as you
did." "Nay," says he, "we should never have found means to have gotten a
raft to carry them, or to have gotten a raft on shore without boat or
sail; and how much less should we have done," said he, "if any of us had
been alone!" Well, I desired him to abate his compliment, and go on
with the history of their coming on shore, where they landed. He told me
they unhappily landed at a place where there were people without
provisions; whereas, had they had the common sense to have put off to
sea again, and gone to another island a little farther, they had found
provisions though without people; there being an island that way, as
they had been told, where there were provisions though no people; that
is to say, that the Spaniards of Trinidad had frequently been there, and
filled the island with goats and hogs at several times, where they have
bred in such multitudes, and where turtle and sea-fowls were in such
plenty, that they could have been in no want of flesh though they had
found no bread; whereas here they were only sustained with a few roots
and herbs, which they understood not, and which had no substance in
them, and which the inhabitants gave them sparingly enough, and who
could treat them no better unless they would turn cannibals, and eat
men's flesh, which was the great dainty of the country.

They gave me an account how many ways they strove to civilize the
savages they were with, and to teach them rational customs in the
ordinary way of living, but in vain; and how they retorted it upon them
as unjust, that they, who came thither for assistance and support,
should attempt to set up for instructors of those that gave them bread;
intimating, it seems, that none should set up for the instructors of
others but those who could live without them.

They gave me dismal accounts of the extremities they were driven to; how
sometimes they were many days without any food at all, the island they
were upon being inhabited by a sort of savages that lived more indolent,
and for that reason were less supplied with the necessaries of life than
they had reason to believe others were in the same part of the world;
and yet they found that these savages were less ravenous and voracious
than those who had better supplies of food.

Also they added, that they could not but see with what demonstrations
of wisdom and goodness the governing providence of God directs the event
of things in the world, which they said appeared in the