and if we had surrendered prisoners to them, they could not answer
the destroying us, or torturing us, but would be accountable for it
when they came to their country. However, if they were to act thus
with us, what advantage would it be to us that they should be
called 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 they
came home?
I cannot refrain taking notice here what reflections I now had upon
the vast variety of my particular circumstances; how hard I thought
it that I, who had spent forty years in a life of continual
difficulties, and was at last come, as it were, to the port or
haven which all men drive at, viz. to have rest and plenty, should
be 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 be
hanged in my old age, and in so remote a place, for a crime which I
was not in the least inclined to, much less guilty of. After these
thoughts something of religion would come in; and I would be
considering that this seemed to me to be a disposition of immediate
Providence, 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 being
innocent as to my Maker; and I ought to look in and examine what
other crimes in my life were most obvious to me, and for which
Providence 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, and
then I would be talking myself up to vigorous resolutions; that I
would not be taken to be barbarously used by a parcel of merciless
wretches in cold blood; that it were much better to have fallen
into the hands of the savages, though I were sure they would feast
upon me when they had taken me, than those who would perhaps glut
their rage upon me by inhuman tortures and barbarities; that in the
case of the savages, I always resolved to die fighting to the last
gasp, and why should I not do so now? Whenever these thoughts
prevailed, I was sure to put myself into a kind of fever with the
agitation of a supposed fight; my blood would boil, and my eyes
sparkle, as if I was engaged, and I always resolved to take no
quarter at their hands; but even at last, if I could resist no
longer, I would blow up the ship and all that was in her, and leave
them but little booty to boast of.
CHAPTER XIII – ARRIVAL IN CHINA
THE greater weight the anxieties and perplexities of these things
were to our thoughts while we were at sea, the greater was our
satisfaction when we saw ourselves on shore; and my partner told me
he dreamed that he had a very heavy load upon his back, which he
was to carry up a hill, and found that he was not able to stand
longer under it; but that the Portuguese pilot came and took it off
his back, and the hill disappeared, the ground before him appearing
all smooth and plain: and truly it was so; they were all like men
who had a load taken off their backs. For my part I had a weight
taken off from my heart that it was not able any longer to bear;
and as I said above we resolved to go no more to sea in that ship.
When we came on shore, the old pilot, who was now our friend, got
us a lodging, together with a warehouse for our goods; it was a
little hut, with a larger house adjoining to it, built and also
palisadoed round with canes, to keep out pilferers, of which there