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be sure they would not be killed. As soon as they were assured
of this, they discovered such a joy, and by such awkward
gestures, several ways, as is hard to describe ; for it seems they
were of several nations. The woman who was their interpreter
was bid, in the next place, to ask them if they were willing to
be servants, and to work for the men who had brought them
away, to save their lives; at which they all fell a-dancing ; and
presently one fell to taking up this, and another that, anything
that lay next, to carry on their shoulders, to intimate they were
willing to work.

The governor, who found that the having women among them
would presently be attended with some inconvenience, and
might occasion some strife, and perhaps blood, asked the three
men what they intended to do with these women, and how they
intended to use them, whether as servants or as wives? One
of the Englishmen answered, very boldly and readily, that they
would use them as both; to which the governor said: “I am
not going to restrain you from it—you are your own masters as
to that ; but this I think is but just, for avoiding disorders and
quarrels among you, and I desire it of you for that reason only,
viz. that you will all engage, that if any of you take any of these
women as a wife, he shall take but one ; and that having taken
one, none else shall touch her; for though we cannot marry any
one of you, yet it is but reasonable that, while you stay here, the
woman any of you takes shall be maintained by the man that
takes her, and should be his wife—I mean,” says he, “ while he
continues here, and that none else shall have anything to do
with her.” All this appeared so just, that every one agreed to
it without any difficulty.

Then the Englishmen asked the Spaniards if they designed to
take any of them? But every one of them answered “No.”
Some of them said they had wives in Spain, and the others
did not like women that were not Christians; and all together
declared that they would not touch one of them, which was an
instance of such virtue as I have not met with in all my travels.
On the other hand, the five Englishmen took them every one a
wife, that is to say, a temporary wife ; and so they set up a new
form of living; for the Spaniards and Friday’s father lived in
my old habitation, which they had enlarged exceedingly within.
The three servants which were taken in the last battle of the
savages lived with them ; and these carried on the main part of
the colony, supplied all the rest with food, and assisted them in
anything as they could, or as they found necessity required.

But the wonder of the story was, how five such refractory, ill-