United States or Slovakia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
But now another scruple came in the way, and that was religion; for as I had entertained some doubts about the Roman religion, even while I was abroad, especially in my state of solitude; so I knew there was no going to the Brasils for me, much less going to settle there, unless I resolved to embrace the Roman Catholic religion, without any reserve; except on the other hand I resolved to be a sacrifice to my principles, be a martyr for religion, and die in the Inquisition: so I resolved to stay at home, and, if I could find means for it, to dispose of my plantation.
And now I began to think of leaving my effects with this woman, and setting out for Lisbon, and so to the Brasils.
The next day, giving them a salute of five guns at parting, we set sail, and arrived at the bay of All Saints, in the Brasils, in about twenty-two days; meeting nothing remarkable in our passage but this, that about three days after we sailed, being becalmed, and the current setting strong to the N.N.E. running, as it were, into a bay or gulf on the land side, we were driven something out of our course; and once or twice our men cried Land, to the westward; but whether it was the continent, or islands, we could not tell by any means.
I have been, in all my circumstances, a memento to those who are touched with that general plague of mankind, whence, for aught I know, one half of their miseries flow; I mean, that of not being satisfied with the station wherein God and nature hath placed them; for, not to look back upon my primitive condition, and the excellent advice of my father, the opposition to which was, as I may call it, my original sin, my subsequent mistakes of the same kind have been the means of my coming into this miserable condition; for had that Providence, which so happily had seated me at the Brasils as a planter, blessed me with confined desires, and could I have been contented to have gone on gradually, I might have been by this time, I mean in the time of my being on this island, one of the most considerable planters in the Brasils; nay, I am persuaded, that by the improvements I had made in that little time I lived there, and the increase I should probably have made if I had stayed, I might have been worth a hundred thousand moidores; and what business had I to leave a settled fortune, well-stocked plantation, improving and increasing, to turn supercargo to Guinea, to fetch Negroes, when patience and time would have so increased our stock at home, that we could have bought them at our own doors, from those whose business it was to fetch them?
It was an inexpressible joy to me, that any one would believe that I was thus delivered, as I esteemed it, from such a miserable and almost hopeless condition as I was in, and immediately offered all I had to the captain of the ship, as a return for my deliverance; but he generously told me, he would take nothing from me, but that all I had should be delivered safe to me when I came to the Brasils; "For," says he, "I have saved your life on no other terms than I would be glad to be saved myself; and it may one time or other be my lot to be taken up in the same condition: Besides," said he, "when I carry you to the Brasils, so great a way from your own country, if I should take from you what you have, you will be starved there, and then I only take away that life I have given.
If I had had hands to have refitted her, and have launched her into the water, the boat would have done well enough, and I might have gone back into the Brasils with her easy enough; but I might have easily foreseen, that I could no more turn her, and set her upright upon her bottom, than I could remove the island.
From the Brasils we made directly away over the Atlantic sea to the Cape de Bonne Esperance, or, as we call it, the Cape of Good Hope; and had a tolerable good voyage, our course generally south-east; now and then a storm, and some contrary winds.
It was with no small difficulty that I found the place; for as I came to it, and went from it before, on the south and east side of the island, as coming from the Brasils; so now coming in between the main and the island, and having no chart for the coast, nor any land-mark, I did not know it when I saw it, or know whether I saw it or no.
Grotius was desirous that his son should make a voyage to the East-Indies , or, if that was too long a voyage, that he should go to the Brasils, or some other part of America, to learn what was not to be learnt at home, and might be of use to him afterwards. Vossius, in the mean time, gave ample testimonials not only of Peter's progress in the sciences, but also of his moral conduct.
As for the Englishmen, I promised them to send them some women from England, with a good cargo of necessaries, if they would apply themselves to planting; which I afterwards could not perform: the fellows proved very honest and diligent, after they were mastered, and had their properties set apart for them, I sent them also from the Brasils five cows, three of them being big with calf, some sheep, and some hogs, which, when I came again, were considerably increased.
Word Of The Day