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CHAPTER II SLAVERY AND ESCAPE
That evil influence which carried me first away from my father's house-which hurried
me into the wild and indigested notion of raising my fortune, and that impressed
those conceits so forcibly upon me as to
make me deaf to all good advice, and to the entreaties and even the commands of my
father-I say, the same influence, whatever it was, presented the most unfortunate of
all enterprises to my view; and I went on
board a vessel bound to the coast of Africa; or, as our sailors vulgarly called
it, a voyage to Guinea.
It was my great misfortune that in all these adventures I did not ship myself as a
sailor; when, though I might indeed have worked a little harder than ordinary, yet
at the same time I should have learnt the
duty and office of a fore-mast man, and in time might have qualified myself for a mate
or lieutenant, if not for a master.
But as it was always my fate to choose for the worse, so I did here; for having money
in my pocket and good clothes upon my back, I would always go on board in the habit of
a gentleman; and so I neither had any
business in the ship, nor learned to do any.
It was my lot first of all to fall into pretty good company in London, which does
not always happen to such loose and misguided young fellows as I then was; the
devil generally not omitting to lay some
snare for them very early; but it was not so with me.
I first got acquainted with the master of a ship who had been on the coast of Guinea;
and who, having had very good success there, was resolved to go again.
This captain taking a fancy to my conversation, which was not at all
disagreeable at that time, hearing me say I had a mind to see the world, told me if I
would go the voyage with him I should be at
no expense; I should be his messmate and his companion; and if I could carry
anything with me, I should have all the advantage of it that the trade would admit;
and perhaps I might meet with some encouragement.
I embraced the offer; and entering into a strict friendship with this captain, who
was an honest, plain-dealing man, I went the voyage with him, and carried a small
adventure with me, which, by the
disinterested honesty of my friend the captain, I increased very considerably; for
I carried about £40 in such toys and trifles as the captain directed me to buy.
These £40 I had mustered together by the assistance of some of my relations whom I
corresponded with; and who, I believe, got my father, or at least my mother, to
contribute so much as that to my first adventure.
This was the only voyage which I may say was successful in all my adventures, which
I owe to the integrity and honesty of my friend the captain; under whom also I got a
competent knowledge of the mathematics and
the rules of navigation, learned how to keep an account of the ship's course, take
an observation, and, in short, to understand some things that were needful to
be understood by a sailor; for, as he took
delight to instruct me, I took delight to learn; and, in a word, this voyage made me
both a sailor and a merchant; for I brought home five pounds nine ounces of gold-dust
for my adventure, which yielded me in
London, at my return, almost £300; and this filled me with those aspiring thoughts
which have since so completed my ruin.
Yet even in this voyage I had my misfortunes too; particularly, that I was
continually sick, being thrown into a violent calenture by the excessive heat of
the climate; our principal trading being
upon the coast, from latitude of 15 degrees north even to the line itself.
I was now set up for a Guinea trader; and my friend, to my great misfortune, dying
soon after his arrival, I resolved to go the same voyage again, and I embarked in
the same vessel with one who was his mate
in the former voyage, and had now got the command of the ship.
This was the unhappiest voyage that ever man made; for though I did not carry quite
£100 of my new-gained wealth, so that I had £200 left, which I had lodged with my
friend's widow, who was very just to me, yet I fell into terrible misfortunes.
The first was this: our ship making her course towards the Canary Islands, or
rather between those islands and the African shore, was surprised in the grey of
the morning by a Turkish rover of Sallee,
who gave chase to us with all the sail she could make.
We crowded also as much canvas as our yards would spread, or our masts carry, to get
clear; but finding the pirate gained upon us, and would certainly come up with us in
a few hours, we prepared to fight; our ship having twelve guns, and the rogue eighteen.
About three in the afternoon he came up with us, and bringing to, by mistake, just
athwart our quarter, instead of athwart our stern, as he intended, we brought eight of
our guns to bear on that side, and poured
in a broadside upon him, which made him sheer off again, after returning our fire,
and pouring in also his small shot from near two hundred men which he had on board.
However, we had not a man touched, all our men keeping close.
He prepared to attack us again, and we to defend ourselves.
But laying us on board the next time upon our other quarter, he entered sixty men
upon our decks, who immediately fell to cutting and hacking the sails and rigging.
We plied them with small shot, half-pikes, powder-chests, and such like, and cleared
our deck of them twice.
However, to cut short this melancholy part of our story, our ship being disabled, and
three of our men killed, and eight wounded, we were obliged to yield, and were carried
all prisoners into Sallee, a port belonging to the Moors.
The usage I had there was not so dreadful as at first I apprehended; nor was I
carried up the country to the emperor's court, as the rest of our men were, but was
kept by the captain of the rover as his
proper prize, and made his slave, being young and nimble, and fit for his business.
At this surprising change of my circumstances, from a merchant to a
miserable slave, I was perfectly overwhelmed; and now I looked back upon my
father's prophetic discourse to me, that I
should be miserable and have none to relieve me, which I thought was now so
effectually brought to pass that I could not be worse; for now the hand of Heaven
had overtaken me, and I was undone without
redemption; but, alas! this was but a taste of the misery I was to go through, as will
appear in the sequel of this story.
As my new patron, or master, had taken me home to his house, so I was in hopes that
he would take me with him when he went to sea again, believing that it would some
time or other be his fate to be taken by a
Spanish or Portugal man-of-war; and that then I should be set at liberty.
But this hope of mine was soon taken away; for when he went to sea, he left me on
shore to look after his little garden, and do the common drudgery of slaves about his
house; and when he came home again from his
cruise, he ordered me to lie in the cabin to look after the ship.
Here I meditated nothing but my escape, and what method I might take to effect it, but
found no way that had the least probability in it; nothing presented to make the
supposition of it rational; for I had
nobody to communicate it to that would embark with me-no fellow-slave, no
Englishman, Irishman, or Scotchman there but myself; so that for two years, though I
often pleased myself with the imagination,
yet I never had the least encouraging prospect of putting it in practice.
After about two years, an odd circumstance presented itself, which put the old thought
of making some attempt for my liberty again in my head.
My patron lying at home longer than usual without fitting out his ship, which, as I
heard, was for want of money, he used constantly, once or twice a week, sometimes
oftener if the weather was fair, to take
the ship's pinnace and go out into the road a-fishing; and as he always took me and
young Maresco with him to row the boat, we made him very merry, and I proved very
dexterous in catching fish; insomuch that
sometimes he would send me with a Moor, one of his kinsmen, and the youth-the Maresco,
as they called him-to catch a dish of fish for him.
It happened one time, that going a-fishing in a calm morning, a fog rose so thick
that, though we were not half a league from the shore, we lost sight of it; and rowing
we knew not whither or which way, we
laboured all day, and all the next night; and when the morning came we found we had
pulled off to sea instead of pulling in for the shore; and that we were at least two
leagues from the shore.
However, we got well in again, though with a great deal of labour and some danger; for
the wind began to blow pretty fresh in the morning; but we were all very hungry.
But our patron, warned by this disaster, resolved to take more care of himself for
the future; and having lying by him the longboat of our English ship that he had
taken, he resolved he would not go a-
fishing any more without a compass and some provision; so he ordered the carpenter of
his ship, who also was an English slave, to build a little state-room, or cabin, in the
middle of the long-boat, like that of a
barge, with a place to stand behind it to steer, and haul home the main-sheet; the
room before for a hand or two to stand and work the sails.
She sailed with what we call a shoulder-of- mutton sail; and the boom jibed over the
top of the cabin, which lay very snug and low, and had in it room for him to lie,
with a slave or two, and a table to eat on,
with some small lockers to put in some bottles of such liquor as he thought fit to
drink; and his bread, rice, and coffee.
We went frequently out with this boat a- fishing; and as I was most dexterous to
catch fish for him, he never went without me.
It happened that he had appointed to go out in this boat, either for pleasure or for
fish, with two or three Moors of some distinction in that place, and for whom he
had provided extraordinarily, and had,
therefore, sent on board the boat overnight a larger store of provisions than ordinary;
and had ordered me to get ready three fusees with powder and shot, which were on
board his ship, for that they designed some sport of fowling as well as fishing.
I got all things ready as he had directed, and waited the next morning with the boat
washed clean, her ancient and pendants out, and everything to accommodate his guests;
when by-and-by my patron came on board
alone, and told me his guests had put off going from some business that fell out, and
ordered me, with the man and boy, as usual, to go out with the boat and catch them some
fish, for that his friends were to sup at
his house, and commanded that as soon as I got some fish I should bring it home to his
house; all which I prepared to do.
This moment my former notions of deliverance darted into my thoughts, for
now I found I was likely to have a little ship at my command; and my master being
gone, I prepared to furnish myself, not for
fishing business, but for a voyage; though I knew not, neither did I so much as
consider, whither I should steer-anywhere to get out of that place was my desire.
My first contrivance was to make a pretence to speak to this Moor, to get something for
our subsistence on board; for I told him we must not presume to eat of our patron's
bread.
He said that was true; so he brought a large basket of rusk or biscuit, and three
jars of fresh water, into the boat.
I knew where my patron's case of bottles stood, which it was evident, by the make,
were taken out of some English prize, and I conveyed them into the boat while the Moor
was on shore, as if they had been there before for our master.
I conveyed also a great lump of beeswax into the boat, which weighed about half a
hundred-weight, with a parcel of twine or thread, a hatchet, a saw, and a hammer, all
of which were of great use to us
afterwards, especially the wax, to make candles.
Another trick I tried upon him, which he innocently came into also: his name was
Ismael, which they call Muley, or Moely; so I called to him-"Moely," said I, "our
patron's guns are on board the boat; can you not get a little powder and shot?
It may be we may kill some alcamies (a fowl like our curlews) for ourselves, for I know
he keeps the gunner's stores in the ship." "Yes," says he, "I'll bring some;" and
accordingly he brought a great leather
pouch, which held a pound and a half of powder, or rather more; and another with
shot, that had five or six pounds, with some bullets, and put all into the boat.
At the same time I had found some powder of my master's in the great cabin, with which
I filled one of the large bottles in the case, which was almost empty, pouring what
was in it into another; and thus furnished
with everything needful, we sailed out of the port to fish.
The castle, which is at the entrance of the port, knew who we were, and took no notice
of us; and we were not above a mile out of the port before we hauled in our sail and
set us down to fish.
The wind blew from the N.N.E., which was contrary to my desire, for had it blown
southerly I had been sure to have made the coast of Spain, and at least reached to the
bay of Cadiz; but my resolutions were, blow
which way it would, I would be gone from that horrid place where I was, and leave
the rest to fate.
After we had fished some time and caught nothing-for when I had fish on my hook I
would not pull them up, that he might not see them-I said to the Moor, "This will not
do; our master will not be thus served; we
must stand farther off." He, thinking no harm, agreed, and being in the head of the
boat, set the sails; and, as I had the helm, I ran the boat out near a league
farther, and then brought her to, as if I
would fish; when, giving the boy the helm, I stepped forward to where the Moor was,
and making as if I stooped for something behind him, I took him by surprise with my
arm under his waist, and tossed him clear overboard into the sea.
He rose immediately, for he swam like a cork, and called to me, begged to be taken
in, told me he would go all over the world with me.
He swam so strong after the boat that he would have reached me very quickly, there
being but little wind; upon which I stepped into the cabin, and fetching one of the
fowling-pieces, I presented it at him, and
told him I had done him no hurt, and if he would be quiet I would do him none.
"But," said I, "you swim well enough to reach to the shore, and the sea is calm;
make the best of your way to shore, and I will do you no harm; but if you come near
the boat I'll shoot you through the head,
for I am resolved to have my liberty;" so he turned himself about, and swam for the
shore, and I make no doubt but he reached it with ease, for he was an excellent
swimmer.
I could have been content to have taken this Moor with me, and have drowned the
boy, but there was no venturing to trust him.
When he was gone, I turned to the boy, whom they called Xury, and said to him, "Xury,
if you will be faithful to me, I'll make you a great man; but if you will not stroke
your face to be true to me"-that is, swear
by Mahomet and his father's beard-"I must throw you into the sea too." The boy
smiled in my face, and spoke so innocently that I could not distrust him, and swore to
be faithful to me, and go all over the world with me.
While I was in view of the Moor that was swimming, I stood out directly to sea with
the boat, rather stretching to windward, that they might think me gone towards the
Straits' mouth (as indeed any one that had
been in their wits must have been supposed to do): for who would have supposed we were
sailed on to the southward, to the truly Barbarian coast, where whole nations of
negroes were sure to surround us with their
canoes and destroy us; where we could not go on shore but we should be devoured by
savage beasts, or more merciless savages of human kind.
But as soon as it grew dusk in the evening, I changed my course, and steered directly
south and by east, bending my course a little towards the east, that I might keep
in with the shore; and having a fair, fresh
gale of wind, and a smooth, quiet sea, I made such sail that I believe by the next
day, at three o'clock in the afternoon, when I first made the land, I could not be
less than one hundred and fifty miles south
of Sallee; quite beyond the Emperor of Morocco's dominions, or indeed of any other
king thereabouts, for we saw no people.
Yet such was the fright I had taken of the Moors, and the dreadful apprehensions I had
of falling into their hands, that I would not stop, or go on shore, or come to an
anchor; the wind continuing fair till I had
sailed in that manner five days; and then the wind shifting to the southward, I
concluded also that if any of our vessels were in chase of me, they also would now
give over; so I ventured to make to the
coast, and came to an anchor in the mouth of a little river, I knew not what, nor
where, neither what latitude, what country, what nation, or what river.
I neither saw, nor desired to see any people; the principal thing I wanted was
fresh water.
We came into this creek in the evening, resolving to swim on shore as soon as it
was dark, and discover the country; but as soon as it was quite dark, we heard such
dreadful noises of the barking, roaring,
and howling of wild creatures, of we knew not what kinds, that the poor boy was ready
to die with fear, and begged of me not to go on shore till day.
"Well, Xury," said I, "then I won't; but it may be that we may see men by day, who will
be as bad to us as those lions." "Then we give them the shoot gun," says Xury,
laughing, "make them run wey." Such
English Xury spoke by conversing among us slaves.
However, I was glad to see the boy so cheerful, and I gave him a dram (out of our
patron's case of bottles) to cheer him up.
After all, Xury's advice was good, and I took it; we dropped our little anchor, and
lay still all night; I say still, for we slept none; for in two or three hours we
saw vast great creatures (we knew not what
to call them) of many sorts, come down to the sea-shore and run into the water,
wallowing and washing themselves for the pleasure of cooling themselves; and they
made such hideous howlings and yellings, that I never indeed heard the like.
Xury was dreadfully frighted, and indeed so was I too; but we were both more frighted
when we heard one of these mighty creatures come swimming towards our boat; we could
not see him, but we might hear him by his
blowing to be a monstrous huge and furious beast.
Xury said it was a lion, and it might be so for aught I know; but poor Xury cried to me
to weigh the anchor and row away; "No," says I, "Xury; we can slip our cable, with
the buoy to it, and go off to sea; they
cannot follow us far." I had no sooner said so, but I perceived the creature
(whatever it was) within two oars' length, which something surprised me; however, I
immediately stepped to the cabin door, and
taking up my gun, fired at him; upon which he immediately turned about and swam
towards the shore again.
But it is impossible to describe the horrid noises, and hideous cries and howlings that
were raised, as well upon the edge of the shore as higher within the country, upon
the noise or report of the gun, a thing I
have some reason to believe those creatures had never heard before: this convinced me
that there was no going on shore for us in the night on that coast, and how to venture
on shore in the day was another question
too; for to have fallen into the hands of any of the savages had been as bad as to
have fallen into the hands of the lions and tigers; at least we were equally
apprehensive of the danger of it.
Be that as it would, we were obliged to go on shore somewhere or other for water, for
we had not a pint left in the boat; when and where to get to it was the point.
Xury said, if I would let him go on shore with one of the jars, he would find if
there was any water, and bring some to me. I asked him why he would go? why I should
not go, and he stay in the boat?
The boy answered with so much affection as made me love him ever after.
Says he, "If wild mans come, they eat me, you go wey." "Well, Xury," said I, "we
will both go and if the wild mans come, we will kill them, they shall eat neither of
us." So I gave Xury a piece of rusk bread
to eat, and a dram out of our patron's case of bottles which I mentioned before; and we
hauled the boat in as near the shore as we thought was proper, and so waded on shore,
carrying nothing but our arms and two jars for water.
I did not care to go out of sight of the boat, fearing the coming of canoes with
savages down the river; but the boy seeing a low place about a mile up the country,
rambled to it, and by-and-by I saw him come running towards me.
I thought he was pursued by some savage, or frighted with some wild beast, and I ran
forward towards him to help him; but when I came nearer to him I saw something hanging
over his shoulders, which was a creature
that he had shot, like a hare, but different in colour, and longer legs;
however, we were very glad of it, and it was very good meat; but the great joy that
poor Xury came with, was to tell me he had found good water and seen no wild mans.
But we found afterwards that we need not take such pains for water, for a little
higher up the creek where we were we found the water fresh when the tide was out,
which flowed but a little way up; so we
filled our jars, and feasted on the hare he had killed, and prepared to go on our way,
having seen no footsteps of any human creature in that part of the country.
As I had been one voyage to this coast before, I knew very well that the islands
of the Canaries, and the Cape de Verde Islands also, lay not far off from the
coast.
But as I had no instruments to take an observation to know what latitude we were
in, and not exactly knowing, or at least remembering, what latitude they were in, I
knew not where to look for them, or when to
stand off to sea towards them; otherwise I might now easily have found some of these
islands.
But my hope was, that if I stood along this coast till I came to that part where the
English traded, I should find some of their vessels upon their usual design of trade,
that would relieve and take us in.
By the best of my calculation, that place where I now was must be that country which,
lying between the Emperor of Morocco's dominions and the negroes, lies waste and
uninhabited, except by wild beasts; the
negroes having abandoned it and gone farther south for fear of the Moors, and
the Moors not thinking it worth inhabiting by reason of its barrenness; and indeed,
both forsaking it because of the prodigious
number of tigers, lions, leopards, and other furious creatures which harbour
there; so that the Moors use it for their hunting only, where they go like an army,
two or three thousand men at a time; and
indeed for near a hundred miles together upon this coast we saw nothing but a waste,
uninhabited country by day, and heard nothing but howlings and roaring of wild
beasts by night.
Once or twice in the daytime I thought I saw the Pico of Teneriffe, being the high
top of the Mountain Teneriffe in the Canaries, and had a great mind to venture
out, in hopes of reaching thither; but
having tried twice, I was forced in again by contrary winds, the sea also going too
high for my little vessel; so, I resolved to pursue my first design, and keep along
the shore.
Several times I was obliged to land for fresh water, after we had left this place;
and once in particular, being early in morning, we came to an anchor under a
little point of land, which was pretty
high; and the tide beginning to flow, we lay still to go farther in.
Xury, whose eyes were more about him than it seems mine were, calls softly to me, and
tells me that we had best go farther off the shore; "For," says he, "look, yonder
lies a dreadful monster on the side of that
hillock, fast asleep." I looked where he pointed, and saw a dreadful monster indeed,
for it was a terrible, great lion that lay on the side of the shore, under the shade
of a piece of the hill that hung as it were a little over him.
"Xury," says I, "you shall on shore and kill him." Xury, looked frighted, and
said, "Me kill! he eat me at one mouth!"- one mouthful he meant.
However, I said no more to the boy, but bade him lie still, and I took our biggest
gun, which was almost musket-bore, and loaded it with a good charge of powder, and
with two slugs, and laid it down; then I
loaded another gun with two bullets; and the third (for we had three pieces) I
loaded with five smaller bullets.
I took the best aim I could with the first piece to have shot him in the head, but he
lay so with his leg raised a little above his nose, that the slugs hit his leg about
the knee and broke the bone.
He started up, growling at first, but finding his leg broken, fell down again;
and then got upon three legs, and gave the most hideous roar that ever I heard.
I was a little surprised that I had not hit him on the head; however, I took up the
second piece immediately, and though he began to move off, fired again, and shot
him in the head, and had the pleasure to
see him drop and make but little noise, but lie struggling for life.
Then Xury took heart, and would have me let him go on shore.
"Well, go," said I: so the boy jumped into the water and taking a little gun in one
hand, swam to shore with the other hand, and coming close to the creature, put the
muzzle of the piece to his ear, and shot
him in the head again, which despatched him quite.
This was game indeed to us, but this was no food; and I was very sorry to lose three
charges of powder and shot upon a creature that was good for nothing to us.
However, Xury said he would have some of him; so he comes on board, and asked me to
give him the hatchet. "For what, Xury?" said I.
"Me cut off his head," said he.
However, Xury could not cut off his head, but he cut off a foot, and brought it with
him, and it was a monstrous great one.
I bethought myself, however, that, perhaps the skin of him might, one way or other, be
of some value to us; and I resolved to take off his skin if I could.
So Xury and I went to work with him; but Xury was much the better workman at it, for
I knew very ill how to do it.
Indeed, it took us both up the whole day, but at last we got off the hide of him, and
spreading it on the top of our cabin, the sun effectually dried it in two days' time,
and it afterwards served me to lie upon.