hen he died, and the
other two were not at all backward to give the widow her full share of
every thing, I mean as to their corn, milk, grapes, &c. and when they
killed a kid, or found a turtle on the shore; so that they all lived
well enough, though it was true, they were not so industrious as the
other two, as has been observed already.

One thing, however, cannot be omitted, viz. that, as for religion, I
don't know that there was any thing of that kind among them; they pretty
often indeed put one another in mind that there was a God, by the very
common method of seamen, viz. swearing by his name; nor were their poor,
ignorant, savage wives much the better for having been married to
Christians as we must call them; for as they knew very little of God
themselves, so they were utterly incapable of entering into any
discourse with their wives about a God or to talk any thing to them
concerning religion.

The utmost of all the improvement which I can say the wives had made
from them, was, that they had taught them to speak English pretty well;
and all the children they had, which were near twenty in all were taught
to speak English too, from their first learning to speak, though they at
first spoke it in a very broken manner, like their mothers. There were
none of those children above six years old when I came thither; for it
was not much above seven years that they had fetched these five savage
ladies over, but they had all been pretty fruitful, for they had all
children, more or less: I think the cook's mate's wife was big of her
sixth child; and the mothers were all a good sort of well-governed,
quiet, laborious women, modest and decent, helpful to one another,
mighty observant and subject to their masters, I cannot call them
husbands; and wanted nothing but to be well instructed in the Christian
religion, and to be legally married; both which were happily brought
about afterwards by my means, or at least by the consequence of my
coming among them.

Having thus given an account of the colony in general, and pretty much
of my five runagate Englishmen, I must say something of the Spaniards,
who were the main body of the family, and in whose story there are some
incidents also remarkable enough.

I had a great many discourses with them about their circumstances when
they were among the savages; they told me readily, that they had no
instances to give of their application or ingenuity in that country;
that they were a