ANOTHER ALLIANCE. 497

a way of being done in his absence to his satisfaction: of whick
by-and-by.

Having thus brought the affairs of the island to a narrow com-
pass, I was preparing to go on board the ship, when the young
man whom I had taken out of the famished ship’s company came
to me, and told me he understood J had a clergyman with me,
and that I caused the Englishmen to be married to the savages
whom they called wives; that he had a match too, which he de-
sired might be finished before I went, between two Christians,
which he hoped would not be disagreeable to me.

I knew this must be the young woman who was his mother’s
servant, for there was no other Christian woman on the island.
So I began to persuade him not to do anything of that kind
rashly, or because he found himself in this solitary circumstance.
I represented to him that he had some considerable substance in
the world, and good friends, as I understood by himself and by
his maid also; that his maid was not only poor and a servant, but
was unequal to him, she being six or seven and twenty years old,
and he not above seventeen or eighteen; that he might very pro-
bably, with my assistance, make a remove from this wilderness,
and come into his own country again; and that then it would be
a thousand to one but he would repent his choice; and the dis-
like of that circumstance might be disadvantageous to both. I
was going to say more, but he interrupted me, smiling, and told
me, with a great deal of modesty, that I mistook in my guesses ;
that he had nothing of that kind in his thoughts, his present cir-
cumstance being melancholy and disconsolate enough; and he was
very glad to hear that I had thoughts of putting them in a way
to see their country again; and nothing should have put him upon
staying there but that the voyage I was going was so exceeding
long and hazardous, and would carry him quite out of the reach
of all his friends: that he had nothing to desire of me but that I
would scttle him in some little property in the island where he
was, give him a servant or two, and some few necessaries, and he
would settle himself here like a planter, waiting the good time
when, if ever I returned to England, I would redeem him, and
hoped I would not be unmindful of him when I came to England :