This was the first prayer, if I might call it so, that I had made for many years. But I return to my journal.
June 28.—Having been somewhat refreshed with the sleep I had had, and the fit being entirely off, I got up; and though the fright and terror of my dream was very great, yet I considered that the fit of the ague would return again the next day, and now was my time to get something to refresh and support myself, when I should be ill: and the first thing I did, I filled a large square case-bottle with water, and set it upon my table in reach of my bed; and to take off the chill or aguish disposition of the water, I put about a quarter of a pint of rum into it, and mixed them together; then I got me a piece of the goat’s flesh, and broiled it on the coals, but could eat very little. I walked about, but was very weak, and withal very sad and heavy-hearted, under a sense of my miserable condition, dreading the return of my distemper the next day. At night, I made my supper off three of the turtle’s eggs, which I roasted in the ashes, and ate, as we call it, in the shell; and this was the first bit of meat I had ever asked God’s blessing to, even, as I could remember, in my whole life.
After I had eaten, I tried to walk, but found myself so weak that I could hardly carry the gun (for I never went out without that); so I went but a little way, and sat down upon the ground, looking out upon the sea, which was just before me, and very calm and smooth. As I sat here, some such thoughts as these occurred to me:—
What is the earth and sea, of which I have seen so much? Whence is it produced? And what am I, and all the other creatures, wild and tame, human and brutal—whence are we?
Sure we are all made by some secret Power, who formed the earth and sea, the air and sky—and who is that?
Then it followed most naturally: It is God that has made it all. Well, but then—it came on strangely—If God has made all these things, he guides and governs them all, and all things that concern them; for the being that could make all things, must certainly have power to guide and direct them.
If so, nothing can happen in the great circuit of his works, either without his knowledge or appointment.
And if nothing happens without his knowledge, he knows that I am here, and am in a dreadful condition: and if nothing happens without his appointment, he has appointed all this to befal me.
Nothing occurred to my thoughts to contradict any of these conclusions; and therefore it rested upon me with the greater force, that it must needs be that God had appointed all this to befal me—that I was brought to this miserable circumstance by his direction, he having the sole power, not of me only, but of everything that happened in the world. Immediately it followed—
Why has God done this to me? what have I done to be thus used?
My conscience presently checked me in that inquiry, as if I had blasphemed; and rethought it spoke to me like a voice:—”Wretch! dost thou ask what thou hast done? Look back upon a dreadful misspent life, and ask thyself what thou hast not done? Ask why is it that thou wert not long ago destroyed? Why wert thou not drowned in Yarmouth Roads? killed in the fight, when the ship was taken by the Sallee man-of-war? devoured by the wild beasts on the coast of Africa? or drowned here, when all the crew perished but thyself? Dost thou ask, What have I done?”
I was struck with these reflections, as one astonished, and had not a word to say—no, not to answer to myself; but rose up, pensive and sad, walked back to my retreat, and went up over my wall, as if I had been going to bed; but my thoughts were sadly disturbed, and I had no inclination to sleep, so I sat down in my chair, and lighted my lamp, for it began to be dark. Now, as the apprehensions of the return of my distemper terrified me very much, it occurred to my thought, that the Brazilians take no physic but their tobacco for almost all distempers; and I had a piece of a roll of tobacco in one of the chests, which was quite cured, and some also that was green, and not quite cured.