that had a second fit of violent hunger. I got up ravenous, and in
a most dreadful condition; and once or twice I was going to bite my
own arm. At last I saw the basin in which was the blood I had bled
at my nose the day before: I ran to it, and swallowed it with such
haste, and such a greedy appetite, as if I wondered nobody had
taken it before, and afraid it should be taken from me now. After
it was down, though the thoughts of it filled me with horror, yet
it checked the fit of hunger, and I took another draught of water,
and was composed and refreshed for some hours after. This was the
fourth day; and this I kept up till towards night, when, within the
compass of three hours, I had all the several circumstances over
again, one after another, viz. sick, sleepy, eagerly hungry, pain
in the stomach, then ravenous again, then sick, then lunatic, then
crying, then ravenous again, and so every quarter of an hour, and
my strength wasted exceedingly; at night I lay me down, having no
comfort but in the hope that I should die before morning.
“All this night I had no sleep; but the hunger was now turned into
a disease; and I had a terrible colic and griping, by wind instead
of food having found its way into the bowels; and in this condition
I lay till morning, when I was surprised by the cries and
lamentations of my young master, who called out to me that his
mother was dead. I lifted myself up a little, for I had not
strength to rise, but found she was not dead, though she was able
to give very little signs of life. I had then such convulsions in
my stomach, for want of some sustenance, as I cannot describe; with
such frequent throes and pangs of appetite as nothing but the
tortures of death can imitate; and in this condition I was when I
heard the seamen above cry out, ‘A sail! a sail!’ and halloo and
jump about as if they were distracted. I was not able to get off
from the bed, and my mistress much less; and my young master was so
sick that I thought he had been expiring; so we could not open the
cabin door, or get any account what it was that occasioned such
confusion; nor had we had any conversation with the ship’s company
for twelve days, they having told us that they had not a mouthful
of anything to eat in the ship; and this they told us afterwards –
they thought we had been dead. It was this dreadful condition we
were in when you were sent to save our lives; and how you found us,
sir, you know as well as I, and better too.”
This was her own relation, and is such a distinct account of
starving to death, as, I confess, I never met with, and was
exceeding instructive to me. I am the rather apt to believe it to
be a true account, because the youth gave me an account of a good
part of it; though I must own, not so distinct and so feeling as
the maid; and the rather, because it seems his mother fed him at
the price of her own life: but the poor maid, whose constitution
was stronger than that of her mistress, who was in years, and a
weakly woman too, might struggle harder with it; nevertheless she
might be supposed to feel the extremity something sooner than her
mistress, who might be allowed to keep the last bit something
longer than she parted with any to relieve her maid. No question,
as the case is here related, if our ship or some other had not so
providentially met them, but a few days more would have ended all
their lives. I now return to my disposition of things among the
people. And, first, it is to be observed here, that for many
reasons I did not think fit to let them know anything of the sloop
I had framed, and which I thought of setting up among them; for I