especially in this country,where, as our circumstances were, we could not fail of beingentirely ruined. Being now come to the latitude of 30 degrees, weresolved to put into the first trading port we should come at; andstanding in for the shore, a boat came of two leagues to us with anold Portuguese pilot on board, who, knowing us to be an Europeanship, came to offer his service, which, indeed, we were glad of andtook him on board; upon which, without asking us whither we wouldgo, he dismissed the boat he came in, and sent it back. I thoughtit was now so much in our choice to make the old man carry uswhither we would, that I began to talk to him about carrying us tothe Gulf of Nankin, which is the most northern part of the coast ofChina. The old man said he knew the Gulf of Nankin very well; butsmiling, asked us what we would do there? I told him we would sellour cargo and purchase China wares, calicoes, raw silks, tea,wrought silks, &c.; and so we would return by the same course wecame. He told us our best port would have been to put in at Macao,where we could not have failed of a market for our opium to oursatisfaction, and might for our money have purchased all sorts ofChina goods as cheap as we could at Nankin.Not being able to put the old man out of his talk, of which he wasvery opinionated or conceited, I told him we were gentlemen as wellas merchants, and that we had a mind to go and see the great cityof Pekin, and the famous court of the monarch of China. "Why,then," says the old man, "you should go to Ningpo, where, by theriver which runs into the sea there, you may go up within fiveleagues of the great canal. This canal is a navigable stream,which goes through the heart of that vast empire of China, crossesall the rivers, passes some considerable hills by the help ofsluices and gates, and goes up to the city of Pekin, being inlength near two hundred and seventy leagues." - "Well," said I,"Seignior Portuguese, but that is not our business now; the greatquestion is, if you can carry us up to the city of Nankin, fromwhence we can travel to Pekin afterwards?" He said he could do sovery well, and that there was a great Dutch ship gone up that wayjust before. This gave me a little shock, for a Dutch ship was nowour terror, and we had much rather have met the devil, at least ifhe had not come in too frightful a figure; and we depended upon itthat a Dutch ship would be our destruction, for we were in nocondition to fight them; all the ships they trade with into thoseparts being of great burden, and of much greater force than wewere.The old man found me a little confused, and under some concern whenhe named a Dutch ship, and said to me, "Sir, you need be under noapprehensions of the Dutch; I suppose they are not now at war withyour nation?" - "No," said I, "that's true; but I know not whatliberties men may take when they are out of the reach of the lawsof their own country." - "Why," says he, "you are no pirates; whatneed you fear? They will not meddle with peaceable merchants,sure." These words put me into the greatest disorder and confusionimaginable; nor was it possible for me to conceal it so, but theold man easily perceived it."Sir," says he, "I find you are in some disorder in your thoughtsat my talk: pray be pleased to go which way you think fit, anddepend upon it, I'll do you all the service I can." Upon this wefell into further discourse, in which, to my alarm and amazement,he spoke of the villainous doings of a certain pirate ship that hadlong been the talk of mariners in those seas; no other, in a word,than the very ship he was now on board of, and which we had sounluckily purchased. I presently saw there was no help for it butto tell him the plain truth, and explain all the danger and troublewe had suffered through this misadventure, and, in particular, ourearnest wish to be speedily quit of the ship altogether; for whichreason we had resolved to carry her up to Nankin.The old man was amazed at this relation, and told us we were in theright to go away to the north; and that, if he might advise us, itshould be to sell the ship in China, which we might well do, andbuy, or build another in the country; adding that I should meetwith customers enough for the ship at Nankin, that a Chinese junkwould serve me very well to go back again, and that he wouldprocure me people both to buy one and sell the other. "Well, but,seignior," said I, "as you say they know the ship so well, I may,perhaps, if I follow your measures, be instrumental to bring somehonest, innocent men into a terrible broil; for wherever they findthe ship they will prove the guilt upon the men, by proving thiswas the ship." - "Why," says the old man, "I'll find out a way toprevent that; for as I know all those commanders you speak of verywell, and shall see them all as they pass by, I will be sure to setthem to rights in the thing, and let them know that they had beenso much in the wrong; that though the people who were on board atfirst might run away with the ship, yet it was not true that theyhad turned pirates; and that, in particular, these were not the menthat first went off with the ship, but innocently bought her fortheir trade; and I am persuaded they will so far believe me as atleast to act more cautiously for the time to come."In about thirteen days' sail we came to an anchor, at the south-west point of the great Gulf of Nankin; where I learned by accidentthat two Dutch ships were gone the length before me, and that Ishould certainly fall into their hands. I consulted my partneragain in this exigency, and he was as much at a loss as I was. Ithen asked the old pilot if there was no creek or harbour which Imight put into and pursue my business with the Chinese privately,and be in no danger of the enemy. He told me if I would sail tothe southward about forty-two leagues, there was a little portcalled Quinchang, where the fathers of the mission usually landedfrom Macao, on their progress to teach the Christian religion tothe Chinese, and where no European ships ever put in; and if Ithought to put in there, I might consider what further course totake when I was on shore. He confessed, he said, it was not aplace for merchants, except that at some certain times they had akind of a fair there, when the merchants from Japan came overthither to buy Chinese merchandises. The name of the port I mayperhaps spell wrong, having lost this, together with the names ofmany other places set down in a little pocket-book, which wasspoiled by the water by an accident; but this I remember, that theChinese merchants we corresponded with called it by a differentname from that which our Portuguese pilot gave it, who pronouncedit Quinchang. As we were unanimous in our resolution to go to thisplace, we weighed the next day, having only gone twice on shorewhere we were, to get fresh water; on both which occasions thepeople of the country were very civil, and brought abundance ofprovisions to sell to us; but nothing without money.We did not come to the other port (the wind being contrary) forfive days; but it was very much to our satisfaction, and I wasthankful when I set my foot on shore, resolving, and my partnertoo, that if it was possible to dispose of ourselves and effectsany other way, though not profitably, we would never more set footon board that unhappy vessel. Indeed, I must acknowledge, that ofall the circumstances of life that ever I had any experience of,nothing makes mankind so completely miserable as that of being inconstant fear. Well does the Scripture say, "The fear of manbrings a snare"; it is a life of death, and the mind is so entirelyoppressed by it, that it is capable of no relief.Nor did it fail of its usual operations upon the fancy, byheightening every danger; representing the English and Dutchcaptains to be men incapable of hearing reason, or ofdistinguishing between honest men and rogues; or between a storycalculated for our own turn, made out of nothing, on purpose todeceive, and a true, genuine account of our whole voyage, progress,and design; for we might many ways have convinced any reasonablecreatures that we were not pirates; the goods we had on board, thecourse we steered, our frankly showing ourselves, and entering intosuch and such ports; and even our very manner, the force we had,the number of men, the few arms, the little ammunition, shortprovisions; all these would have served to convince any men that wewere no pirates. The opium and other goods we had on board wouldmake it appear the ship had been at Bengal. The Dutchmen, who, itwas said, had the names of all the men that were in the ship, mighteasily see that we were a mixture of English, Portuguese, andIndians, and but two Dutchmen on board. These, and many otherparticular circumstances, might have made it evident to theunderstanding of any commander, whose hands we might fall into,that we were no pirates.But fear, that blind, useless passion, worked another way, andthrew us into the vapours; it bewildered our understandings, andset the imagination at work to form a thousand terrible things thatperhaps might never happen. We first supposed, as indeed everybodyhad related to us, that the seamen on board the English and Dutchships, but especially the Dutch, were so enraged at the name of apirate, and especially at our beating off their boats and escaping,that they would not give themselves leave to inquire whether wewere pirates or no, but would execute us off-hand, without givingus any room for a defence. We reflected that there really was somuch apparent evidence before them, that they would scarce inquireafter any more; as, first, that the ship was certainly the same,and that some of the seamen among them knew her, and had been onboard her; and, secondly, that when we had intelligence at theriver of Cambodia that they were coming down to examine us, wefought their boats and fled. Therefore we made no doubt but theywere as fully satisfied of our being pirates as we were satisfiedof the contrary; and, as I often said, I know not but I should havebeen apt to have taken those circumstances for evidence, if thetables were turned, and my case was theirs; and have made noscruple of cutting all the crew to pieces, without believing, orperhaps considering, what they might have to offer in theirdefence.But let that be how it will, these were our apprehensions; and bothmy partner and I scarce slept a night without dreaming of haltersand yard-arms; of fighting, and being taken; of killing, and beingkilled: and one night I was in such a fury in my dream, fancyingthe Dutchmen had boarded us, and I was knocking one of their seamendown, that I struck my doubled fist against the side of the cabin Ilay in with such a force as wounded my hand grievously, broke myknuckles, and cut and bruised the flesh, so that it awaked me outof my sleep. Another apprehension I had was, the cruel usage wemight meet with from them if we fell into their hands; then thestory of Amboyna came into my head, and how the Dutch might perhapstorture us, as they did our countrymen there, and make some of ourmen, by extremity of torture, confess to crimes they never wereguilty of, or own themselves and all of us to be pirates, and sothey would put us to death with a formal appearance of justice; andthat they might be tempted to do this for the gain of our ship andcargo, worth altogether four or five thousand pounds. We did notconsider that the captains of ships have no authority to act thus;and if we had surrendered prisoners to them, they could not answerthe destroying us, or torturing us, but would be accountable for itwhen they came to their country. However, if they were to act thuswith us, what advantage would it be to us that they should becalled to an account for it? - or if we were first to be murdered,what satisfaction would it be to us to have them punished when theycame home?I cannot refrain taking notice here what reflections I now had uponthe vast variety of my particular circumstances; how hard I thoughtit that I, who had spent forty years in a life of continualdifficulties, and was at last come, as it were, to the port orhaven which all men drive at, viz. to have rest and plenty, shouldbe a volunteer in new sorrows by my own unhappy choice, and that I,who had escaped so many dangers in my youth, should now come to behanged in my old age, and in so remote a place, for a crime which Iwas not in the least inclined to, much less guilty of. After thesethoughts something of religion would come in; and I would beconsidering that this seemed to me to be a disposition of immediateProvidence, and I ought to look upon it and submit to it as such.For, although I was innocent as to men, I was far from beinginnocent as to my Maker; and I ought to look in and examine whatother crimes in my life were most obvious to me, and for whichProvidence might justly inflict this punishment as a retribution;and thus I ought to submit to this, just as I would to a shipwreck,if it had pleased God to have brought such a disaster upon me.In its turn natural courage would sometimes take its place, andthen I would be talking myself up to vigorous resolutions; that Iwould not be taken to be barbarously used by a parcel of mercilesswretches in cold blood; that it were much better to have falleninto the hands of the savages, though I were sure they would feastupon me when they had taken me, than those who would perhaps gluttheir rage upon me by inhuman tortures and barbarities; that in thecase of the savages, I always resolved to die fighting to the lastgasp, and why should I not do so now? Whenever these thoughtsprevailed, I was sure to put myself into a kind of fever with theagitation of a supposed fight; my blood would boil, and my eyessparkle, as if I was engaged, and I always resolved to take noquarter at their hands; but even at last, if I could resist nolonger, I would blow up the ship and all that was in her, and leavethem but little booty to boast of.