90 CRUSOE AT SEA ONCE MORE.

to any one that had not had a settlement and plantation of his
own to look after, which was in a fair way of coming to be very:
considerable, and with a good stock upon it. But for me that was
thus entered and established, and had nothing to do but go on as
I had begun for three or four years more, and to have sent for the
other hundred pounds from England, and who in that time, and
with that little addition, could scarce have failed of being worth
three or four thousand pounds sterling, and that increasing too,—
for me to think of such a voyage was the most preposterous thing
that ever man in such circumstances could be guilty of.

But I, that was born to be my own destroyer, could no more
resist the offer than I could restrain my first rambling designs
when my father’s good counsel was lost upon me. Ina word, I
told them I would go with all my heart if they would undertake
to look after my plantation in my absence, and would dispose of
it to such as I should direct if I miscarried. This they all
engaged to do, and entered into writings or covenants to do so;
and I made a formal will, disposing of my plantation and effects,
in case of my death, making the captain of the ship that had saved
my life, as before, my universal heir, but obliging him to dispose
of my effects as I had directed in my will—one-half of the pro-
duce being to himself, and the other to be shipped to England.
In short, I took all possible caution to preserve my effects and
keep up my plantation. Had I used half as much prudence to
have looked into my own interest, and have made a judgment of
what I ought to have done and not to have done, I had certainly
never gone away from so prosperous an undertaking—leaving all
the probable views of a thriving circumstance, and gone upon a
voyage to sea, attended with all. its common hazards, to say
nothing of the reasons I had to expect particular misfortunes to
myself.

But I was hurried on, and obeyed blindly the dictates of my
fancy rather than my reason. And accordingly, the ship being
fitted out and the cargo furnished, and all things done as by
agreement by my partners in the voyage, I went on board in an
evil hour—the Ist of September 1659, being the same day eight
years that I went from my father and mother at Hull in order