I am Left Stranded

Chapter 3

They asked me what I was, in Portuguese and in Spanish and in French, but I understood none of them. But at last a Scotch sailor who was on board called to me. I answered him, and told him I was an Englishman, that I had made my escape out of slavery from the Moors at Sallee. Then they bade me come on board, and very kindly took me in and all my goods.
It was an inexpressible joy to me—that any one would believe—that I was thus delivered, as I esteemed it, from such a miserable and almost hopeless condition as I was in. I immediately offered all I had to the captain of the ship as a return for my deliverance. But he generously told me he would take nothing from me, but that all I had should be delivered safe to me when I came to Brazil.
As he was charitable in his proposal, so he was just in the performance to a tittle. He ordered the seamen that none should offer to touch anything I had. Then he took everything into his own possession, and gave me back an exact inventory of them, that I might have them, even so much as my three earthen jars.
As to my boat it was a very good one, and that he saw, and told me he would buy it of me for the use of the ship, and asked me what I would have for it. I told him he had been so generous to me in everything, that I could not offer to make any price of the boat, but left it entirely to him. Upon which he told me he would give me a note of his hand to pay me eighty pieces of eight for it at Brazil, and when it came there, if anyone offered to give more, he would make it up. He offered me also sixty pieces of eight for my boy Xury; which I loathed to take: not that I was not willing to let the captain have him, but I loathed to sell the poor boy’s liberty, who had assisted me so faithfully in procuring my own. However, when I let him know my reason, he owned it to be just, and offered me this medium—that he would give the boy an obligation to set him free in ten years, if he turned Christian. Upon this, and Xury saying he was willing to go to him, I let the captain have him.
We had a very good voyage to Brazil, and arrived in the Bay de Todos los Santos, or All—Saint’s Bay, in about twenty-two days after. And now I was once more delivered from the most miserable of all conditions of life. What to do next with myself I was now to consider.

The generous treatment the captain gave me I could never enough remember. He would take nothing of me for my passage, and caused everything I had in the ship to be punctually delivered me. What I was willing to sell he bought, such as the case of bottles, two of my guns, and a piece of the lump of bees-wax, for I had made candles of the rest. In a word, I made about two hundred and twenty pieces of eight of all my cargo. With this stock I went on shore in Brazil.
I had not been long here, but being recommended to the house of a good honest man like himself, who had an “ingeino,” as they called it—that is, a plantation and a sugar-house—I lived with him some time, and acquainted myself by that means with the manner of their planting and making of sugar. And seeing how well the planters lived, and how they grew rich suddenly, I resolved, if I could get licence to settle there. I would turn a planter among them. I resolved in the meantime to find out some way to get my money which I had left in London remitted to me.
Had I continued in the station I was now in. I would have had room for all the happy things yet to befall me for which my father so earnestly recommended a quiet, retired life.
As I had once done thus in my breaking away from my parents, so I could not be content now. But I must go and leave the happy view I had of being a rich and thriving man in my new plantation, only to pursue a rash and immoderate desire of rising faster than the nature of the thing admitted.
You may suppose that having now lived almost four years in Brazil, and beginning to thrive and prosper very well upon my plantation, I had not only learnt the language, but also had contracted acquaintance and friendship among my fellow-planters, as well as among the merchants of St. Salvadore, which was our port. In my discourses among them, I had frequently given them an account of my two voyages to the coast of Guinea, the manner of trading with the negroes there, and how easy it was to purchase upon the coast for trifles—such as beads, toys, knives, scissors, hatchets, bits of glass, and the like—not only gold dust, Guinea grains, elephant’s teeth etc, but negroes for the service of Brazil in great numbers.
They listened always very attentively to my discourses on these heads, but especially to that part which related to the buying negroes. It was a trade at that time not only not far entered into, but, as far as it was, had been carried on by the assiento, or permission of the Kings of Spain and Portugal, and engrossed in the public. So few negroes were brought, and those excessively dear.
It happened, being in company with some merchants and planters of my acquaintance, and talking of those things very earnestly, three of them came to me the next morning. And after enjoining me to secrecy, they told me that they had a mind to fit out a ship to go to Guinea. They had all plantations as well as I, and were straitened for nothing so much as servants. As it was a trade that could not be carried on, because they could not publicly sell the negroes when they came home, so they desired to make but one voyage, to bring the negroes on shore privately, and divide them among their owner. I would go as their supercargo in the ship to manage the trading part upon the coast of Guinea. And they offered me that I should have my equal share of the negroes, without providing any part of the stock.
This was a fair proposal, it must be confessed, had it been made to any one that had not had a settlement and plantation of his own to look after, which was in a fair way of coming to be very considerable, and with a good stock upon it. But for me that was thus entered and established, and had nothing to do but go on as I had begun for three or four years more, and who in that time, and with that little addition, could scarce have failed of being worth three or four thousand pounds sterling, and that increasing too. For me to think of such a voyage was the most preposterous thing that ever man in such circumstances could be guilty of.
I told them I would go with all my heart if they would undertake to look after my plantation in my absence, and would dispose of it to such as I should direct if I miscarried. This they all engaged to do, and entered into writings or covenants to do so. I made a formal will, disposing of my plantation and effects, in case of my death, making the captain of the ship that had saved my life, as before, my universal heir, but obliging him to dispose of my effects as I had directed in my will—one-half of the produce being to himself, and the other to be shipped to England.
Our ship was about 120 ton burthen; it carried six guns and fourteen men, besides the master, his boy, and myself. We had on board no large cargo of goods, except of such toys as were fit for our trade with the negroes—such as beads, bits of glass, shells and odd trifles, especially little looking-glasses, knives, scissors, hatchets and the like.
The same day I went on board we set sail, standing away to the northwards upon our own coast, with design to stretch over for the African coast when they came about 10 or 12 degrees of northern latitude. It seemed, was the manner of their course in those days. We had very good weather, only excessively hot, all the way upon our own coast, till we came to the height of Cape St. Augustino. From whence, keeping farther off at sea, we lost sight of land, and steered as if we were bound for the Isle Fernand de Noronha, holding our course north-east by north, and leaving those isles on the east. In this course we passed the line in about twelve days’ time. We were by our last observation in 7 degrees 22 minutes northern latitude, when a violent tornado or hurricane took us quite out of our knowledge. It began from the south-east; from whence it blew in such a terrible manner that for twelve days together we could do nothing but drive, and, scudding away before it, let it carry us wither even fate and the fury of the winds directed. And during these twelve days I expected every day to be swallowed up; nor, indeed, did any in the ship expect to save his/her life.
In this distress, we had, besides the terror of the storm, one of our men died of the calenture, and one man and the boy washed overboard. About the twelfth day, the weather abating a little, the master made an observation as well as he could, and found that he was in about 11 degrees north latitude, but that he was 22 degrees of longitude difference west from Cape St. Augustino. He found he had got upon the coast of Guiana, or the north part of Brazil, beyond the river Amazones, towards that of the river Oronoque, commonly called the Great River, and began to consult with me what course he should take. The ship was leaky and very much disabled, and he was going directly back to the coast of Brazil.
I was positively against that. Looking over the charts of the sea-coast of America with him, we concluded that there was no inhabited country for us to have recourse to till we came within the circle of the Carribbe Islands, and therefore resolved to stand away for Barbados. By keeping off at sea, to avoid the indraught of the Bay or Gulf of Mexico, we might easily perform, as we hoped, in about fifteen days’ sail. Whereas we could not possibly make our voyage to the coast of Africa without some assistance both to our ship and to ourselves.
With this design we changed our course, and steered away north-west by west, in order to reach some of our English Islands, where I hoped for relief. But our voyage was otherwise determined. Being in the latitude of 12 degrees 18 minutes, a second storm came upon us, which carried us away with the same impetuosity westward, and drove us so out of the very way of all human commerce, that had all our lives been saved as to the sea. We were rather in danger of being devoured by savages than ever returning to our own country.
In this distress, the wind still blowing very hard, one of our men early in the morning cried out “Land! and we had no sooner run out of the cabin to look out in the hope of seeing whereabouts in the world we were. But the ship struck upon a sand, and in a moment, her motion being so stopped, the sea broke over her in such a manner, that we expected we should all have perished immediately. We were immediately driven into our close quarters to shelter us from the very foam and spray of the sea.
It is not easy for anyone who has not been in the like condition to describe or conceive the consternation of men in such circumstances. We knew nothing where we were, or upon what land it was we were driven, whether an island or the main, whether inhabited or not inhabited. As the rage of the wind was still great, though rather less than at first, we could not so much as hope to have the ship hold many minutes without breaking in pieces, unless the winds by a kind of miracle should turn immediately about.
Now, though the wind did a little abate, yet the ship having thus struck upon the sand, and sticking too fast for us to expect her getting off, we were in a dreadful condition indeed, and had nothing to do but to think of saving our lives as well as we could. We had a boat at our stern just before the storm, but she was first staved by dashing against the rudder of the ship and in the next place she broke away, and either sank or was driven off to sea; so there was no hope from her. We had another boat on board; but how to get her off into the sea was a doubtful thing. However, there was no room to debate, for we fancied the ship would break in pieces every minute, and some told us she was actually broken already.
In this distress the mate of our vessel lay hold of the boat, and with the help of the rest of the men they got her slung over the ride of the ship and getting all into her, let go, and committed ourselves, being eleven in number, to God’s mercy and the wild sea; for though the storm was abated considerably, yet the sea went dreadfully high upon the shore.
And now our case was very dismal indeed; for we all saw plainly that the sea went so high that the boat could not live, and that we should be inevitably drowned. As to making sail, we had none; nor if we had, could we have done anything with it; so we worked at the oar towards the land, though with heavy hearts, like men going to execution; for we all knew that when the boat came nearer the shore she would be dashed in a thousand pieces by the breach of the sea. However, we committed our souls to God in the most earnest manner, and the wind driving us towards the shore we hastened our destruction with our own hands, pulling as well as we could towards land.
What the shore was—whether rock or sand, whether steep or shoal—we did not know the only hope that could rationally give us the least shadow of expectation was, if we might happen into some bay or gulf, or the mouth of some river, where by great chance we might have run our boat in, or got under the lee of the land, and perhaps made smooth water. But there was nothing of this appeared; but as we made nearer and nearer the shore, the land looked more frightful than the sea.
After we had rowed or rather driven about a league and a half, as we reckoned it, a raging wave, mountain-like, came rolling astern of us, and plainly bade us expect the coup de grace. In a word, it took us with such a fury, that it overset the boat at once, and separating us as well from the boat as from one another, gave us not time hardly to say, O God! for we were all swallowed up in a moment.

Nothing can describe the confusion of thought which I felt when I sank into the water; for though I swam very well, yet I could not deliver myself from the waves so as to draw breath, till that a wave, having driven me or rather carried me a vast way on towards the shore, and having spent itself, went back, and left me upon the land almost dry, but half-dead with the water I took in. I had so much presence of mind as well as breath left that, seeing myself nearer the mainland than I expected, I got upon my feet, and endeavoured to make on towards the land as fast as I could before another wave should return and take me up again. My business was to hold my breath and rise myself upon the water if I could, and so by swimming to preserve my breathing and pilot myself towards the shore if possible; my greatest concern now being that the sea, as it would carry me a great way towards the shore when it came on, might not carry me back again with it.
The wave that came upon me again buried me at once twenty or thirty feet deep in its own body; and I could feel myself carried with a mighty force and swiftness towards the shore a very great way; but I held my breath, and assisted myself to swim still forward with all my might. I was ready to burst with holding my breath, when, as I felt myself rising up, so to my immediate relief I found my head and hands shoot out above the surface of the water; and though it was not two seconds of time that I could keep myself so, yet it relieved me greatly, gave me breath and new courage. I was covered again with water a good while, but not so long but. I held it out; and finding the water had spent itself and began to return, I struck forward against the return of the waves, and felt ground again with my feet. I stood still a few moments to recover breath, and till the water went from me, and then took to my heels and ran with what strength I had farther towards the shore. But neither would this deliver me from the fury of the sea, which came pouring in after me again, and twice more I was lifted up by the waves and carried forward as before, the shore being very flat.
Now as the waves were not so high as at first, being near land, I held my breath till the wave abated, and then fetched another run, which brought me so near the shore, that the next wave, though it went over me, yet did not so swallow me up as to carry me away; and the next run I took I got to the mainland, where, to my great comfort, I clambered up the cliffs of the shore and sat me down upon the grass, free from danger, and quite out of the reach of the water.
I cast my eyes to the stranded vessel, when the breach and froth of the sea being so big, I could hardly see it, it lay so far off and considered, “Lord, how was it possible I could get on shore?”
After I had solaced my mind with the comfortable part of my condition, I began to look round me to see what kind of place I was in, and what was next to be done. I soon found my comforts abate, and that, in a word, I had a dreadful deliverance; for I was wet, had no clothes to shift me, nor anything either to eat or drink to comfort me, neither did I see any prospect before me but that of perishing with hunger, or being devoured by wild beasts. And that which was particularly afflicting to me was, that I had no weapon either to hunt and kill any creature for my sustenance, or to defend myself against any other creature that might desire to kill me for theirs; in a word, I had nothing about me but a knife, a tobacco-pipe and a little tobacco in a box.
All the remedy that offered to my thoughts at that time was, to get up into a thick bushy tree like a fir, but thorny, which grew near me, and where I resolved to sit all night, and consider the next day what death I should die; for as yet I saw no prospect of life. I walked about a furlong from the shore to see if I could find any fresh water to drink, which I did, to my great joy; and having drunk, and put a little tobacco in my mouth to prevent hunger, I went to the tree, and getting up into it, endeavoured to place myself so as that if I should sleep I might not fall; and having cut me a short stick like a truncheon for my defence, I took up my lodging, and having been excessively fatigued, I fell fast asleep, and slept as comfortably as, I believed, few could have done in my condition, and found myself the most refreshed with it that I thought I ever was on such an occasion.

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