tate that Providence had thus put into my hands; and, indeed,
I had more care upon my head now than I had in my state of life in the
island where I wanted nothing but what I had, and had nothing but what I
wanted; whereas I had now a great charge upon me, and my business was how
to secure it. I had not a cave now to hide my money in, or a place where
it might lie without lock or key, till it grew mouldy and tarnished
before anybody would meddle with it; on the contrary, I knew not where to
put it, or whom to trust with it. My old patron, the captain, indeed,
was honest, and that was the only refuge I had. In the next place, my
interest in the Brazils seemed to summon me thither; but now I could not
tell how to think of going thither till I had settled my affairs, and
left my effects in some safe hands behind me. At first I thought of my
old friend the widow, who I knew was honest, and would be just to me; but
then she was in years, and but poor, and, for aught I knew, might be in
debt: so that, in a word, I had no way but to go back to England myself
and take my effects with me.

It was some months, however, before I resolved upon this; and, therefore,
as I had rewarded the old captain fully, and to his satisfaction, who had
been my former benefactor, so I began to think of the poor widow, whose
husband had been my first benefactor, and she, while it was in her power,
my faithful steward and instructor. So, the first thing I did, I got a
merchant in Lisbon to write to his correspondent in London, not only to
pay a bill, but to go find her out, and carry her, in money, a hundred
pounds from me, and to talk with her, and comfort her in her poverty, by
telling her she should, if I lived, have a further supply: at the same
time I sent my two sisters in the country a hundred pounds each, they
being, though not in want, yet not in very good circumstances; one having
been married and left a widow; and the other having a husband not so kind
to her as he should be. But among all my relations or acquaintances I
could not yet pitch upon one to whom I durst commit the gross of my
stock, that I might go away to the Brazils, and leave things safe behind
me; and this greatly perplexed me.

I had once a mind to have gone to the Brazils and have settled myself
there, for I was, as it were, naturalised to the place; but I had some
little scruple in my mind about religion, which insensibly drew me back.
However, it was not religion