ere for a timeout of all government of themselves.…
ere for a timeout of all government of themselves.
I cannot help committing this to writing, as perhaps it may beuseful to those into whose hands it may fall, for guidingthemselves in the extravagances of their passions; for if an excessof joy can carry men out to such a length beyond the reach of theirreason, what will not the extravagances of anger, rage, and aprovoked mind carry us to? And, indeed, here I saw reason forkeeping an exceeding watch over our passions of every kind, as wellthose of joy and satisfaction as those of sorrow and anger.
We were somewhat disordered by these extravagances among our newguests for the first day; but after they had retired to lodgingsprovided for them as well as our ship would allow, and had sleptheartily - as most of them did, being fatigued and frightened -they were quite another sort of people the next day. Nothing ofgood manners, or civil acknowledgments for the kindness shown them,was wanting; the French, it is known, are naturally apt enough toexceed that way. The captain and one of the priests came to me thenext day, and desired to speak with me and my nephew; the commanderbegan to consult
where, ifpossible, they might get a passage to France. My nephew wished toaccept their money at first word, and to consider what to do withthem afterwards; but I overruled him in that part, for I knew whatit was to be set on shore in a strange country; and if thePortuguese captain that took me up at sea had served me so, andtaken all I had for my deliverance, I must have been starved, orhave been as much a slave at the Brazils as I had been at Barbary,the mere being sold to a Mahometan excepted; and perhaps aPortuguese is not a much better master than a Turk, if not in somecases much worse.
I therefore told the French captain that we had taken them up intheir distress, it was true, but that it was our duty to do so, aswe were fellow-creatures; and we would desire to be so delivered ifwe were in the like or any other extremity; that we had donenothing for them but what we believed they would have done for usif we had been in their case and they in ours; but that we tookthem up to save them, not to plunder them; and it would be a mostbarbarous thing to take that little from them which they had savedout of the fire, and then set them on shore and leave them; thatthis would be first
n purposefor their deliverance, yet it was impossible for us wilfully tochange our voyage on their particular account; nor could my nephew,the captain, answer it to the freighters, with whom he was undercharter to pursue his voyage by way of Brazil; and all I knew wecould do for them was to put ourselves in the way of meeting withother ships homeward bound from the West Indies, and get them apassage, if possible, to England or France.