xtremity something
sooner than her mistress, who might be allowed to keep the last bits
something longer than she parted with any to relieve the maid. No
question, as the case is here related, if our ship, or some other, had
not so providentially met them, a few days more would have ended all
their lives, unless they had prevented it by eating one another; and
even that, as their case stood, would have served them but a little
while, they being five hundred leagues from any land, or any possibility
of relief, other than in the miraculous manner it happened.--But this is
by the way; I return to my disposition of things among the people.

And first, it is to be observed here, that for many reasons I did not
think fit to let them know any thing of the sloop I had framed, and
which I thought of setting up among them; for I found, at least at my
first coming, such seeds of division among them, that I saw it plainly,
had I set up the sloop, and left it among them, they would, upon very
light disgust, have separated, and gone away from one another; or
perhaps have turned pirates, and so made the island a den of thieves,
instead of a plantation of sober and religious people, as I intended it
to be; nor did I leave the two pieces of brass cannon that I had on
board, or the two quarter-deck guns, that my nephew took extraordinary,
for the same reason: I thought they had enough to qualify them for a
defensive war, against any that should invade them; but I was not to set
them up for an offensive war, or to encourage them to go abroad to
attack others, which, in the end, would only bring ruin and destruction
upon themselves and all their undertakings: I reserved the sloop,
therefore, and the guns, for their service another way, as I shall
observe in its place.

I have now done with the island: I left them all in good circumstances,
and in a flourishing condition, and went on board my ship again the
fifth day of May, having been five and twenty days among them; and, as
they were all resolved to stay upon the island till I came to remove
them, I promised to send some further relief from the Brasils, if I
could possibly find an opportunity; and particularly I promised to send
them some cattle; such as sheep, hogs, and cows; for as to the two cows
and calves which I brought from England, we had been obliged, by the
length of our voyage, to kill them at sea, for want of hay to feed them.

The next day, giving them a salute of five gun