This sharing out the land to them I left to Will Atkins, who was
now grown a sober, grave, managing fellow, perfectly reformed,
exceedingly pious and religious; and, as far as I may be allowed to
speak positively in such a case, I verily believe he was a true
penitent. He divided things so justly, and so much to every one's
satisfaction, that they only desired one general writing under my
hand for the whole, which I caused to be drawn up, and signed and
sealed, setting out the bounds and situation of every man's
plantation, and testifying that I gave them thereby severally a
right to the whole possession and inheritance of the respective
plantations or farms, with their improvements, to them and their
heirs, reserving all the rest of the island as my own property, and
a certain rent for every particular plantation after eleven years,
if I, or any one from me, or in my name, came to demand it,
producing an attested copy of the same writing. As to the
government and laws among them, I told them I was not capable of
giving them better rules than they were able to give themselves;
only I made them promise me to live in love and good neighbourhood
with one another; and so I prepared to leave them.
One thing I must not omit, and that is, that being now settled in a
kind of commonwealth among themselves, and having much business in
hand, it was odd to have seven-and-thirty Indians live in a nook of
the island, independent, and, indeed, unemployed; for except the
providing themselves food, which they had difficulty enough to do
sometimes, they had no manner of business or property to manage. I
proposed, therefore, to the governor Spaniard that he should go to
them, with Friday's father, and propose to them to remove, and
either plant for themselves, or be taken into their several
families as servants to be maintained for their labour, but without
being absolute slaves; for I would not permit them to make them
slaves by force, by any means; because they had their liberty given
them by capitulation, as it were articles of surrender, which they
ought not to break.
They most willingly embraced the proposal, and came all very
cheerfully along with him: so we allotted them land and
plantations, which three or four accepted of, but all the rest
chose to be employed as servants in the several families we had
settled. Thus my colony was in a manner settled as follows: The
Spaniards possessed my original habitation, which was the capital
city, and extended their plantations all along the side of the
brook, which made the creek that I have so often described, as far
as my bower; and as they increased their culture, it went always
eastward. The English lived in the north-east part, where Will
Atkins and his comrades began, and came on southward and south-
west, towards the back part of the Spaniards; and every plantation
had a great addition of land to take in, if they found occasion, so
that they need not jostle one another for want of room. All the
east end of the island was left uninhabited, that if any of the
savages should come on shore there only for their customary
barbarities, they might come and go; if they disturbed nobody,
nobody would disturb them: and no doubt but they were often
ashore, and went away again; for I never heard that the planters
were ever attacked or disturbed any more.
CHAPTER VIII--SAILS FROM THE ISLAND FOR THE BRAZILS
It now came into my thoughts that I had hinted to my friend the
clergyman that the work of converting the savages might perhaps be
set on foot in his absence to his satisfaction, and I told him that
now I thought that it was put in a fair way; for the savages, being
thus divided among the Christians, if they would but every one of
them do their part with those which came under their hands, I hoped
it might have a very good effect.
He agreed presently in that, if they did their part. "But how,"
says he, "shall we obtain that of them?" I told him we would call
them all together, and leave it in charge with them, or go to them,
one by one, which he thought best; so we divided it--he to speak to
the Spaniards, who were all Papists, and I to speak to the English,
who were all Protestants; and we recommended it earnestly to them,
and made them promise that they would never make any distinction of
Papist or Protestant in their exhorting the savages to turn
Christians, but teach them the general knowledge of the true God,
and of their Saviour Jesus Christ; and they likewise promised us
that they would never have any differences or disputes one with
When I came to Will Atkins's house, I found that the young woman I
have mentioned above, and Will Atkins's wife, were become
intimates; and this prudent, religious young woman had perfected
the work Will Atkins had begun; and though it was not above four
days after what I have related, yet the new-baptized savage woman
was made such a Christian as I have seldom heard of in all my
observation or conversation in the world. It came next into my
mind, in the morning before I went to them, that amongst all the
needful things I had to leave with them I had not left them a
Bible, in which I showed myself less considering for them than my
good friend the widow was for me when she sent me the cargo of a
hundred pounds from Lisbon, where she packed up three Bibles and a
Prayer-book. However, the good woman's charity had a greater
extent than ever she imagined, for they were reserved for the
comfort and instruction of those that made much better use of them
than I had done.
I took one of the Bibles in my pocket, and when I came to Will
Atkins's tent, or house, and found the young woman and Atkins's
baptized wife had been discoursing of religion together--for Will
Atkins told it me with a great deal of joy--I asked if they were
together now, and he said, "Yes"; so I went into the house, and he
with me, and we found them together very earnest in discourse.
"Oh, sir," says Will Atkins, "when God has sinners to reconcile to
Himself, and aliens to bring home, He never wants a messenger; my
wife has got a new instructor: I knew I was unworthy, as I was
incapable of that work; that young woman has been sent hither from
heaven--she is enough to convert a whole island of savages." The
young woman blushed, and rose up to go away, but I desired her to
sit-still; I told her she had a good work upon her hands, and I
hoped God would bless her in it.
We talked a little, and I did not perceive that they had any book
among them, though I did not ask; but I put my hand into my pocket,
and pulled out my Bible. "Here," said I to Atkins, "I have brought
you an assistant that perhaps you had not before." The man was so
confounded that he was not able to speak for some time; but,
recovering himself, he takes it with both his hands, and turning to
his wife, "Here, my dear," says he, "did not I tell you our God,
t
hough He lives above, could hear what we have said? Here's the
book I prayed for when you and I kneeled down under the bush; now
God has heard us and sent it." When he had said so, the man fell
into such passionate transports, that between the joy of having it,
and giving God thanks for it, the tears ran down his face like a
child that was crying.
The woman was surprised, and was like to have run into a mistake
that none of us were aware of; for she firmly believed God had sent
the book upon her husband's petition. It is true that
providentially it was so, and might be taken so in a consequent
sense; but I believe it would have been no difficult matter at that
time to have persuaded the poor woman to have believed that an
express messenger came from heaven on purpose to bring that
individual book. But it was too serious a matter to suffer any
delusion to take place, so I turned to the young woman, and told
her we did not desire to impose upon the new convert in her first
and more ignorant understanding of things, and begged her to
explain to her that God may be very properly said to answer our
petitions, when, in the course of His providence, such things are
in a particular manner brought to pass as we petitioned for; but we
did not expect returns from heaven in a miraculous and particular
manner, and it is a mercy that it is not so.
This the young woman did afterwards effectually, so that there was
no priestcraft used here; and I should have thought it one of the
most unjustifiable frauds in the world to have had it so. But the
effect upon Will Atkins is really not to be expressed; and there,
we may be sure, was no delusion. Sure no man was ever more
thankful in the world for anything of its kind than he was for the
Bible, nor, I believe, never any man was glad of a Bible from a
better principle; and though he had been a most profligate
creature, headstrong, furious, and desperately wicked, yet this man
is a standing rule to us all for the well instructing children,
viz. that parents should never give over to teach and instruct, nor
be ever so refractory, or to appearance insensible to instruction;
for if ever God in His providence touches the conscience of such,
the force of their education turns upon them, and the early
instruction of parents is not lost, though it may have been many
years laid asleep, but some time or other they may find the benefit
of it. Thus it was with this poor man: however ignorant he was of
religion and Christian knowledge, he found he had some to do with
now more ignorant than himself, and that the least part of the
instruction of his good father that now came to his mind was of use
to him.
Among the rest, it occurred to him, he said, how his father used to
insist so much on the inexpressible value of the Bible, and the
privilege and blessing of it to nations, families, and persons; but
he never entertained the least notion of the worth of it till now,
when, being to talk to heathens, savages, and barbarians, he wanted
the help of the written oracle for his assistance. The young woman
was glad of it also for the present occasion, though she had one,
and so had the youth, on board our ship among their goods, which
were not yet brought on shore. And now, having said so many things
of this young woman, I cannot omit telling one story more of her
and myself, which has something in it very instructive and
remarkable.
I have related to what extremity the poor young woman was reduced;
how her mistress was starved to death, and died on board that
unhappy ship we met at sea, and how the whole ship's company was
reduced to the last extremity. The gentlewoman, and her son, and
this maid, were first hardly used as to provisions, and at last
totally neglected and starved--that is to say, brought to the last
extremity of hunger. One day, being discoursing with her on the
extremities they suffered, I asked her if she could describe, by
what she had felt, what it was to starve, and how it appeared? She
said she believed she could, and told her tale very distinctly
thus:-
"First, we had for some days fared exceedingly hard, and suffered
very great hunger; but at last we were wholly without food of any
kind except sugar, and a little wine and water. The first day
after I had received no food at all, I found myself towards
evening, empty and sick at the stomach, and nearer night much
inclined to yawning and sleep. I lay down on the couch in the
great cabin to sleep, and slept about three hours, and awaked a
little refreshed, having taken a glass of wine when I lay down;
after being about three hours awake, it being about five o'clock in
the morning, I found myself empty, and my stomach sickish, and lay
down again, but could not sleep at all, being very faint and ill;
and thus I continued all the second day with a strange variety--
first hungry, then sick again, with retchings to vomit. The second
night, being obliged to go to bed again without any food more than
a draught of fresh water, and being asleep, I dreamed I was at
Barbadoes, and that the market was mightily stocked with
provisions; that I bought some for my mistress, and went and dined
very heartily. I thought my stomach was full after this, as it
would have been after a good dinner; but when I awaked I was
exceedingly sunk in my spirits to find myself in the extremity of
family. The last glass of wine we had I drank, and put sugar in
it, because of its having some spirit to supply nourishment; but
there being no substance in the stomach for the digesting office to
work upon, I found the only effect of the wine was to raise
disagreeable fumes from the stomach into the head; and I lay, as
they told me, stupid and senseless, as one drunk, for some time.
The third day, in the morning, after a night of strange, confused,
and inconsistent dreams, and rather dozing than sleeping, I awaked
ravenous and furious with hunger; and I question, had not my
understanding returned and conquered it, whether if I had been a
mother, and had had a little child with me, its life would have
been safe or not. This lasted about three hours, during which time
I was twice raging mad as any creature in Bedlam, as my young
master told me, and as he can now inform you.
"In one of these fits of lunacy or distraction I fell down and
struck my face against the corner of a pallet-bed, in which my
mistress lay, and with the blow the blood gushed out of my nose;
and the cabin-boy bringing me a little basin, I sat down and bled
into it a great deal; and as the blood came from me I came to
myself, and the violence of the flame or fever I was in abated, and
so did the ravenous part of the hunger. Then I grew sick, and
retched to vomit, but could not, for I had nothing in my stomach to
bring up. After I had bled some time I swooned, and they all
believed I was de
ad; but I came to myself soon after, and then had
a most dreadful pain in my stomach not to be described--not like
the colic, but a gnawing, eager pain for food; and towards night it
went off with a kind of earnest wishing or longing for food. I
took another draught of water with sugar in it; but my stomach
loathed the sugar and brought it all up again; then I took a
draught of water without sugar, and that stayed with me; and I laid
me down upon the bed, praying most heartily that it would please
God to take me away; and composing my mind in hopes of it, I
slumbered a while, and then waking, thought myself dying, being
light with vapours from an empty stomach. I recommended my soul
then to God, and then earnestly wished that somebody would throw me
into the into the sea.
"All this while my mistress lay by me, just, as I thought,
expiring, but she bore it with much more patience than I, and gave
the last bit of bread she had left to her child, my young master,
who would not have taken it, but she obliged him to eat it; and I
believe it saved his life. Towards the morning I slept again, and
when I awoke I fell into a violent passion of crying, and after
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