to go. At
first, for some time, I was not able to answer him one word; but as he
had taken me in his arms, I held fast by him, or I should have fallen
to the ground.

He perceived the surprise, and immediately pulls a bottle out of his
pocket, and gave me a dram of cordial, which he had brought on purpose
for me. After I had drank it, I sat down upon the ground; and though
it brought me to myself, yet it was a good while before I could speak
a word to him.

All this while the poor man was in as great an ecstasy as I, only not
under any surprise, as I was; and he said a thousand kind, tender
things to me, to compose me and bring me to myself. But such was the
flood of joy in my breast that it put all my spirits into confusion.
At last it broke out into tears, and in a little while after I
recovered my speech.

Then I took my turn, and embraced him as my deliverer, and we rejoiced
together. I told him I looked upon him as a man sent from heaven to
deliver me, and that the whole transaction seemed to be a chain of
wonders; that such things as these were the testimonies we had of a
secret hand of Providence governing the world, and an evidence that
the eyes of an infinite Power could search into the remotest corner of
the world, and send help to the miserable whenever He pleased.

I forgot not to lift up my heart in thankfulness to heaven; and what
heart could forbear to bless Him, who had not only in a miraculous
manner provided for one in such a wilderness, and in such a desolate
condition, but from whom every deliverance must always be acknowledged
to proceed?

When we had talked a while, the captain told me he had brought me some
little refreshment, such as the ship afforded, and such as the
wretches that had been so long his masters had not plundered him of.
Upon this he called aloud to the boat, and bid his men bring the
things ashore that were for the governor; and, indeed, it was a
present as if I had been one, not that was to be carried away along
with them, but as if I had been to dwell upon the island still, and
they were to go without me.

First, he had brought me a case of bottles full of excellent cordial
waters, six large bottles of Madeira wine (the bottles held two quarts
apiece), two pounds of excellent good tobacco, twelve good pieces of
the ship's beef, and six pieces of pork, with a bag of peas, and about
a hundred-weight of biscuit.

He had brought me also a box of sugar, a box of flour, a b