and had made him commander of a ship, was come home from a short voyage to Bilboa, being the first he had made. He came to me, and told me that some merchants of his acquaintance had been proposing to him to go a voyage for them to the East Indies and to China, as private traders. -" And now, uncle," says he, " if you will go to sea with me, I will engage to land you upon your old habitation in the island; for we are to touch at the Brasils."

Nothing can be a greater demonstration of a future state, and of the existence of an invisible world, than the concurrence of second causes with the ideas of things which we form in our minds, perfectly reserved, and not communicated to any in the world.

My nephew knew nothing how far my distemper of wander ing was returned upon me, and I knew nothing of what he had in his thought to say, when that very morning, before he came to me, I had, in a great deal of confusion of thought, and revolving every part of my circumstances in my mind, come to this resolution, viz. that I would go to Lisbon, and consult with my old sea-captain; and so, if it was rational and practicable, I would go and see the island again, and see what was become of my people there. I had pleased myself with the thoughts of peopling the place, and carrying inhabitants from hence, getting a patent for the possession, and I knew not what; when, in the middle of all this, in comes my nephew, as I have said, with his project of carrying me thither in his way to the East Indies.

I paused a while at his words, and, looking steadily at him, "What devil," said I, "sent you on this unlucky errand?" My nephew stared, as if he had been frightened, at first; but perceiving that I was not much displeased with the proposal, he recovered himself. "I hope it may not be an unlucky proposal, Sir," says he; " I dare say you would be pleased to see your new colony there, where you once reigned with more felicity than most of your brother monarchs in the world."

In a word, the scheme hit so exactly with my temper, that is to say, the prepossession I was under, and of which I have said so much, that I told him, in few words, if he agreed with the merchants I would go with him: but I told him I would not promise to go any farther than my own island. "Why, Sir," says he, "you don't want to be left there again, I hope?" "Why," said I, " can you not take me up again on your return?" He told me it would not be possible to do so; that the merchants would never allow him to come that way with a

laden ship of such value, it being a month's sail out of his way, and might be three or four. "Besides, Sir; if I should miscarry," said he, " and not return at all, then you would be just reduced to the condition you were in before."

This was very rational; but we both found out a remedy for it; which was, to carry a framed sloop on board the ship, which being taken in pieces, and shipped on board the ship, might, by the help of some carpenters, whom we agreed to carry with us, be set up again in the island, and finished, fit to go to sea, in a few days.

I was not long resolving; for indeed the importunities of my nephew joined so effectually with my inclination, that nothing could oppose me: on the other hand, my wife being dead, I had nobody concerned themselves so much for me as to persuade me to one way or the other, except my ancient good friend the widow, who earnestly struggled with me to consider my years, my easy circumstances, and the needless hazards of a long voyage; and, above all, my young children. But it was all to no purpose; -I had an irresistible desire to the voyage; and I told her I thought there was something so uncommon in the impressions I had upon my mind for the voyage, that it would be a kind of resisting Providence if I should attempt to stay at home: after which she ceased her expostulations, and joined with me, not only in making provision for my voyage, but also in settling my family affairs for my absence, and providing for the education of my children.

In order to this, I made my will, and settled the estate I had in such a manner for my children, and placed in such hands, that I was perfectly easy and satisfied they would have justice done them, whatever might befall me; and for their education, I left it wholly to the widow, with a sufficient maintenance to herself for her care: all which she richly deserved, for no mother could have taken more care in their education, or understood it better; and as she lived till I came home, I also lived to thank her for it.

My nephew was ready to sail about the beginning of January 1694-5; and I, with my man Friday, went on board in the Downs the 8th: having, besides that sloop which I men-. tioned above, a very considerable cargo of all kinds of necessary things for my colony; which, if I did not find in good condition, I resolved to leave so.

First, I carried with me some servants, whom I purposed to place there as inhabitants, or at least to set on work there, upon my account, while I stayed, and either to leave them

there, or carry them forward, as they would appear willing; particularly, I carried two carpenters, a smith, and a very handy, ingenious fellow, who was a cooper by trade, and was also a general mechanic; for he was dexterous at making wheels, and hand-mills to grind corn, was a good turner, and a good pot-maker; he also made any thing that was proper to make of earth, or of wood; in a word, we called him our Jack of all trades. With these I carried a tailor, who had offered himself to go a passenger to the East Indies with my nephew, but afterwards consented to stay on our new plantation; and proved a most necessary, handy fellow, as could be desired, in many other businesses besides that of his trade: for, as I observed formerly, "Necessity arms us for all employments."

My cargo, as near as I can recollect, for I have not kept account of the particulars, consisted of a sufficient quantity of linen, and some English thin stuffs, for cloathing the Spaniards that I expected to find there; and enough of them, as, by my calculation, might comfortably supply them for seven years : if I remember right, the materials I carried for cloathing them, with gloves, hats, shoes, stockings, and all such things as they could want for wearing, amounted to above two hundred pounds, including some beds, bedding, and household stuff, particularly kitchen-utensils, with pots, kettles, pewter, brass, &c. and near a hundred pounds more in iron-work, nails, tools of every kind, staples, hooks, hinges, and every necessary thing I could think of.

I carried also a hundred spare arms, muskets, and fusees; besides some pistols, a considerable quantity of shot of all sizes, three or four tons of lead, and two pieces of brass cannon; and because I knew not what time and what extremities I was providing for, I carried a hundred barrels of powder, besides swords, cutlasses, and the iron part of some pikes and halberts ; so that, in short, we had a large magazine of all sorts of stores; and I made my nephew carry two small quarter-deck guns more than he wanted for his ship, to leave behind, if there was occasion; that, when we came there, we might build a fort, and man it against all sorts of enemies: and, indeed, I at first thought there would be need enough for all, and much more, if we hoped to maintain our possession of the island; as shall be seen in the course of that story.

I had not such bad luck in this voyage as I had been used to meet with; and therefore shall have the less occasion to interrupt the reader, who perhaps may be impatient to hear how matters went with my colony: yet some odd accidents, cross

winds, and bad weather, happened on this first setting out, which made the voyage longer than I expected it at first: and I, who had never made but one voyage, viz. my first voyage to Guinea, in which I might be said to come back again, as the voyage was at first designed, began to think the same ill fate attended me; and that I was born to be never contented with being on shore, and yet to be always unfortunate at sea.

Contrary winds first put us to the northward, and we were obliged to put in at Galway in Ireland, where we lay windbound two and twenty days; but we had this satisfaction with the disaster, that provisions were here exceeding cheap, and in the utmost plenty; so that while we lay here, we never touched the ship's stores, but rather added to them. Here, also, I took in several live hogs, and two cows, with their calves; which I resolved, if I had a good passage, to put on shore in my island; but we found occasion to dispose otherwise of them.

We set out on the 5th of February from Ireland, and had a very fair gale of wind for some days. As I remember, it might be about the 20th of February, in the evening late, when the mate, having the watch, came into the round-house, and told us he saw a flash of fire, and heard a gun fired; and while he was telling us of it, a boy came in, and told us the boatswain heard another. This made us all run out upon the quarterdeck, where, for a while, we heard nothing; but in a few minutes we saw a very great light, and found that there was some very terrible fire at a distance: immediately we had recourse to our reckonings, in which we all agreed, that there could be no land that way in which the fire showed itself, no, not for 500 leagues, for it appeared at W. N. W. Upon this we concluded it must be some ship on fire at sea; and as, by our hearing the noise of guns just before, we concluded that it could not be far off, we stood directly towards it, and were presently satisfied we should discover it; because the further we sailed, the greater the light appeared; though the weather being hazy, we could not perceive any thing but the light for a while. In about half an hour's sailing, the wind being fair for us, though not much of it, and the weather clearing up a little, we could plainly discern that it was a great ship on fire, in the middle of the sea.

I was most sensibly touched with this disaster, though not at all acquainted with the persons engaged in it: I presently recollected my former circumstances, and in what condition I was in, when taken up by the Portuguese captain; and how much more deplorable the circumstances of the poor creatures belonging to that ship must be, if they had no other ship in company with them. Upon this, I immediately ordered that five guns should be fired, one soon after another; that, if possible, we might give notice to them that there was help for them at hand, and that they might endeavour to save themselves in their boat; for though we could see the flames of the ship, yet they, it being night, could see nothing of us.

We lay by some time upon this, only driving as the burning ship drove, waiting for day-light; when, on a sudden, to our great terror, though we had reason to expect it, the ship blew up in the air; and immediately, that is to say, in a few minutes, all the fire was out, that is to say, the rest of the ship sunk. This was a terrible, and indeed an afflicting sight, for the sake of the poor men; who, I concluded, must be either all destroyed in the ship, or be in the utmost distress in their boat, in the middle of the ocean; which, at present, by reason it was dark, I could not see. However, to direct them as well as I could, I caused lights to be hung out in all the parts of the ship where we could, and which we had lanthorns for, and kept firing guns all the night long; letting them know, by this, that there was a ship not far off.

About eight o'clock in the morning, we discovered the ship's boats by the help of our perspective glasses; found there were two of them, both thronged with people, and deep in the water. We perceived they rowed, the wind being against them; that they saw our ship, and did their utmost to make us see them.

We inımediately spread our ancient, to let them know we saw them, and hung a waft out, as a signal for them to come on board; and then made more sail, standing directly to them. In little more than half an hour, we came up with them; and, in a word, took them all in, being no less than sixty-four men, women, and children; for there were a great many passengers.

Upon the whole, we found it was a French merchant-ship of 300 tons, homeward-bound from Quebec, in the river of Canada. The master gave us a long account of the distress of his ship; how the fire began in the steerage, by the negligence of the steersman; but on his crying out for help, was, as every body thought, entirely put out; but they soon found that some sparks of the first fire had gotten into some part of the ship so difficult to come at, that they could not effectually quench it; and afterwards getting in between the timbers,