some raging and tearing themselves, as if they had been in the
greatest agonies of sorrow; some stark raving and downright
lunatic; some ran about the ship stamping with their feet, others
wringing their hands; some were dancing, some singing, some
laughing, more crying, many quite dumb, not able to speak a word;
others sick and vomiting; several swooning and ready to faint; and
a few were crossing themselves and giving God thanks.
I would not wrong them either; there might be many that were
thankful afterwards; but the passion was too strong for them at
first, and they were not able to master it: then were thrown into
ecstasies, and a kind of frenzy, and it was but a very few that
were composed and serious in their joy. Perhaps also, the case may
have some addition to it from the particular circumstance of that
nation they belonged to: I mean the French, whose temper is
allowed to be more volatile, more passionate, and more sprightly,
and their spirits more fluid than in other nations. I am not
philosopher enough to determine the cause; but nothing I had ever
seen before came up to it. The ecstasies poor Friday, my trusty
savage, was in when he found his father in the boat came the
nearest to it; and the surprise of the master and his two
companions, whom I delivered from the villains that set them on
shore in the island, came a little way towards it; but nothing was
to compare to this, either that I saw in Friday, or anywhere else
in my life.
It is further observable, that these extravagances did not show
themselves in that different manner I have mentioned, in different
persons only; but all the variety would appear, in a short
succession of moments, in one and the same person. A man that we
saw this minute dumb, and, as it were, stupid and confounded, would
the next minute be dancing and hallooing like an antic; and the
next moment be tearing his hair, or pulling his clothes to pieces,
and stamping them under his feet like a madman; in a few moments
after that we would have him all in tears, then sick, swooning,
and, had not immediate help been had, he would in a few moments
have been dead. Thus it was, not with one or two, or ten or
twenty, but with the greatest part of them; and, if I remember
right, our surgeon was obliged to let blood of about thirty
persons.
There were two priests among them: one an old man, and the other a
young man; and that which was strangest was, the oldest man was the
worst. As soon as he set his foot on board our ship, and saw
himself safe, he dropped down stone dead to all appearance. Not
the least sign of life could be perceived in him; our surgeon
immediately applied proper remedies to recover him, and was the
only man in the ship that believed he was not dead. At length he
opened a vein in his arm, having first chafed and rubbed the part,
so as to warm it as much as possible. Upon this the blood, which
only dropped at first, flowing freely, in three minutes after the
man opened his eyes; a quarter of an hour after that he spoke, grew
better, and after the blood was stopped, he walked about, told us
he was perfectly well, and took a dram of cordial which the surgeon
gave him. About a quarter of an hour after this they came running
into the cabin to the surgeon, who was bleeding a Frenchwoman that
had fainted, and told him the priest was gone stark mad. It seems
he had begun to revolve the change of his circumstances in his
mind, and again this put him into an ecstasy of joy. His spirits
whirled about faster than the vessels could convey them, the blood
grew hot and feverish, and the man was as fit for Bedlam as any
creature that ever was in it. The surgeon would not bleed him
again in that condition, but gave him something to doze and put him