ON A WILD-GOOSE CHASE, 617

wwn; who, though I had influence over them as father and bene-
factor, had no authority or power to act or command one way
or other, further than voluntary consent moved them to comply.
Yet even this, had I stayed there, would have done well enough.
But as I rambled from them, and came there no more, the last
letters I had from any of them was by my partner’s means, who
afterwards sent another sloop to the place, and who sent me word
(though I had not the letter till five years after it was written),
that they went on but poorly, were malcontent with their long
stay there; that Will Atkins was dead; that five of the Spaniards
were come away; and that though they had not been much mo-
lested by the savages, yet they had had some skirmishes with
them; and that they begged of him to write to me, to think of
the promise I had made, to fetch them away, that they might see
their own country again before they died.

But I was gone a wild-goose chase indeed; and they that will
have any more of me must be content to follow me through a new
variety of follies, hardships, and wild adventures, wherein the
justice of Providence may be duly observed, and we may see how
easily Heaven can gorge us with our own desires, make the
strongest of our wishes be our affliction, and punish us most
severely with those very things which we think it would be our
utmost happiness to be allowed in.

Let no wise man flatter himself with the strength of his own
judgment, as if he were able to choose any particular station of
life for himself. Man is a short-sighted creature, sees but a
very little way before him; and as his passions are none of his
best friends, so his particular affections are generally his worst
counsellors.

I say this with respect to the impetuous desire I had from a
youth to wander into the world, and how evident it now was that
this principle was preserved in me for my punishment. How it
came on, the manner, the circumstance, and the conclusion of it,
it is easy to give you historically, and with its utmost variety of
particulars. But the secret ends of divine power, in thus per-
mitting us to be hurried down the stream of our own desires, is
only to be understood of those who can listen to the voice of Pro-