Chapter XVI. Safe Arrival in England

by Daniel Defoe

　　It was talking one night with a certain prince, one of the banishedministers of state belonging to the Czar, that the discourse of myparticular case began. He had been telling me abundance of finethings of the greatness, the magnificence, the dominions, and theabsolute power of the Emperor of the Russians: I interrupted him,and told him I was a greater and more powerful prince than ever theCzar was, though my dominion were not so large, or my people somany. The Russian grandee looked a little surprised, and, fixinghis eyes steadily upon me, began to wonder what I meant. I saidhis wonder would cease when I had explained myself, and told himthe story at large of my living in the island; and then how Imanaged both myself and the people that were under me, just as Ihave since minuted it down. They were exceedingly taken with thestory, and especially the prince, who told me, with a sigh, thatthe true greatness of life was to be masters of ourselves; that hewould not have exchanged such a state of life as mine to be Czar ofMuscovy; and that he found more felicity in the retirement heseemed to be banished to there, than ever he found in the highestauthority he enjoyed in the court of his master the Czar; that theheight of human wisdom was to bring our tempers down to ourcircumstances, and to make a calm within, under the weight of thegreatest storms without. When he came first hither, he said, heused to tear the hair from his head, and the clothes from his back,as others had done before him; but a little time and considerationhad made him look into himself, as well as round him to thingswithout; that he found the mind of man, if it was but once broughtto reflect upon the state of universal life, and how little thisworld was concerned in its true felicity, was perfectly capable ofmaking a felicity for itself, fully satisfying to itself, andsuitable to its own best ends and desires, with but very littleassistance from the world. That being now deprived of all thefancied felicity which he enjoyed in the full exercise of worldlypleasures, he said he was at leisure to look upon the dark side ofthem, where he found all manner of deformity; and was now convincedthat virtue only makes a man truly wise, rich, and great, andpreserves him in the way to a superior happiness in a future state;and in this, he said, they were more happy in their banishment thanall their enemies were, who had the full possession of all thewealth and power they had left behind them. "Nor, sir," says he,"do I bring my mind to this politically, from the necessity of mycircumstances, which some call miserable; but, if I know anythingof myself, I would not now go back, though the Czar my mastershould call me, and reinstate me in all my former grandeur."He spoke this with so much warmth in his temper, so muchearnestness and motion of his spirits, that it was evident it wasthe true sense of his soul; there was no room to doubt hissincerity. I told him I once thought myself a kind of monarch inmy old station, of which I had given him an account; but that Ithought he was not only a monarch, but a great conqueror; for hethat had got a victory over his own exorbitant desires, and theabsolute dominion over himself, he whose reason entirely governshis will, is certainly greater than he that conquers a city.I had been here eight months, and a dark, dreadful winter I thoughtit; the cold so intense that I could not so much as look abroadwithout being wrapped in furs, and a kind of mask of fur before myface, with only a hole for breath, and two for sight: the littledaylight we had was for three months not above five hours a day,and six at most; only that the snow lying on the groundcontinually, and the weather being clear, it was never quite dark.Our horses were kept, or rather starved, underground; and as forour servants, whom we hired here to look after ourselves andhorses, we had, every now and then, their fingers and toes to thawand take care of, lest they should mortify and fall off.It is true, within doors we were warm, the houses being close, thewalls thick, the windows small, and the glass all double. Our foodwas chiefly the flesh of deer, dried and cured in the season; breadgood enough, but baked as biscuits; dried fish of several sorts,and some flesh of mutton, and of buffaloes, which is pretty goodmeat. All the stores of provisions for the winter are laid up inthe summer, and well cured: our drink was water, mixed with aquavitae instead of brandy; and for a treat, mead instead of wine,which, however, they have very good. The hunters, who ventureabroad all weathers, frequently brought us in fine venison, andsometimes bear's flesh, but we did not much care for the last. Wehad a good stock of tea, with which we treated our friends, and welived cheerfully and well, all things considered.It was now March, the days grown considerably longer, and theweather at least tolerable; so the other travellers began toprepare sledges to carry them over the snow, and to get thingsready to be going; but my measures being fixed, as I have said, forArchangel, and not for Muscovy or the Baltic, I made no motion;knowing very well that the ships from the south do not set out forthat part of the world till May or June, and that if I was there bythe beginning of August, it would be as soon as any ships would beready to sail. Therefore I made no haste to be gone, as othersdid: in a word, I saw a great many people, nay, all thetravellers, go away before me. It seems every year they go fromthence to Muscovy, for trade, to carry furs, and buy necessaries,which they bring back with them to furnish their shops: alsoothers went on the same errand to Archangel.In the month of May I began to make all ready to pack up; and, as Iwas doing this, it occurred to me that, seeing all these peoplewere banished by the Czar to Siberia, and yet, when they camethere, were left at liberty to go whither they would, why they didnot then go away to any part of the world, wherever they thoughtfit: and I began to examine what should hinder them from makingsuch an attempt. But my wonder was over when I entered upon thatsubject with the person I have mentioned, who answered me thus:"Consider, first, sir," said he, "the place where we are; and,secondly, the condition we are in; especially the generality of thepeople who are banished thither. We are surrounded with strongerthings than bars or bolts; on the north side, an unnavigable ocean,where ship never sailed, and boat never swam; every other way wehave above a thousand miles to pass through the Czar's owndominion, and by ways utterly impassable, except by the roads madeby the government, and through the towns garrisoned by his troops;in short, we could neither pass undiscovered by the road, norsubsist any other way, so that it is in vain to attempt it."I was silenced at once, and found that they were in a prison everyjot as secure as if they had been locked up in the castle atMoscow: however, it came into my thoughts that I might certainlybe made an instrument to procure the escape of this excellentperson; and that, whatever hazard I ran, I would certainly try if Icould carry him off. Upon this, I took an occasion one evening totell him my thoughts. I represented to him that it was very easyfor me to carry him away, there being no guard over him in thecountry; and as I was not going to Moscow, but to Archangel, andthat I went in the retinue of a caravan, by which I was not obligedto lie in the stationary towns in the desert, but could encampevery night where I would, we might easily pass uninterrupted toArchangel, where I would immediately secure him on board an Englishship, and carry him safe along with me; and as to his subsistenceand other particulars, it should be my care till he could bettersupply himself.He heard me very attentively, and looked earnestly on me all thewhile I spoke; nay, I could see in his very face that what I saidput his spirits into an exceeding ferment; his colour frequentlychanged, his eyes looked red, and his heart fluttered, till itmight be even perceived in his countenance; nor could heimmediately answer me when I had done, and, as it were, hesitatedwhat he would say to it; but after he had paused a little, heembraced me, and said, "How unhappy are we, unguarded creatures aswe are, that even our greatest acts of friendship are made snaresunto us, and we are made tempters of one another!" He thenheartily thanked me for my offers of service, but withstoodresolutely the arguments I used to urge him to set himself free.He declared, in earnest terms, that he was fully bent on remainingwhere he was rather than seek to return to his former miserablegreatness, as he called it: where the seeds of pride, ambition,avarice, and luxury might revive, take root, and again overwhelmhim. "Let me remain, dear sir," he said, in conclusion - "let meremain in this blessed confinement, banished from the crimes oflife, rather than purchase a show of freedom at the expense of theliberty of my reason, and at the future happiness which I now havein my view, but should then, I fear, quickly lose sight of; for Iam but flesh; a man, a mere man; and have passions and affectionsas likely to possess and overthrow me as any man: Oh, be not myfriend and tempter both together!"If I was surprised before, I was quite dumb now, and stood silent,looking at him, and, indeed, admiring what I saw. The struggle inhis soul was so great that, though the weather was extremely cold,it put him into a most violent heat; so I said a word or two, thatI would leave him to consider of it, and wait on him again, andthen I withdrew to my own apartment.About two hours after I heard somebody at or near the door of myroom, and I was going to open the door, but he had opened it andcome in. "My dear friend," says he, "you had almost overset me,but I am recovered. Do not take it ill that I do not close withyour offer. I assure you it is not for want of sense of thekindness of it in you; and I came to make the most sincereacknowledgment of it to you; but I hope I have got the victory overmyself." - "My lord," said I, "I hope you are fully satisfied thatyou do not resist the call of Heaven." - "Sir," said he, "if it hadbeen from Heaven, the same power would have influenced me to haveaccepted it; but I hope, and am fully satisfied, that it is fromHeaven that I decline it, and I have infinite satisfaction in theparting, that you shall leave me an honest man still, though not afree man."I had nothing to do but to acquiesce, and make professions to himof my having no end in it but a sincere desire to serve him. Heembraced me very passionately, and assured me he was sensible ofthat, and should always acknowledge it; and with that he offered mea very fine present of sables - too much, indeed, for me to acceptfrom a man in his circumstances, and I would have avoided them, buthe would not be refused. The next morning I sent my servant to hislordship with a small present of tea, and two pieces of Chinadamask, and four little wedges of Japan gold, which did not allweigh above six ounces or thereabouts, but were far short of thevalue of his sables, which, when I came to England, I found worthnear two hundred pounds. He accepted the tea, and one piece of thedamask, and one of the pieces of gold, which had a fine stamp uponit, of the Japan coinage, which I found he took for the rarity ofit, but would not take any more: and he sent word by my servantthat he desired to speak with me.When I came to him he told me I knew what had passed between us,and hoped I would not move him any more in that affair; but that,since I had made such a generous offer to him, he asked me if I hadkindness enough to offer the same to another person that he wouldname to me, in whom he had a great share of concern. In a word, hetold me it was his only son; who, though I had not seen him, was inthe same condition with himself, and above two hundred miles fromhim, on the other side of the Oby; but that, if I consented, hewould send for him.I made no hesitation, but told him I would do it. I made someceremony in letting him understand that it was wholly on hisaccount; and that, seeing I could not prevail on him, I would showmy respect to him by my concern for his son. He sent the next dayfor his son; and in about twenty days he came back with themessenger, bringing six or seven horses, loaded with very richfurs, which, in the whole, amounted to a very great value. Hisservants brought the horses into the town, but left the young lordat a distance till night, when he came incognito into ourapartment, and his father presented him to me; and, in short, weconcerted the manner of our travelling, and everything proper forthe journey.I had bought a considerable quantity of sables, black fox-skins,fine ermines, and such other furs as are very rich in that city, inexchange for some of the goods I had brought from China; inparticular for the cloves and nutmegs, of which I sold the greatestpart here, and the rest afterwards at Archangel, for a much betterprice than I could have got at London; and my partner, who wassensible of the profit, and whose business, more particularly thanmine, was merchandise, was mightily pleased with our stay, onaccount of the traffic we made here.It was the beginning of June when I left this remote place. Wewere now reduced to a very small caravan, having only thirty-twohorses and camels in all, which passed for mine, though my newguest was proprietor of eleven of them. It was natural also that Ishould take more servants with me than I had before; and the younglord passed for my steward; what great man I passed for myself Iknow not, neither did it concern me to inquire. We had here theworst and the largest desert to pass over that we met with in ourwhole journey; I call it the worst, because the way was very deepin some places, and very uneven in others; the best we had to sayfor it was, that we thought we had no troops of Tartars or robbersto fear, as they never came on this side of the river Oby, or atleast very seldom; but we found it otherwise.My young lord had a faithful Siberian servant, who was perfectlyacquainted with the country, and led us by private roads, so thatwe avoided coming into the principal towns and cities upon thegreat road, such as Tumen, Soloy Kamaskoy, and several others;because the Muscovite garrisons which are kept there are verycurious and strict in their observation upon travellers, andsearching lest any of the banished persons of note should maketheir escape that way into Muscovy; but, by this means, as we werekept out of the cities, so our whole journey was a desert, and wewere obliged to encamp and lie in our tents, when we might have hadvery good accommodation in the cities on the way; this the younglord was so sensible of, that he would not allow us to lie abroadwhen we came to several cities on the way, but lay abroad himself,with his servant, in the woods, and met us always at the appointedplaces.We had just entered Europe, having passed the river Kama, which inthese parts is the boundary between Europe and Asia, and the firstcity on the European side was called Soloy Kamaskoy, that is, thegreat city on the river Kama. And here we thought to see someevident alteration in the people; but we were mistaken, for as wehad a vast desert to pass, which is near seven hundred miles longin some places, but not above two hundred miles over where wepassed it, so, till we came past that horrible place, we found verylittle difference between that country and Mogul Tartary. Thepeople are mostly pagans; their houses and towns full of idols; andtheir way of living wholly barbarous, except in the cities andvillages near them, where they are Christians, as they callthemselves, of the Greek Church: but have their religion mingledwith so many relics of superstition, that it is scarce to be knownin some places from mere sorcery and witchcraft.In passing this forest (after all our dangers were, to ourimagination, escaped), I thought, indeed, we must have beenplundered and robbed, and perhaps murdered, by a troop of thieves:of what country they were I am yet at a loss to know; but they wereall on horseback, carried bows and arrows, and were at first aboutforty-five in number. They came so near to us as to be within twomusket-shot, and, asking no questions, surrounded us with theirhorses, and looked very earnestly upon us twice; at length, theyplaced themselves just in our way; upon which we drew up in alittle line, before our camels, being not above sixteen men in all.Thus drawn up, we halted, and sent out the Siberian servant, whoattended his lord, to see who they were; his master was the morewilling to let him go, because he was not a little apprehensivethat they were a Siberian troop sent out after him. The man cameup near them with a flag of truce, and called to them; but thoughhe spoke several of their languages, or dialects of languagesrather, he could not understand a word they said; however, aftersome signs to him not to come near them at his peril, the fellowcame back no wiser than he went; only that by their dress, he said,he believed them to be some Tartars of Kalmuck, or of theCircassian hordes, and that there must be more of them upon thegreat desert, though he never heard that any of them were seen sofar north before.This was small comfort to us; however, we had no remedy: there wason our left hand, at about a quarter of a mile distance, a littlegrove, and very near the road. I immediately resolved we shouldadvance to those trees, and fortify ourselves as well as we couldthere; for, first, I considered that the trees would in a greatmeasure cover us from their arrows; and, in the next place, theycould not come to charge us in a body: it was, indeed, my oldPortuguese pilot who proposed it, and who had this excellencyattending him, that he was always readiest and most apt to directand encourage us in cases of the most danger. We advancedimmediately, with what speed we could, and gained that little wood;the Tartars, or thieves, for we knew not what to call them, keepingtheir stand, and not attempting to hinder us. When we camethither, we found, to our great satisfaction, that it was a swampypiece of ground, and on the one side a very great spring of water,which, running out in a little brook, was a little farther joinedby another of the like size; and was, in short, the source of aconsiderable river, called afterwards the Wirtska; the trees whichgrew about this spring were not above two hundred, but very large,and stood pretty thick, so that as soon as we got in, we sawourselves perfectly safe from the enemy unless they attacked us onfoot.While we stayed here waiting the motion of the enemy some hours,without perceiving that they made any movement, our Portuguese,with some help, cut several arms of trees half off, and laid themhanging across from one tree to another, and in a manner fenced usin. About two hours before night they came down directly upon us;and though we had not perceived it, we found they had been joinedby some more, so that they were near fourscore horse; whereof,however, we fancied some were women. They came on till they werewithin half-shot of our little wood, when we fired one musketwithout ball, and called to them in the Russian tongue to know whatthey wanted, and bade them keep off; but they came on with a doublefury up to the wood-side, not imagining we were so barricaded thatthey could not easily break in. Our old pilot was our captain aswell as our engineer, and desired us not to fire upon them tillthey came within pistol-shot, that we might be sure to kill, andthat when we did fire we should be sure to take good aim; we badehim give the word of command, which he delayed so long that theywere some of them within two pikes' length of us when we let fly.We aimed so true that we killed fourteen of them, and woundedseveral others, as also several of their horses; for we had all ofus loaded our pieces with two or three bullets apiece at least.They were terribly surprised with our fire, and retreatedimmediately about one hundred rods from us; in which time we loadedour pieces again, and seeing them keep that distance, we salliedout, and caught four or five of their horses, whose riders wesupposed were killed; and coming up to the dead, we judged theywere Tartars, but knew not how they came to make an excursion suchan unusual length.About an hour after they again made a motion to attack us, and roderound our little wood to see where they might break in; but findingus always ready to face them, they went off again; and we resolvednot to stir for that night.We slept little, but spent the most part of the night instrengthening our situation, and barricading the entrances into thewood, and keeping a strict watch. We waited for daylight, and whenit came, it gave us a very unwelcome discovery indeed; for theenemy, who we thought were discouraged with the reception they metwith, were now greatly increased, and had set up eleven or twelvehuts or tents, as if they were resolved to besiege us; and thislittle camp they had pitched upon the open plain, about three-quarters of a mile from us. I confess I now gave myself over forlost, and all that I had; the loss of my effects did not lie sonear me, though very considerable, as the thoughts of falling intothe hands of such barbarians at the latter end of my journey, afterso many difficulties and hazards as I had gone through, and even insight of our port, where we expected safety and deliverance. As tomy partner, he was raging, and declared that to lose his goodswould be his ruin, and that he would rather die than be starved,and he was for fighting to the last drop.The young lord, a most gallant youth, was for fighting to the lastalso; and my old pilot was of opinion that we were able to resistthem all in the situation we were then in. Thus we spent the dayin debates of what we should do; but towards evening we found thatthe number of our enemies still increased, and we did not know butby the morning they might still be a greater number: so I began toinquire of those people we had brought from Tobolski if there wereno private ways by which we might avoid them in the night, andperhaps retreat to some town, or get help to guard us over thedesert. The young lord's Siberian servant told us, if we designedto avoid them, and not fight, he would engage to carry us off inthe night, to a way that went north, towards the river Petruz, bywhich he made no question but we might get away, and the Tartarsnever discover it; but, he said, his lord had told him he would notretreat, but would rather choose to fight. I told him he mistookhis lord: for that he was too wise a man to love fighting for thesake of it; that I knew he was brave enough by what he had showedalready; but that he knew better than to desire seventeen oreighteen men to fight five hundred, unless an unavoidable necessityforced them to it; and that if he thought it possible for us toescape in the night, we had nothing else to do but to attempt it.He answered, if his lordship gave him such orders, he would losehis life if he did not perform it; we soon brought his lord to givethat order, though privately, and we immediately prepared forputting it in practice.And first, as soon as it began to be dark, we kindled a fire in ourlittle camp, which we kept burning, and prepared so as to make itburn all night, that the Tartars might conclude we were stillthere; but as soon as it was dark, and we could see the stars (forour guide would not stir before), having all our horses and camelsready loaded, we followed our new guide, who I soon found steeredhimself by the north star, the country being level for a long way.After we had travelled two hours very hard, it began to be lighterstill; not that it was dark all night, but the moon began to rise,so that, in short, it was rather lighter than we wished it to be;but by six o'clock the next morning we had got above thirty miles,having almost spoiled our horses. Here we found a Russian village,named Kermazinskoy, where we rested, and heard nothing of theKalmuck Tartars that day. About two hours before night we set outagain, and travelled till eight the next morning, though not quiteso hard as before; and about seven o'clock we passed a littleriver, called Kirtza, and came to a good large town inhabited byRussians, called Ozomys; there we heard that several troops ofKalmucks had been abroad upon the desert, but that we were nowcompletely out of danger of them, which was to our greatsatisfaction. Here we were obliged to get some fresh horses, andhaving need enough of rest, we stayed five days; and my partner andI agreed to give the honest Siberian who conducted us thither thevalue of ten pistoles.In five days more we came to Veussima, upon the river Witzogda, andrunning into the Dwina: we were there, very happily, near the endof our travels by land, that river being navigable, in seven days'passage, to Archangel. From hence we came to Lawremskoy, the 3rdof July; and providing ourselves with two luggage boats, and abarge for our own convenience, we embarked the 7th, and arrived allsafe at Archangel the 18th; having been a year, five months, andthree days on the journey, including our stay of about eight monthsat Tobolski.We were obliged to stay at this place six weeks for the arrival ofthe ships, and must have tarried longer, had not a Hamburgher comein above a month sooner than any of the English ships; when, aftersome consideration that the city of Hamburgh might happen to be asgood a market for our goods as London, we all took freight withhim; and, having put our goods on board, it was most natural for meto put my steward on board to take care of them; by which means myyoung lord had a sufficient opportunity to conceal himself, nevercoming on shore again all the time we stayed there; and this he didthat he might not be seen in the city, where some of the Moscowmerchants would certainly have seen and discovered him.We then set sail from Archangel the 20th of August, the same year;and, after no extraordinary bad voyage, arrived safe in the Elbethe 18th of September. Here my partner and I found a very goodsale for our goods, as well those of China as the sables, &c., ofSiberia: and, dividing the produce, my share amounted to 3475pounds, 17s 3d., including about six hundred pounds' worth ofdiamonds, which I purchased at Bengal.Here the young lord took his leave of us, and went up the Elbe, inorder to go to the court of Vienna, where he resolved to seekprotection and could correspond with those of his father's friendswho were left alive. He did not part without testimonials ofgratitude for the service I had done him, and for my kindness tothe prince, his father.To conclude: having stayed near four months in Hamburgh, I camefrom thence by land to the Hague, where I embarked in the packet,and arrived in London the 10th of January 1705, having been absentfrom England ten years and nine months. And here, resolving toharass myself no more, I am preparing for a longer journey than allthese, having lived seventy-two years a life of infinite variety,and learned sufficiently to know the value of retirement, and theblessing of ending our days in peace.