whose relations were named Robinson, a very good family in that
country, and from whom I was called Robinson Kreutznaer; but, by the
usual corruption of words in England, we are now called, nay we call
ourselves, and write, our name Crusoe; and so my companions always
called me.

I had two elder brothers, one of whom was lieutenant-colonel to an
English regiment of foot in Flanders, formerly commanded by the famous
Colonel Lockhart, and was killed at the battle near Dunkirk against the
Spaniards. What became of my second brother I never knew, any more than
my father or mother did know what was become of me.

Being the third son of the family, and not bred to any trade, my head
began to be filled very early with rambling thoughts: my father, who was
very ancient, had given me a competent share of learning, as far as
house-education and a country free-school generally go, and designed me
for the law; but I would be satisfied with nothing but going to sea; and
my inclination to this led me so strongly, against the will, nay, the
commands of my father, and against all the entreaties and persuasions of
my mother and other friends, that there seemed to be something fatal in
that propension of nature, tending directly to the life of misery which
was to befall me.

My father, a wise and grave man, gave me serious and excellent counsel
against what he foresaw was my design. He called me one morning into his
chamber, where he was confined by the gout, and expostulated very warmly
with me upon this subject: he asked me what reasons more than a mere
wandering inclination I had for leaving my father's house and my native
country, where I might be well introduced, and had a prospect of raising
my fortune by application and industry, with a life of ease and
pleasure. He told me it was for men of desperate fortunes on one hand,
or of aspiring, superior fortunes on the other, who went abroad upon
adventures, to rise by enterprise, and make themselves famous in
undertakings of a nature out of the common road; that these things were
all either too far above me, or too far below me; that mine was the
middle state, or what might be called the upper station of low life,
which he had found, by long experience, was the best state in the world,
the most suited to human happiness, not exposed to the miseries and
hardships, the labour and sufferings of the mechanic part of mankind,
and not embarrassed with the pride, luxury, ambition, and envy