OF ROBINSON CRUSOE 465

 

Another apprehension I had, was of the cruel usage we should meet
with from them, if we fell into their hands: then the story of Am-
boyna came into my head, and how the Dutch might, perhaps, torture
us, as they did our countrymen there; and make some of our men, by
extremity of torture, confess those crimes they were never guilty of—
own themselves, and all of us to be pirates; and so they would put us
to death, with a formal appearance of justice; and that they might be
tempted to do this for the gain of our ship and cargo, which was worth
four or five thousand pounds, put all together. ,

These things tormented me, and my partner too, night and day;
nor did we consider that the captains of ships have no authority to act
thus; and if we had surrendered prisoners to them, they could not
answer the destroying us, or torturing us, but would be accountable
for it when they came into their own country. This, I say, gave me
no satisfaction; for, if they will act thus with us, what advantage
would it be to us that they would be called to an account for it? or, if
we were first to be murdered, what satisfaction would it be to us to
have them punished when they came home?

I cannot refrain taking notice here what reflections I now had upon
the past variety of my particulaz circumstances; how hard I thought
it was, that I, who had spent forty years in a life of continued diffi-
culties, and was at last come, as it were, at the port or haven which
all men drive at, namely, to have rest and plenty, should be a volun-
teer in new sorrows, by my own unhappy choice; and that I, who had
escaped so many dangers in my youth, should now come to be hanged
in my old age, and in so remote a place, for a crime I was not in the
least inclined to, much less guilty of; and in a place and circumstance,
where innocence was not like to be any protection at all to me.

After these thoughts, something of religion would come in; and I
would be considering that this seemed to me to be a disposition of im-
mediate Providence; and I ought to look upom‘it, and submit to it as
such; that although I was innocent as to men, I was far from being
innocent as to my Maker; and I ought to look in, and examine what
other crimes in my life were most obvious to me, and for which Pro-
vidence might justly inflict this punishment as a retribution; and that
I ought to submit to this, just as I would dua Shipwreck, if it had
pleased God to have brought such a disaster Spon Bie,

Tn its turn, natural courage would sometimes’ take’ its place; and
then I would be talking myself up to vigorous resdlution, that I would
not be taken to be barbarously used by a parcel of merciless: wretches,
in cold blood; that it was much better to have fallen into the hands

of the savages, who were men-eaters, and who, I was sure, ‘would —

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