ustice he could not put me out of my own house; that this was next door
to serving me as the famous pirate Kid had done, who made the mutiny in
the ship, set the captain on shore in an uninhabited island, and ran
away with the ship; that let them go into what ship they would, if ever
they came to England again it would cost them dear; that the ship was
mine, and that he would not put me out of it; and that he would rather
lose the ship, and the voyage too, than disoblige me so much; so they
might do as they pleased. However, he would go on shore, and talk with
me there, and invited the boatswain to go with him, and perhaps they
might accommodate the matter with me.

But they all rejected the proposal; and said, they would have nothing to
do with me any more, neither on board nor on shore; and if I came on
board, they would go on shore. "Well," said the captain, "if you are all
of this mind, let me go on shore, and talk with him:" so away he came to
me with this account, a little after the message had been brought to me
from the coxswain.

I was very glad to see my nephew I must confess, for I was not without
apprehensions that they would confine him by violence, set sail, and run
away with the ship; and then I had been stripped naked, in a remote
country, and nothing to help myself: in short, I had been in a worse
case than when I was all alone in the island.

But they had not come to that length, it seems, to my great
satisfaction; and when my nephew told me what they had said to him, and
how they had sworn, and shook hands, that they would one and all leave
the ship, if I was suffered to come on board, I told him he should not
be concerned at it at all, for I would stay onshore; I only desired he
would take care and send me all my necessary things on shore, and leave
me a sufficient sum of money, and I would find my way to England as well
as I could.

This was a heavy piece of news to my nephew; but there was no way to
help it, but to comply with it. So, in short, he went on board the ship
again, and satisfied the men that his uncle had yielded to their
importunity, and had sent for his goods from on board the ship. So the
matter was over in a very few hours; the men returned to their duty, and
I begun to consider what course I should steer.

I was now alone in the remotest part of the world, as I think I may call
it, for I was near three thousand leagues, by sea, farther off from
England than I was at my island;