my next difficulty was which way to go to
England: I had been accustomed enough to the sea, and yet I had a strange
aversion to go to England by the sea at that time, and yet I could give
no reason for it, yet the difficulty increased upon me so much, that
though I had once shipped my baggage in order to go, yet I altered my
mind, and that not once but two or three times.

It is true I had been very unfortunate by sea, and this might be one of
the reasons; but let no man slight the strong impulses of his own
thoughts in cases of such moment: two of the ships which I had singled
out to go in, I mean more particularly singled out than any other, having
put my things on board one of them, and in the other having agreed with
the captain; I say two of these ships miscarried. One was taken by the
Algerines, and the other was lost on the Start, near Torbay, and all the
people drowned except three; so that in either of those vessels I had
been made miserable.

Having been thus harassed in my thoughts, my old pilot, to whom I
communicated everything, pressed me earnestly not to go by sea, but
either to go by land to the Groyne, and cross over the Bay of Biscay to
Rochelle, from whence it was but an easy and safe journey by land to
Paris, and so to Calais and Dover; or to go up to Madrid, and so all the
way by land through France. In a word, I was so prepossessed against my
going by sea at all, except from Calais to Dover, that I resolved to
travel all the way by land; which, as I was not in haste, and did not
value the charge, was by much the pleasanter way: and to make it more so,
my old captain brought an English gentleman, the son of a merchant in
Lisbon, who was willing to travel with me; after which we picked up two
more English merchants also, and two young Portuguese gentlemen, the last
going to Paris only; so that in all there were six of us and five
servants; the two merchants and the two Portuguese, contenting themselves
with one servant between two, to save the charge; and as for me, I got an
English sailor to travel with me as a servant, besides my man Friday, who
was too much a stranger to be capable of supplying the place of a servant
on the road.

In this manner I set out from Lisbon; and our company being very well
mounted and armed, we made a little troop, whereof they did me the honour
to call me captain, as well because I was the oldest man, as because I
had two servants, and, indeed, was the origin of the