indward, they resolved to lie
by till morning. Some time after this, hearing no more guns, they fired
three muskets, one a considerable while after another; but these, the
wind being contrary, we never heard. Some time after that again they
were still more agreeably surprised with seeing our lights, and hearing
the guns, which, as I have said, I caused to be fired all the rest of the
night. This set them to work with their oars, to keep their boats ahead,
at least that we might the sooner come up with them; and at last, to
their inexpressible joy, they found we saw them.

It is impossible for me to express the several gestures, the strange
ecstasies, the variety of postures which these poor delivered people ran
into, to express the joy of their souls at so unexpected a deliverance.
Grief and fear are easily described: sighs, tears, groans, and a very few
motions of the head and hands, make up the sum of its variety; but an
excess of joy, a surprise of joy, has a thousand extravagances in it.
There were some in tears; some raging and tearing themselves, as if they
had been in the greatest agonies of sorrow; some stark raving and
downright lunatic; some ran about the ship stamping with their feet,
others wringing their hands; some were dancing, some singing, some
laughing, more crying, many quite dumb, not able to speak a word; others
sick and vomiting; several swooning and ready to faint; and a few were
crossing themselves and giving God thanks.

I would not wrong them either; there might be many that were thankful
afterwards; but the passion was too strong for them at first, and they
were not able to master it: then were thrown into ecstasies, and a kind
of frenzy, and it was but a very few that were composed and serious in
their joy. Perhaps also, the case may have some addition to it from the
particular circumstance of that nation they belonged to: I mean the
French, whose temper is allowed to be more volatile, more passionate, and
more sprightly, and their spirits more fluid than in other nations. I am
not philosopher enough to determine the cause; but nothing I had ever
seen before came up to it. The ecstasies poor Friday, my trusty savage,
was in when he found his father in the boat came the nearest to it; and
the surprise of the master and his two companions, whom I delivered from
the villains that set them on shore in the island, came a little way
towards it; but nothing was to compare to this, either that