THE VALUE OF PRESENTIMENTS. 808

not the people we looked for, and that we might not know yet
‘whether they were friends or enemies.

In the next place, I went in to fetch my perspective-glass to see
what I could make of them; and having taken the ladder out, I
climbed to the top of the hill, as I used to do when I was appre-
hensive of anything, and to take my view the plainer without being
discovered.

I had scarce set my foot on the hill, when my eye plainly dis-
covered a ship lying at an anchor, at about two leagues and a half’s
distance from me south-south-east, but not above a league and a half
from the shore. By my observation it appeared plainly to be an
English ship, and the boat appeared to be an English long-boat.

I cannot express the confusion I was in, though the joy of see-
ing a ship, and one who I had reason to believe was manned by
my own countrymen and consequently friends, was such as I can-
not describe. But yet I had some secret doubts hung about me, I
cannot tell from whence they came, bidding me keep upon my
guard. In the first place,-it occurred to me to consider what busi-
ness an English ship could have in that part of the world, since it
was not the way to or from any part of the world where the Eng-
lish had any traffic; and I knew there had been no storms to drive
them in there as in distress; and that if they were English really,
it was most probable that they were here upon no good design,
and that I had better continue as I was than fall into the hands of
thieves and murderers.

Let no man despise the secret hints and notices of danger, which
sometimes are given when he may think there is no possibility of
its being real. That such hints and notices are given us, I believe
few that have made any observations of things can deny; that
they are certain discoveries of an invisible world, and a converse
of spirits, we cannot doubt ; and if the tendency of them seems to be
to warn us of danger, why should we not suppose they are from some
friendly agent—whether supreme, or inferior and subordinate, is
not the question; and that they are given for our good ?

The present question abundantly confirms me in the justice of
this reasoning; for had I not been made cautious by this secret

admonition, come it from whence it will, I had been undone inevi-
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