separated from disputes; that it was not his business to cap
principles with every man he conversed with; and that he rather
desired me to converse with him as a gentleman than as a
religionist; and that, if I would give him leave at any time to
discourse upon religious subjects, he would readily comply with it,
and that he did not doubt but I would allow him also to defend his
own opinions as well as he could; but that without my leave he
would not break in upon me with any such thing. He told me
further, that he would not cease to do all that became him, in his
office as a priest, as well as a private Christian, to procure the
good of the ship, and the safety of all that was in her; and
though, perhaps, we would not join with him, and he could not pray
with us, he hoped he might pray for us, which he would do upon all
occasions. In this manner we conversed; and as he was of the most
obliging, gentlemanlike behaviour, so he was, if I may be allowed
to say so, a man of good sense, and, as I believe, of great
learning.
He gave me a most diverting account of his life, and of the many
extraordinary events of it; of many adventures which had befallen
him in the few years that he had been abroad in the world; and
particularly, it was very remarkable, that in the voyage he was now
engaged in he had had the misfortune to be five times shipped and
unshipped, and never to go to the place whither any of the ships he
was in were at first designed. That his first intent was to have
gone to Martinico, and that he went on board a ship bound thither
at St. Malo; but being forced into Lisbon by bad weather, the ship
received some damage by running aground in the mouth of the river
Tagus, and was obliged to unload her cargo there; but finding a
Portuguese ship there bound for the Madeiras, and ready to sail,
and supposing he should meet with a ship there bound to Martinico,
he went on board, in order to sail to the Madeiras; but the master
of the Portuguese ship being but an indifferent mariner, had been
out of his reckoning, and they drove to Fayal; where, however, he
happened to find a very good market for his cargo, which was corn,
and therefore resolved not to go to the Madeiras, but to load salt
at the Isle of May, and to go away to Newfoundland. He had no
remedy in this exigence but to go with the ship, and had a pretty
good voyage as far as the Banks (so they call the place where they
catch the fish), where, meeting with a French ship bound from
France to Quebec, and from thence to Martinico, to carry
provisions, he thought he should have an opportunity to complete
his first design, but when he came to Quebec, the master of the
ship died, and the vessel proceeded no further; so the next voyage
he shipped himself for France, in the ship that was burned when we
took them up at sea, and then shipped with us for the East Indies,
as I have already said. Thus he had been disappointed in five
voyages; all, as I may call it, in one voyage, besides what I shall
have occasion to mention further of him.
But I shall not make digression into other men’s stories which have
no relation to my own; so I return to what concerns our affair in
the island. He came to me one morning (for he lodged among us all
the while we were upon the island), and it happened to be just when
I was going to visit the Englishmen’s colony, at the furthest part
of the island; I say, he came to me, and told me, with a very grave
countenance, that he had for two or three days desired an
opportunity of some discourse with me, which he hoped would not be
displeasing to me, because he thought it might in some measure