lately
flattered myself. And why, after all, may I not die a natural death
here as well as anywhere? All mankind die, and then there is an end of
all----An end of all! did I say? No, there is something within that
gives me the lie when I say so. Let me see; Death, my master used to
say, is not an end, but a beginning of real life: and may it not be so?
May I not as well undergo a change from this to a different state of
life when I leave this world, as be born into it I know not from whence?
Who sent me into this world? Who framed me of two natures so unlike,
that death cannot destroy but one of them? It must be the Almighty God.
But all God's works tend to some end; and if He has given me an immortal
nature, it must be His intention that I should live somewhere and
somehow for ever. May not this stage of being then be only an
introduction to a preparative for another? There is nothing in this
supposition repugnant to reason. Upon the whole, if God is the author of
my being, He only has a right to dispose of it, and I may not put an end
thereto without His leave. It is no less true that my continuing therein
during His pleasure, and because it is so, may turn vastly to my
advantage in His good time; it may be the means of my becoming happy for
even when it is His will that I go hence. It is no less probable that,
dismal as my present circumstances appear, I may be even now the object
of a kind Providence: God may be leading me by affliction to repentance
of former crimes; destroying those sensual affections that have all my
days kept me from loving and serving Him. I will therefore submit myself
to His will, and hope for His mercy.

These thoughts, and many others I then had, composed me very much, and
by degrees reconciled me to my destined solitude. I walked my ship, of
which I was now both master and owner, and employed myself in searching
how it was fastened to the rock, and where it rested; but all to no
purpose as to that particular. I then struck a light and went into the
hold, to see what I could find useful, for we had never searched the
ship since we took her.

In the hold I found abundance of long iron bars, which I suppose were
brought out to be trafficked with the blacks. I observed they lay
all with one end close to the head of the ship, which I presumed was
occasioned by the violent shock they received when she struck against
the rock; but seeing one short bar lying out beyond the rest, though
touching