Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 3Sylvester, Charles Herbert
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Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 3
Sylvester, Charles Herbert
Children's literature; Literature -- Collections
When the captain was gone, I sent for the men up to me to my
apartment, and entered seriously into discourse with them on their
circumstances. I told them I thought they had made a right choice;
that if the captain had carried them away, they would certainly be
hanged. I showed them the new captain hanging at the yardarm of the
ship, and told them they had nothing less to expect.
When they had all declared their willingness to stay, I then told them
I would let them into the story of my living there, and put them into
the way of making it easy to them: accordingly, I gave them the whole
history of the place, and of my coming to it; showed them my
fortifications, the way I made my bread, planted my corn, cured my
grapes; and, in a word, all that was necessary to make them easy. I
told them the story also of the sixteen Spaniards that were to be
expected, for whom I left a letter, and made them promise to treat
them in common with themselves.
I left them my firearms, viz., five muskets, three fowling pieces, and
three swords. I had above a barrel and a half of powder left; for
after the first year or two I used but little, and wasted none. I gave
them a description of the way I managed the goats, and directions to
milk and fatten them, and to make both butter and cheese. In a word, I
gave them every part of my own story; and told them I should prevail
with the captain to leave them two barrels of gunpowder more, and some
garden seeds, which I told them I would have been very glad of. Also,
I gave them the bag of peas which the captain had brought me to eat,
and bade them to be sure to sow and increase them.
I left them the next day, and went on board the ship. We prepared
immediately to sail, but did not weigh that night. The next morning
early, two of the five men came swimming to the ship's side, and,
making the most lamentable complaint of the other three, begged to be
taken into the ship for God's sake, for they should be murdered, and
begged the captain to take them on board, though he hanged them
immediately. Upon this the captain pretended to have no power without
me; but after some difficulty, and after solemn promises of amendment,
they were taken on board, and were, some time after, roundly whipped
and pickled; after which they proved very honest and quiet fellows.
Sometime after this, the boat was ordered on shore, the tide being up,
with the things promised to the men; to which the captain, at my
intercession, caused their chests and clothes to be added, which they
took, and were very thankful for.
And thus I left the island, the 19th of December, as I found by the
ship's account, in the year 1686, after I had been upon it eight-and-
twenty years, two months, and nineteen days; being delivered from this
captivity the same day of the month that I first had been cast ashore.
In this vessel, after a long voyage, I arrived in England the 11th of
June, in the year 1687, having been thirty-five years absent.
FAITHLESS SALLY BROWN
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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