562 CRUSOE’S STATEMENT.

ship at Nankin, and that a Chinese junk would serve me very
well to go back again; and that he would procure me people both
to buy the one and sell the other.

“Well but, seignior,” says I, “as you say they know the ship
so well, I may perhaps, if I follow your measures, be instrumental
to bring some honest innocent man into a terrible broil, and per-
haps to be murdered in cold blood; for wherever they find the
ship they will prove the guilt upon the men by proving this was
the ship, and so innocent men may probably be overpowered and
murdered.” “ Why,” says the old man, “I will find out a way to
prevent that also; for as I know all those commanders you speak of
very well, and shall see them all as they pass by, I will be sure to
set them to rights in the thing, and let them know that they had
been so much in the wrong: that though the people who were on
board at first might run away with the ship, yet it was not true
that they had turned pirates; and that in particular these were
not the men that first went off with the ship, but innocently
bought her for their trade: and I am persuaded they will so far
believe me as, at least, to act more cautiously for the time to
come.” ‘ Well,” says I; “and will you deliver one message to
them from me?” “ Yes, I will,” says he, “if you will give it
under your hand in writing, that I may be able to prove that it
came from you, and not out of my own head.” I answered,
“That I would readily give it him under my hand.” So I took
a pen, and ink, and paper, and wrote at large the story of assault-
ing me with the longboats, &c.; the pretended reason of it, and
the unjust cruel design of it; and concluded to the commanders,
that they had done what they not only should have been ashamed
of, but also, that if ever they came to England, and I lived to see
them there, they should all pay dearly for it, if the laws of my
country were not grown out of use before I arrived there.

My old pilot read this over and over again, and asked me
several times if I would stand to it? I answered, “I would stand
to it as long as I had anything left in the world; ” being sensible
that I should one time or other find an opportunity to put it home
to them. But we had no occasion ever to let the pilot carry this
letter; for he never went back again. While these things were