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628

CRUSOE REACHES LONDON.

having been a year and five months and three days on the journey, including our stay of eight months and odd days at Tobolski.

We were obliged to stay at this place six weeks, for the arrival of the ships, and must have tarried longer, had not a Hamburger come in above a month sooner than any of the English ships; when, after some consideration that the city of Hamburg might happen to be as good a market for our goods as London, we all took freight with him; and, having put my goods on board, it was most natural for me to put my steward on board to take care of them, by which means my young lord had a sufficient opportunity to conceal himself, never coming on shore in all the time we stayed there; and this he did that he might not be seen in the city, where some of the Moscow merchants would certainly have seen and discovered him.

. We sailed from Archangel the 20th of August, the same year, and after no extraordinary bad voyage, arrived in the Elbe the 13th of September. Here my partner and I found a very good sale for our goods, as well those of China, as the sables, &c., of Siberia; and dividing the produce of our effects, my share amounted to £3475, 17s. 3d., notwithstanding so many losses we had sustained, and charges we had been at, only remembering that I had included in this about six hundred pounds worth of diamonds which I had purchased at Bengal.

Here the young lord took his leave of us, and went up the Elbe, in order to go to the Court of Vienna, where he resolved to seek protection, and where he could correspond with those of his father's friends who were left alive. He did not part without all the testimonies he could give me of gratitude for the service I had done him, and his sense of my kindness to the prince, his father.

To conclude. Having stayed near four months in Hamburg, I came from thence overland to the Hague, where I embarked in the packet, and arrived in London the 10th of January 1705, having been gone from England ten years and nine months.

And here, resolving to harass myself no more, I am preparing for a longer journey than all these, having lived seventy-two years a life of infinite variety, and learned sufficiently to know the value of retirement, and the blessing of ending our days in peace.

APPENDIX.

I.

ALEXANDER SELKIRK.

A Memoir.

E FOE is generally supposed to have founded his famous fiction on the real adventures of a Scotch seaman, named Alexander Selkirk, who spent some years in solitude on the island of Juan Fernandez. The life of this individual was so full of romantic incidents that a brief outline of it may probably be acceptable to our readers.

Alexander Selkirk, or Selcraig, as his name was originally spelled, was born in the year 1676, at Largo, a small seaport town on the coast of Fife. He was the seventh son and seventh child of John Selcraig and his wife, Enphan Mackie; and, according to an old superstition, was fated from his birth to be the hero of extraordinary adventures.

At an early age he was sent to school, where he evinced much quickness of parts and waywardness of temper, with a decided bias towards a seafaring life. He made considerable progress in the branches of study there taught, and especially in navigation; but out of school made a not less considerable progress in the art of daring mischief. His faults seem to have been developed by the over-indulgence of his mother, which provoked, as is often the case, a too great severity on the part of the father. The latter frequently threatened to disinherit him; and on one occasion flung at his son a walking-staff, with the pithy sentence: "A whip for the horse, a bridle for the ass, and a rod for the fool's back."

In most of the Scottish parishes, at the epoch of the great revolution of 1688, a ferment arose of a mixed political and ecclesiastical character; and the clergy who favoured the new Government were frequently dismissed from their cures by their indignant parishioners. In Largo the people assembled in the churchyard, and opposed the clergyman's entry into the

630

A TURBULENT YOUTH.

church to perform the functions of his office. Among the ringleaders on this occasion were Alexander Selkirk and his elder brother, John. They gained their end; the minister thought discretion the better part of valour, and quietly retired.

Alexander's wilfulness was more openly manifested every year; and in 1695 he subjected himself to ecclesiastical censure by "indecent conduct in church." To avoid a public reprimand, he went to sea; and for six years wandered from one part of the world to another, acquiring a practical knowledge of seamanship, and gathering a considerable amount of curious information. The sea, in those days, was no good school for the wayward and restless; and Selkirk returned to Largo in 1701 as incapable of leading an orderly and quiet life as when he left it. The parish records of Largo,* under the date of November 25, 1701, afford us a singular picture of the manners of the time, and a vivid illustration of the recklessness and fitful temper of young Alexander :

"This day, John Selcraig, elder, being called [before the kirk-session, or ruling body of the parish kirk], compeared, and being examined what was the occasion of the tumult that was in his house, he said he knew not; but that Andrew Selcraig having brought in a can full of salt water, of which his brother Alexander did take a drink through mistake, and he laughing at him for it, his brother Alexander came and beat him; upon which he ran out of the house, and called his brother John.

"John Selcraig, elder, being again questioned what made him to sit upon the floor with his back at the door, he said it was to keep down his son Alexander, who was seeking to go up to get down his pistol. And being inquired what he was going to do with it? he said he could not tell.

"The same day, Alexander Selcraig, called, compeared not. He was at Cupar. He is to be cited pro secundo against the next session.

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The same day, John Selcraig, younger, called, compeared, and being questioned concerning the tumult that was in his father's house of the 7th November last, declared, that he, being called by his brother Andrew, came to it; and when he entered the house, his mother went out; and he, seeing his father sitting upon the floor with his brother at the door, was much troubled, and offered to help him up, and to bring him to the floor; at which time he did see his brother Alexander in the other end of the house, casting off his coat, and coming towards him, did get betwixt them; but he knew not what he did otherways, his head being borne down by his brother Alexander; but afterwards, being liberated by his wife, he made his escape. "Same day, Margaret Bell called, compeared, and being inquired what was the occasion of the tumult which fell out in her father-in-law's house on the 7th November, she said, that Andrew Selcraig came running for her husband John, and desiring him to go to his father's house; which he doing, the said Margaret did follow her husband, and, coming into the house, she * Howell, "Life and Adventures of Alexander Selkirk " (ed. 1829), pp. 25-28.

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found the said Alexander gripping both her father and her husband, and she labouring to loose his hands from her husband's head and breast, her husband fled out of doors, and she followed him, and called back again, 'You false loon, will you murder your father and my husband both?' whereupon he followed her to the door; but whether he beat her or not, she was in so great confusion, she cannot say distinctly, but ever since she hath a sore pain in her head.

66

The same day, Andrew Selcraig called, compeared, but said nothing to purpose in the aforesaid business. This business is delayed until the next session until further inquiry be made.

"November 29.-Alexander Selcraig, scandalous for contention and disagreeing with his brothers, called, compeared, and being questioned concerning the tumult that was in his house, whereof he was said to be the occasion, he confessed that, he having taken a drink of salt water out of a can, his younger brother Andrew laughing at him for it, he did beat him twice with a staff. He confessed also that he had spoken very ill words concerning his brother, and particularly he challenged his elder brother John to a combat, as he called it, of dry neifs (fists), ells then, he said, he would not even care to do it now, which afterwards he did refuse and regrate (recall?); moreover he said several things, whereupon the session appointed him to compear before the face of the congregation for his scandalous carriage.

"November 30.-Alexander Selcraig, according to the session's appointment, compeared before the pulpit, and made acknowledgment of his sin in disagreeing with his brothers; and was rebuked in the face of the congregation for it, and promised amendment in the strength of the Lord, and so was dismissed."

In the following spring, the ever-restless Selkirk once more quitted the scene of his youthful follies, and sailed for England, with the view of engaging himself on board some ship destined to cruise against the Spanish possessions in the South Seas. Here he fell in with Captain Dampier, the well-known seaman, whose circumnavigation of the globe had secured him a lasting reputation, and whose narrative of his adventures is written with a force and a simplicity of style, and an accuracy of observation, which will ever be found pleasing. England was then at war with Spain; and Dampier, who was well acquainted with the American coast, proposed the equipment of an expedition to act against the Spanish in a quarter of the world where they were necessarily weakest. His design was, to sail up the river Plata as far as Buenos Ayres, and capture two or three Spanish galleons which were usually stationed there. If the prizes proved equal in value to what he expected, he would return to England; otherwise, he would double Cape Horn, enter the Pacific, and cruise off the coast of Peru for the Valdivia ships, which conveyed great quantities of gold to Lima. But should this

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ON BOARD THE

CINQUE PORTS."

project also fail, he would descend upon such wealthy towns of the Pacific as might seem worth plundering, and afterwards lie in wait, like Anson at a later period, for the great Acapulco galleon, whose rich cargo was estimated at a value of thirteen or fourteen millions of pieces of eight.

He found some merchants willing to subscribe the money requisite for fitting out two ships: the St. George, of twenty-six guns, on board of which he hoisted his own flag; and the Fame, also of twenty-six, commanded by Captain Pulling. And having obtained commissions from the Lord High Admiral to act as privateers against the Queen's enemies, they sailed on their bold errand.

At the outset, however, a quarrel arose between Dampier and Pulling, which led to the latter embarking on a venture of his own, and sailing for the Canary Islands. To supply his place, the Cinque Ports galley, of sixteen guns, and carrying sixty-three men, was equipped, with one Charles Pickering as captain, and Alexander Selkirk as sailing-master.

On the 30th of April 1703, the St. George sailed from the Downs; and on the 18th of May anchored at Kinsale, where she was soon afterwards joined by the Cinque Ports galley.

A variety of circumstances detained the two ships at Kinsale until the 11th of September. They then made for the island of Madeira, which they reached on the 25th. Here they had the mortification to learn that the Plata galleons had escaped them through their long delay, and arrived in safety at Teneriffe. Dampier then resolved to abandon all idea of sailing for the river La Plata, and to stand away for the Spanish Main, a favourite scene of the operations of the buccaneers. On the 30th of September they passed the islands of Palmas and Ferro; and on the 6th of October reached Mayo, one of the Cape de Verde group, where they hoped to take in a supply of salt, but were prevented by the state of the sea. On the 7th they anchored in Port Praya, in the island of Santiago, where they refreshed themselves with a brief sojourn on shore, and laid in a stock of fresh water.

On the 2nd of November the two ships crossed the line. Fever now broke out among the crews, prostrating some of the ablest seamen; and at La Granda (latitude 30° north), where they put in for water and fuel, Captain Pickering died, to the great loss of the expedition. His death awoke in Selkirk's mind a resolution to remain on some lonely island, rather than serve under Stradling, who had succeeded to the command of the Cinque Ports, and who seems to have been a man of arbitrary and violent disposition. It was at this time, we are told, while brooding over the untoward appearances that were but too evident to every person of judgment, that he had a remarkable dream, in which he was forewarned of the total failure of the expedition and shipwreck of the Cinque Ports. From this moment he determined upon leaving her as soon as a favourable opportunity occurred.

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