CRUSOE UNDISTURBED. 227

shore afterwards, if but one of them escaped to tell their country-
people what had happened, they would come over again by thou- ©
sands to revenge the death of their fellows, and I should only bring
upon myself a certain destruction, which at present I had no man-
ner of occasion for.

Upon the whole, I concluded, that neither in principles nor in
policy I ought one way or other to concern myself in this affair;—
that my business was by all possible means to conceal myself from
them, and not to leave the least signal to them to guess by that there
were any living creatures upon the island,—I mean of human shape.

Religion joined in with this prudential, and I was convinced
now many ways that I was perfectly out of my duty, when I was
laying all my bloody schemes for the destruction of innocent crea-
tures,—I mean innocent as to me. As to the crimes they were
guilty of towards one another, I had nothing to do with them;
they were national, and I ought to leave them to the justice of
God, who is the Governor of nations, and knows how by national
punishments to make a just retribution for national offences, and
to bring public judgments upon those who offend in a public man-
ner, by such ways as best pleases him. j ;

This appeared so clear to me now, that nothing was a greater
satisfaction to me than that I had not been suffered to do a
thing which I now saw so much reason to believe would have been
no less a sin than that of wilful murder, if I had committed it.
And I gave most humble thanks on my knees to God, that had
thus delivered me from blood-guiltiness; beseeching him to grant
me the protection of his providence, that I might not fall into the
hands of the barbarians; or that I might not lay my hands upon
them, unless-I had a more clear call from Heaven to do it, in
defence of my own life.

In this disposition I continued for near a year after this, and so
far was I from desiring an occasion for falling upon these wretches,
that in all that time I never once went up the hill to see whether
there were any of them in sight, or to know whether any of them
had been on shore there or not, that I might not be tempted to
renew any of my contrivances against them, or be provoked by
any advantage which might present itself, to fall upon-them; only