ave loaded my canoe several times
over with money, which, if I had ever escaped to England, would have
lain here safe enough till I might have come again and fetched it.

Having now brought all my things on shore, and secured them, I went back
to my boat, and rowed or paddled her along the shore to her old
harbour, where I laid her up, and made the best of my way to my old
habitation, where I found every thing safe and quiet; so I began to
repose myself, live after my old fashion, and take care of my family
affairs; and for awhile I lived easy enough; only that I was more
vigilant than I used to be, looked out oftener, and did not go abroad so
much; and if at any time I did stir with any freedom, it was always to
the east part of the island, where I was pretty well satisfied the
savages never came, and where I could go without so many precautions,
and such a load of arms and ammunition as I always carried with me, if I
went the other way.

I lived in this condition near two years more; but my unlucky head, that
was always to let me know it was born to make my body miserable, was all
these two years filled with projects and designs, how, if it were
possible, I might get away from this island; for sometimes I was for
making another voyage to the wreck, though my reason told me, that there
was nothing left there worth the hazard of my voyage; sometimes for a
ramble one way, sometimes another; and I believe verity, if I had had
the boat that I went from Sallee in, I should have ventured to sea,
bound any where, I knew not whither.

I have been, in all my circumstances, a memento to those who are touched
with that general plague of mankind, whence, for aught I know, one half
of their miseries flow; I mean, that of not being satisfied with the
station wherein God and nature hath placed them; for, not to look back
upon my primitive condition, and the excellent advice of my father, the
opposition to which was, as I may call it, my original sin, my
subsequent mistakes of the same kind have been the means of my coming
into this miserable condition; for had that Providence, which so happily
had seated me at the Brasils as a planter, blessed me with confined
desires, and could I have been contented to have gone on gradually, I
might have been by this time, I mean in the time of my being on this
island, one of the most considerable planters in the Brasils; nay, I am
persuaded, that by the improvements I had made in that little tim