server, to whose singular protection I acknowledged, with
great humility, all these unknown deliverances were due, and without
which I must inevitably have fallen into their merciless hands.

When these thoughts were over, my head was for some time taken up in
considering the nature of these wretched creatures, I mean the savages,
and how it came to pass in the world, that the wise Governor of all
things should give up any of his creatures to such inhumanity, nay, to
something so much below even brutality itself, as to devour its own
kind: but as this ended in some (at that time) fruitless speculations,
it occurred to me to inquire, what part of the world these wretches
lived in? how far off the coast was, from whence they came? what they
ventured over so far from home for? what kind of boats they had? and why
I might not order myself and my business so, that I might be as able to
go over thither as they were to come to me?

I never so much as troubled myself to consider what I should do with
myself when I went thither; what would become of me, if I fell into the
hands of the savages; or how I should escape from them, if they attacked
me; no, nor so much as how it was possible for me to reach the coast,
and not be attacked by some or other of them, without any possibility of
delivering myself; and if I should not fall into their hands, what I
should do for provision, or whither I should bend my course: none of
these thoughts, I say, so much as came in my way; but my mind was wholly
bent upon the notion of my passing over in my boat to the main land. I
looked upon my present condition as the most miserable that could
possibly be; that I was not able to throw myself into any thing, but
death, that could be called worse; and if I reached the shore of the
main, I might perhaps meet with relief, or I might coast along, as I did
on the African shore, till I came to some inhabited country, and where I
might find some relief; and after all, perhaps, I might fall in with
some Christian ship that might take me in; and if the worst came to the
worst, I could but die, which would put an end to all these miseries at
once. Pray note, all this was the fruit of a disturbed mind, an
impatient temper, made desperate, as it were, by the long continuance of
my troubles, and the disappointments I had met in the wreck I had been
on board of, and where I had been so near obtaining what I so earnestly
longed for, viz. somebody to speak to, and