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The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808)
He then told us, that he went to Batavia, where two of the seamen belonging to the ship had arrived, having deserted the rest in their travels; and gave an account, that the fellow who had run away with the ship, sold her at Bengal to a set of pirates, which were gone a-cruising in her; and that they had already taken an English ship, and two Dutch ships, very richly laden.
This latter part we found to concern us directly; and though we knew it to be false, yet, as my partner said very well, if we had fallen into their hands, and they had such a prepossession against us beforehand, it had been in vain for us to have defended ourselves, or to hope for any good quarters at their hands; especially considering that our accusers had been our judges, and that we could have expected nothing from them but what rage would have dictated, and ungoverned passion have executed; and therefore it was his opinion, we should go directly back to Bengal, from whence we came, without putting in at any port whatever; because there we could give an account of ourselves, and could prove where we were when the ship put in, whom we bought her of, and the like; and, which was more than all the rest, if we were put to the necessity of bringing it before the proper judges, we should be sure to have some justice; and not be hanged first, and judged afterwards.
I was some time of my partner's opinion; but after a little more serious thinking, I told him, I thought it was a very great hazard for us to attempt returning to Bengal, for that we were on the wrong side of the Straits of Malacca; and that if the alarm was given, we should be sure to be waylaid on every side, as well by the Dutch of Batavia, as the English elsewhere; that if we should be taken, as it were, running away, we should even condemn ourselves, and there would want no more evidence to destroy us. I also asked the English sailor's opinion, who said, he was of my mind, and that we should certainly be taken.
This danger a little startled my partner, and all the ship's company; and we immediately resolved to go away to the coast of Tonquin, and so on to China; and from thence pursuing the first design, as to trade, find some way or other to dispose of the ship, and come back in some of the vessels of the country, such as we could get. This was approved of as the best method for our security; and accordingly we steered away N.N.E. keeping above fifty leagues off from the usual course to the eastward.
This, however, put us to some inconvenience; for first the winds when we came to that distance from the shore, seemed to be more steadily against us, blowing almost trade as we call it, from the E. and E.N.E.; so that we were a long while upon our voyage, and we were but ill provided with victuals for so long a run; and, which was still worse, there was some danger that those English and Dutch ships, whose boats pursued us, whereof some were bound that way, might be got in before us; and if not, some other ship bound to China might have information of us from them, and pursue us with the same vigour.
I must confess I was now very uneasy, and thought myself, including the last escape from the long boats, to have been in the most dangerous condition that ever I was in through all my past life; for whatever ill circumstances I had been in, I was never pursued for a thief before; nor had I ever done any thing that merited the name of dishonest or fraudulent, much less thievish. I had chiefly been mine own enemy; or, as I may rightly say, I had been nobody's enemy but my own. But now I was embarrassed in the worst condition imaginable; for though I was perfectly innocent, I was in no condition to make that innocence appear: and if I had been taken, it had been under a supposed guilt of the worst kind; at least a crime esteemed so among the people I had to do with.
This made me very anxious to make an escape, though which way to do it I knew not; or what port or place we should go to. My partner, seeing me thus dejected, though he was the most concerned at first, began to encourage me; and describing to me the several ports of the coast, told me, he would put in on the coast of Cochinchina, or the bay of Tonquin; intending to go afterwards to Macao, a town once in the possession or the Portuguese, and where still a great many European families resided, and particularly the missionary priests usually went thither, in order to their going forward to China.
Hither we then resolved to go; and accordingly, though after a tedious and irregular course, and very much straitened for provisions, we came within sight of the coast very early in the morning; and upon reflection upon the past circumstances we were in, and the danger, if we had not escaped, we resolved to put into a small river, which, however, had depth enough of water for us, and to see if we could, either overland or by the ship's pinnace, come to know what ships were in any port thereabouts. This happy step was, indeed, our deliverance; for though we did not immediately see any European ships in the bay of Tonquin, yet the next morning there came into the bay two Dutch ships; and a third without any colours; spread out, but which we believed to be a Dutchman, passed by at about two leagues distance, steering for the coast of China; and in the afternoon went by two English ships, steering the same course; and thus we thought we saw ourselves beset with enemies, both one way and the other. The place we were in was wild and barbarous, the people thieves, even by occupation or profession; and though, it is true, we had not much to seek of them, and except getting a few provisions, cared not how little we had to do with them; yet it was with much difficulty that we kept ourselves from being insulted by them several ways.
We were in a small river of this country, within a few leagues of its utmost limits northward, and by our boat we coasted north-east to the point of land which opens to the great bay of Tonquin: and it was in this beating up along the shore that we discovered as above, that, in a word, we were surrounded with enemies. The people we were among were the most barbarous of all the inhabitants of the coast; having no correspondence with any other nation, and dealing only in fish and oil, and such gross commodities; and it may be particularly seen that they are, as I said, the most barbarous of any of the inhabitants, viz. that among other customs they have this one, that if any vessel had the misfortune to be shipwrecked upon their coast, they presently make the men all prisoners; that is to say, slaves; and it was not long before we found a spice of their kindness this way, on the occasion following:
I have observed above that our ship sprung a leak at sea, and that we could not find it out: and however it happened, that, as I have said, it was stopped unexpectedly, in the happy minute of our being to be seized by the Dutch and English ships, near the bay of Siam; yet, as we did not find the ship so perfectly tight and sound as we desired, we resolved, while we were in this place, to lay her on shore, take out what heavy things we had on board, which were not many, and to wash and clean her bottom, and if possible to find out where the leaks were.
Accordingly, having lightened the ship, and brought all our guns, and other moveable things, to one side, we tried to bring her down, that we might come at her bottom; for, on second thoughts, we did not care to lay her dry aground, neither could we find out a proper place for it.
The inhabitants, who had never been acquainted with such a sight, came wondering down to the shore to look at us; and seeing the ship lie down on one side in such a manner, and heeling towards the shore, and not seeing our men, who were at work on her bottom with stages, and with their boats, on the off side, they presently concluded that the ship was cast away, and lay so very fast on the ground.
On this supposition they came all about us in two or three hours time, with ten or twelve large boats, having some of them eight, some ten men in a boat, intending, no doubt, to have come on board and plunder the ship; and if they had found us there, to have carried us away for slaves to their king, or whatever they call him, for we knew not who was their governor.
When they came up to the ship, and began to row round her, they discovered us all hard at work, on the outside of the ship's bottom and side, washing, and graving, and stopping, as every seafaring man knows how.
They stood for awhile gazing at us, and we, who were a little surprised, could not imagine what their design was; but being willing to be sure, we took this opportunity to get some of us into the ship, and others to hand down arms and ammunition to those that were at work to defend themselves with, if there should be occasion; and it was no more than need; for in less than a quarter of an hour's consultation, they agreed, it seems, that the ship was really a wreck; that we were all at work endeavouring to save her, or to save our lives by the help of our boats; and when we handed our arms into the boats, they concluded by that motion that we were endeavouring to save some of our goods. Upon this they took it for granted they all belonged to them, and away they came directly upon our men, as if it had been in a line of battle.
Our men seeing so many of them began to be frighted, for we lay but in an ill posture to fight, and cried out to us to know what they should do? I immediately called to the men who worked upon the 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; and those few of us who were on board worked with all the strength and hands we had to bring the ship to rights; but, however, neither the men upon the stage, nor those in the boats, could do as they were ordered, before the Cochinchinese were upon them, and with two of their boats boarded our long-boat, 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 to fire 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; for he grappled the Pagan, and dragged him by main force out of their own boat into ours; where taking him by the two ears, he beat his head so against the boat's gunnel, that the fellow died instantly in his hands; and in the mean time a Dutchman, who stood next, took up the musket, and with the but-end of it so laid about him, that he knocked down five of them who attempted to enter the boat. But this was little towards resisting thirty or forty men, who fearless, because ignorant of their danger, began to throw themselves into the long-boat, where we had but five men to defend it. But one accident gave our men a complete victory, which deserved our laughter rather than any thing else, and that was this: -
Our carpenter being prepared to grave the outside of the ship, as well as to pay the seams where he had caulked her to stop the leaks, had got two kettles just let down into the boat; one filled with boiling pitch, and the other with rosin, tallow, and oil, and such stuff as the shipwrights used for that work; and the man that tended the carpenter had a great iron ladle in his hand, with which he supplied the men that were at work with that hot stuff: two of the enemy's men entered the boat just where this fellow stood, being in the fore-sheets; he immediately sainted them with a ladleful of the stuff, boiling hot, which so burnt and scalded them, being half naked, that they roared out like two bulls, and, enraged with the fire, leaped both into the sea. The carpenter saw it, and cried out, "Well done, Jack, give them some more of it;" when stepping forward himself, he takes one of their mops, and dipping it in the pitch-pot, he and his man threw it among them so plentifully, that, in short, of all the men in three boats, there was not one that was not scalded and burnt with it in a most frightful, pitiful manner, and made such a howling and crying, that I never heard a worse noise, and, indeed, nothing like it; for it was worth observing, that though pain naturally makes all people cry out, yet every nation have a particular way of exclamation, and make noises as different from one another as their speech. I cannot give the noise these creatures made a better name than howling, nor a name more proper to the tone of it; for I never heard any thing more like the noise of the wolves, which, as I have said, I heard howl in the forest on the frontiers of Languedoc.
I was never pleased with a victory better in my life; not only as it was a perfect surprise to me, and that our danger was imminent before; but as we got this victory without any bloodshed, except of that man the fellow killed with his naked hands, and which I was very much concerned at; for I was sick of killing such poor savage wretches, even though it was in my own defence, knowing they came on errands which they thought just, and knew no better; and that though it may be a just thing, because necessary, for there is no necessary wickedness in nature; yet I thought it was a sad life, when we must be always obliged to be killing our fellow-creatures to preserve ourselves; and, indeed, I think so still; and I would, even now, suffer a great deal, rather than I would take away the life even of the worst person injuring me. I believe also, all considering people, who know the value of life, would be of my opinion, if they entered seriously into the consideration of it.
But to return to my story. All the while this was doing, my partner and I, who managed the rest of the men on board, had, with great dexterity, brought the ship almost to rights; and, having gotten the guns into their places again, the gunner called to me to bid our boat get out of the way, for he would let fly among them. I called back again to him, and bid him not offer to fire, for the carpenter would do the work without him; but bade him heat another pitch-kettle, which our cook, who was on board, took care of. But the enemy was so terrified with what they met with in their first attack, that they would not come on again; and some of them that were farthest off, seeing the ship swim, as it were, upright, began, as we supposed, to see their mistake, and gave over the enterprise, finding it was not as they expected. Thus we got clear of this merry fight; and having gotten some rice, and some roots and bread, with about sixteen good big hogs on board two days before, we resolved to stay here no longer, but go forward, whatever came of it; for we made no doubt but we should be surrounded the next day with rogues enough, perhaps more than our pitch-kettle would dispose of for us.
We therefore got all our things on board the same evening, and the next morning were ready to sail. In the meantime, lying at an anchor some distance from the shore, we were not so much concerned, being now in a lighting posture, as well as in a sailing posture, if any enemy had presented. The next day, having finished our work within board, and finding our ship was perfectly healed of all her leaks, we set sail. We would have gone into the bay of Tonquin, for we wanted to inform ourselves of what was to be known concerning the Dutch ships that had been there; but we durst not stand in there, because we had seen several ships go in, as we supposed, but a little before; so we kept on N.E. towards the isle of Formosa, as much afraid of being seen by a Dutch or English merchant-ship, as a Dutch or English merchant-ship in the Mediterranean is of an Algerine man of war.
When we were thus got to sea, we kept on N.E. as if we would go to the Manillas or the Philippine islands, and this we did, that we might not fall into the way of any of the European ships; and then we steered north again, till we came to the latitude of 22 degrees 20 minutes, by which means we made the island of Formosa directly, where we came to an anchor, in order to get water and fresh provisions, which the people there, who are very courteous and civil in their manners, supplied us with willingly, and dealt very fairly and punctually with us in all their agreements and bargains, which is what we did not find among other people, and may be owing to the remains of Christianity, which was once planted here by a Dutch mission of Protestants, and is a testimony of what I have often observed, viz. that the Christian religion always civilizes the people and reforms their manners, where it is received, whether it works saving effects upon them or not.
From hence we sailed still north, keeping the coast of China at an equal distance, till we knew we were beyond all the ports of China where our European ships usually come: but 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 being entirely ruined; nay, so great was my fear in particular, as to my being taken by them, that I believe firmly I would much rather have chosen to fall into the hands of the Spanish Inquisition.
Being now come to the latitude of 30 degrees, we resolved to put into the first trading port we should come at, and standing in for the shore, a boat came off two leagues to us, with an old Portuguese pilot on board, who, knowing us to be an European ship, came to offer his service, which indeed we were very glad of, and took him on board; upon which, without asking us whither we would go, he dismissed the boat he came in, and sent it back.
I thought it was now so much in our choice to make the old man carry us whither we would, that I began to talk with him about carrying us to the gulf of Nanquin, which is the most northern part of the coast of China. The old man said he knew the gulf of Nanquin very well; but smiling, asked us what we would do there?
I told him we would sell our cargo, and purchase China wares, calicoes, raw silks, tea, wrought silks, &c. and so would return by the same course we came. He told us our best port had been to have put in at Macao, where we could not fail of a market for our opium to our satisfaction, and might, for our money, have purchased all sorts of China goods as cheap as we could at Nanquin.
Not being able to put the old man out of his talk, of which he was very opinionated, or conceited, I told him we were gentlemen as well as merchants, and that we had a mind to go and see the great city of Pekin, and the famous court of the monarch of China. "Why then," says the old man, "you should go to Ningpo, where, by the river that runs into the sea there, you may go up within five leagues of the great canal. This canal is a navigable made stream, which goes through the heart of all that vast empire of China, crosses all the rivers, passes some considerable hills by the help of sluices and gates, and goes up to the city of Pekin, being in length near two hundred and seventy leagues."
"Well," said I, "Seignior Portuguese, but that is not our business now; the great question is, if you can carry us up to the city of Nanquin, from whence we can travel to Pekin afterwards?" Yes, he said, he could do so very well, and there was a great Dutch ship gone up that way just before. This gave me a little shock; a Dutch ship was now our terror, and we had much rather have met the devil, at least if he had not come in too frightful a figure; we depended upon it that a Dutch ship would be our destruction, for we were in no condition to fight them; all the ships they trade with in those parts being of great burden, and of much greater force than we were.
The old man found me a little confused, and under some concern, when he named a Dutch ship: and said to me, "Sir, you need be under no apprehension of the Dutch; I suppose they are not now at war with your nation." – "No," said I, "that's true; but I know not what liberties men may take when they are out of the reach of the laws of their country." – "Why," said he, "you are no pirates, what need you fear? They will not meddle with peaceable merchants, sure."
If I had any blood in my body that did not fly up into my face at that word, it was hindered by some stop in the vessels appointed by nature to circulate it; for it put me into the greatest disorder and confusion imaginable; nor was it possible for me to conceal it so, but that the old man easily perceived it.
"Sir," said he, "I find you are in some disorder in your thoughts at my talk; pray be pleased to go which way you think fit, and depend upon it I'll do you all the service I can." – "Why, Seignior," said I, "it is true, I am a little unsettled in my resolution at this time, whither to go in particular; and I am something more so for what you said about pirates. I hope there are no pirates in these seas; we are but in an ill condition to meet with them; for you see we have but a small force, and but very weakly manned."
"O Sir," said he, "do not be concerned; I do not know that there have been any pirates in these seas these fifteen years, except one, which was seen, as I hear, in the bay of Siam, about a month since; but you may be assured she is gone to the southward; nor was she a ship of any great force, or fit for the work; she was not built for a privateer, but was run away with by a reprobate crew that were on board, after the captain and some of his men had been murdered by the Malaccans, at or near the island of Sumatra."
"What!" said I, seeming to know nothing of the matter, "did they murder the captain?" – "No," said he, "I do not understand that they murdered him; but as they afterwards ran away with the ship, it is generally believed they betrayed him into the hands of the Malaccans, who did murder him; and, perhaps, they procured them to do it." – "Why then," said I, "they deserved death, as much as if they had done it themselves." – "Nay," said the old man, "they do deserve it, and they will certainly have it if they light upon any English or Dutch ship; for they have all agreed together that if they meet that rogue they will give him no quarter."
"But," said I to him, "you say the pirate is gone out of these seas; how can they meet with him then?" – "Why, that is true," said he, "they do say so; but he was, as I tell you, in the bay of Siam, in the river Cambodia, and was discovered there by some Dutchmen who belonged to the ship, and who were left on shore when they ran away with her; and some English and Dutch traders being in the river, they were within a little of taking him. Nay," said he, "if the foremost boats had been well seconded by the rest, they had certainly taken him; but he finding only two boats within reach of him, tacked about, and fired at these two, and disabled them before the others came up; and then standing off to sea, the others were not able to follow him, and so he got away. But they have all so exact a description of the ship, that they will be sure to know him; and where-ever they find him, they have vowed to give no quarter to either the captain or the seamen, but to hang them all up at the yard-arm."
"What!" said I, "will they execute them, right or wrong; hang them first, and judge them afterwards?" – "O Sir!" said the old pilot, "there is no need to make a formal business of it with such rogues as those; let them tie them back to back, and set them a-diving; it is no more than they rightly deserve."
I knew I had my old man fast aboard, and that he could do me no harm; so I turned short upon him. "Well, Seignior," said I, "and this is the very reason why I would have you carry us to Nanquin, and not to put back to Macao, or to any other part of the country where the English or Dutch ships came; for be it known to you, Seignior, those captains of the English and Dutch ships are a parcel of rash, proud, insolent fellows, that neither know what belongs to justice, or how to behave themselves as the laws of God and nature direct; but being proud of their offices, and not understanding their power, they would get the murderers to punish robbers; would take upon them to insult men falsely accused, and determine them guilty without due inquiry; and perhaps I may live to call some of them to an account of it, where they may be taught how justice is to be executed; and that no man ought to be treated as a criminal till some evidence may be had of the crime, and that he is the man."
With this I told him, that this was the very ship they had attacked; and gave him a full account of the skirmish we had with their boats, and how foolishly and coward-like they had behaved. I told him all the story of our buying the ship, and how the Dutchmen served us. I told him the reasons I had to believe that this story of killing the master by the Malaccans was not true; as also the running away with the ship; but that it was all a fiction of their own, to suggest that the men were turned pirates; and they ought to have been sure it was so, before they had ventured to attack us by surprise, and oblige us so resist them; adding, that they would have the blood of those men who were killed there, in our just defence, to answer for.
The old man was amazed at this relation; and told us, we were very much in the right to go away to the north; and that if he might advise us, it should be to sell the ship in China, which we might very well do, and buy or build another in the country; "And," said he, "though you will not get so good a ship, yet you may get one able enough to carry you and all your goods back again to Bengal, or any where else."
I told him I would take his advice when I came to any port where I could find a ship for my turn, or get any customer to buy this. He replied, I should meet with customers enough for the ship at Nanquin, and that a Chinese junk would serve me very well to go back again; and that he would procure me people both to buy one and sell the other.
"Well, but, Seignior," says I, "as you say they know the ship so well, I may, perhaps, if I follow your measures, be instrumental to bring some honest innocent men into a terrible broil, and, perhaps, be murdered in cold blood; for wherever they find the ship they will prove the guilt upon the men by proving this was the ship, and so innocent men may probably be overpowered and murdered." – "Why," said the old man, "I'll find out a way to prevent that also; for as I know all those commanders you speak of very well, and shall see them all as they pass by, I will be sure to set them to rights in the thing, and let them know that they had been so much in the wrong; that though the people who were on board at first might run away with the ship, yet it was not true that they had turned pirates; and that in particular those were not the men that first went off with the ship, but innocently bought her for their trade; and I am persuaded they will so far believe me, as, at least, to act more cautiously for the time to come." – "Well," said I, "and will you deliver one message to them from me?" – "Yes, I will," says he, "if you will give it under your hand in writing, that I may be able to prove it came from you, and not out of my own head." I answered, that I would readily give it him under my hand. So I took a pen and ink, and paper, and wrote at large the story of assaulting me with the long-boats, &c. the pretended reason of it, and the unjust, cruel design of it; and concluded to the commanders that they had done what they not only should have been ashamed or, but also, that if ever they came to England, and I lived to see them there, they should all pay dearly for it, if the laws of my country were not grown out of use before I arrived there.
My old pilot read this over and over again, and asked me several times if I would stand to it. I answered, I would stand to it as long as I had any thing left in the world; being sensible that I should, one time or other, find an opportunity to put it home to them. But we had no occasion ever to let the pilot carry this letter, for he never went back again. While those things were passing between us, by way of discourse, we went forward directly for Nanquin, and, in about thirteen days sail, came to anchor at the south-west point of the great gulf of Nanquin; where, by the way, I came by accident to understand, that the two Dutch ships were gone that length before me, and that I should certainly fall into their hands. I consulted my partner again in this exigency, and he was as much at a loss as I was, and would very gladly have been safe on shore almost any where. However, I was not in such perplexity neither, but I asked the old pilot if there was no creek or harbour, which I might 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 to the southward about two-and-forty leagues, there was a little port called Quinchang, where the fathers of the mission usually landed from Macao, on their progress to teach the Christian religion to the Chinese, and where no European ships ever put in: and, if I thought proper to put in there, I might consider what farther course to take when I was on shore. He confessed, he said, it was not a place for merchants, except that at some certain times they had a kind of a fair there, when the merchants from Japan came over thither to buy the Chinese merchandises.
We all agreed to go back to this place: the name of the port, as he called it, I may, perhaps, spell wrong, for I do not particularly remember it, having lost this, together with the names of many other places set down in a little pocket-book, which was spoiled by the water, on an accident which I shall relate in its order; but this I remember, that the Chinese or Japanese merchants we correspond with call it by a different name from that which our Portuguese pilot gave it, and pronounced it as above, Quinchang.
