ROBINSON CRUSOE. 249

‘little time all my new-discovered estate safe about me, the bills
of ane which I brought with me having been very currently
paid.

My principal guide and privy-counsellor was my good ancient
widow, who, in gratitude for the money I had sent her, thought
no pains too much nor care too great to employ for me ; and
1 trusted her so entirely with everything, that I was perfectly
easy as to the security of my effects ; and, indeed, I was very
happy from the beginning, and now to the end, in the unspotted
integrity of this good gentlewoman.

And now, having resolved to dispose of my plantation in
the Brazils, I wrote to my old friend at Lisbon, who having
offered it to the two merchants, the survivors of my trustees,
who lived in the Brazils, they accepted the offer, and remitted
thirty-three thousand pieces of eight to a correspondent of theirs
at Lisbon to pay for it.

In return, I signed the instrument of sale in the form which
they sent from Lisbon, and sent it to my old man, who sent me
the bills of exchange for thirty-two thousand eight hundred
pieces-of-eight for the estate, reserving the payment of one
hundred moidores a year to him (the old man) during his life,
and fifty moidores afterwards to his son for his life, which I
promised them, and which the plantation was to make good as
a rent-charge. And thus I have given the first part of a life
of fortune and adventure,—a life of Providence’s checker-work,
and of a variety which the world will seldom be able to show
the like of ;—beginning foolishly, but closing much more
happily than any part of it ever gave me leave so much as to
hope for,

Any one would think that in this state of complicated good
fortune I was past running any more hazards,—and so, indeed,
I had been, if other circumstances had concurred ; but I was
inured to a wandering life, had no family, nor many relations ;
nor, however rich, had I contracted much acquaintance; and
though I had sold my estate in the Brazils, yet I could not keep
that country out of my head, and had a great mind to be upon
the wing again ; especially I could not resist the strong incli-
nation I had to see my island, and to know if the poor Spaniards
were in being there. My true friend, the widow, earnestly dis-
suaded me from it, and so far prevailed with me, that for almost
seven years she prevented my running abroad, during which
time I took my two nephews, the children of one of my brothers,
into my care ; the eldest, having something of his own, I bred
up as a gentleman, and gave him a settlement of some addition