ROBINSON CRUSOE. 43

undertake to look after my plantation in my absence, and
would dispose of it to such as I should direct, if I miscarried.
This they all engaged to do, and entered into writings or cove-
nants to do so; andI made a formal will, disposing of my
plantation and effects in case of my death, making the captain
of the ship that had saved my life, as before, my universal
heir, but obliging him to dispose of my effects as I had directed
in my will; one half of the produce being to himself, and the
other to be shipped in England.

In short, I took all possible caution to preserve my effects,
and to keep up my plantation: had I used half as much pru-
dence to have looked into my own interest, and have made a
judgment of what I ought to have done and not to have done,
I had certainly never gone away from so prosperous an under-
taking, leaving all the probable views of a thriving circumstance,
and gone upon a voyage to sea, attended with all its common
hazards, to say nothing of the reasons I had to expect particular
misfortunes to myself.

But I was hurried on, and obeyed blindly the dictates of my
fancy rather than my reason ; and, accordingly, the ship being
fitted out, and the cargo furnished, and all things done, as by
agreement, by my partners in the voyage, I went on board in
an evil hour, the rst of September, 1659, being the same day
eight years that I went from my father and mother at Hull, in
order to act the rebel to their authority, and the fool to my own
interests.

Our ship was about one hundred and twenty tons burden,
carried six guns, and fourteen men, besides the master, his
boy, and myself ; we had on board no large cargo of goods,
except of such toys as were fit for our trade with the Negroes,
such as beads, bits of glass, shells, and other trifles, especially
little looking-glasses, knives, scissors, hatchets; and the like.

The same day I went on board we set sail, standing away
to the northward upon our own coast, with design to stretch
over for the African coast, when we came about ten or twelve
degrees of northern latitude, which, it seems, was the manner
of course in those days. We had very good weather, only ex-
cessively hot, all the way upon our own coast, till we came to
the height of Cape St. Augustino ; from whence, keeping far-
ther off at sea, we lost sight of land, and steered as if we were
bound for the Isle Fernando de Noronha, holding our course
N. E. by N., and leaving those isles on the east. In this course
we passed the line in about twelve days’ time, and were, by
our last observation, in seven degrees twenty-two minutes