And now I began to think of leaving my effects with this woman, and setting out for Lisbon, and so to the Brazils; but now another scruple came in the way, and that was religion; for as I had entertained some doubts about the Roman religion, even while I was abroad, especially in my state of solitude, so I knew there was no going to the Brazils for me, much less going to settle there, unless I received the Roman Catholic religion without any reserve; except, on the other hand, I resolved to be a sacrifice to my principles, be a martyr for religion, and die in the Inquisition: so I resolved to stay at home, and, if I could find means for it, to dispose of my plantation.
To this purpose I wrote to my old friend at Lisbon, who in return, gave me notice that he could easily dispose of it there; but that if I thought fit to give him leave to offer it in my name to the two merchants, the survivors of my trustees who lived in the Brazils, who must fully understand the value of it, who lived just upon the spot, and who I knew to be very rich, so that he believed they would be fond of buying it, he did not doubt that I could make 4,000 or 5,000 pieces of eight the more of it.
Accordingly I agreed, gave him orders to offer it to them, and he did so, and in about eight months more, the ship being then returned, he sent me an account that they had accepted the offer, and had remitted 33,000 pieces of eight to a correspondent of theirs at Lisbon to pay for it.
In return, I signed the instrument of sale in the form which they sent from Lisbon, and sent it to my old man, who sent me the bills of exchange for 32,800 pieces of eight for the estate; reserving the payment of 100 moidores a year to him (the old man) during his life, and 50 moidores afterwards to his son for life, which I had promised them, and which the plantation was to make good as a rent charge. And thus I have given the first part of a life of fortune and adventure, a life of Providence’s chequer-work, and of a variety which the world will seldom be able to show the like of; beginning foolishly, but closing much more happily than any part of it ever gave me leave so much as to hope for.
Any one would think that in this state of complicated good fortune, I was past running any more hazards, and so indeed I had been if other circumstances had concurred; but I was inured to a wandering life, had no family, nor any relations; nor, however rich, had I contracted much acquaintance; and though I had sold my estate in the Brazils, yet I could not keep that country out of my head, and had a great mind to be upon the wing again; especially I could not resist the strong inclination I had to see my island, and to know if the poor Spaniards were in being there, and how the rogues I left there had used them.
My true friend the widow earnestly dissuaded me from it, and so far prevailed with me, that almost for seven years she prevented my running abroad; during which time I took my two nephews, the children of one of my brothers, into my care. The eldest, having something of his own, I bred up as a gentleman, and gave him a settlement of some addition to his estate after my decease; the other I put out to a captain of a ship; and after five years, finding him a sensible, bold, enterprising fellow, I put him into a good ship, and sent him to sea; and this young fellow afterwards drew me in, as old as I was, to farther adventures myself.
In the meantime I in part settled myself here; for, first of all, I married, and that not either to my disadvantage or dissatisfaction, and had three children, two sons and one daughter; but my wife dying, and my nephew coming home with good success from a voyage to Spain, my inclination to go abroad and his importunity prevailed, and engaged me to go in his ship as a private trader to the East Indies. This was in the year 1694.