第13章

This was so wholesom Advice, and look'd so friendly, that I could not but be convinc'd it was the best Course I could take; so I accordingly prepared Letters to the Gentle-woman with whom I had left my Money, and a Procuration to the Portuguese Captain, as he desired.

I wrote the English Captain's Widow a full Account of all my Adventures, my Slavery, Escape, and how I had met with the Portugal Captain at Sea, the Humanity of his Behaviour, and in what Condition I was now in, with all other necessary Directions for my Supply; and when this honest Captain came to Lisbon , he found means by some of the English Merchants there, to send over not the Order only, but a full Account of my Story to a Merchant at London , who represented it effectually to her; whereupon, she not only delivered the Money, but out of her own Pocket sent the Portugal Captain a very handsom Present for his Humanity and Charity to me.

The Merchant in London vesting this Hundred Pounds in English Goods, such as the Captain had writ for, sent them directly to him at Lisbon , and he brought them all safe to me to the Brasils , among which, without my Direction (for I was too young in my Business to think of them)

he had taken Care to have all Sorts of Tools, Iron-Work, and Utensils necessary for my Plantation, and which were of great Use to me.

When this Cargo arrived, I thought my Fortunes made, for I was surprised with the Joy of it; and my good Steward the Captain had laid out the Five Pounds which my Friend had sent him for a Present for himself, to purchase, and bring me over a Servant under Bond for six Years Service, and would not accept of any Consideration, except a little Tobacco, which I would have him accept, being of my own Produce.

Neither was this all; but my Goods being all English Manufactures, such as Cloath, Stuffs, Bays, and things particularly valuable and desirable in the Country, I found means to sell them to a very great Advantage; so that I might say, I had more than four times the Value of my first Cargo, and was now infinitely beyond my poor Neighbour, I mean in the Advancement of my Plantation; for the first thing I did, I bought me a Negro Slave, and an European Servant also; I mean another besides that which the Captain brought me from Lisbon.

But as abus'd Prosperity is oftentimes made the very Means of our greatest Adversity, so was it with me.I went on the next Year with great Success in my Plantation: I raised fifty great Rolls of Tobacco on my own Ground, more than I had disposed of for Necessaries among my Neighbours; and these fifty Rolls being each of above a 100 Wt.were well cur'd and laid by against the Return of the Fleet from Lisbon : and now increasing in Business and in Wealth, my Head began to be full of Projects and Undertakings beyond my Reach; such as are indeed often the Ruine of the best Heads in Business.

Had I continued in the Station I was now in, I had room for all the happy things to have yet befallen me, for which my Father so earnestly recommended a quiet retired Life, and of which he had so sensibly describ'd the middle Station of Life to be full of; but other things attended me, and I was still to be the wilful Agent of all my own Miseries; and particularly to encrease my Fault and double the Reflections upon my self, which in my future Sorrows I should have leisure to make; all these Miscarriages were pro by my apparent obstinate adhering to my foolish inclination of wandring abroad and pursuing that Inclination, in contradiction to the clearest Views of doing my self good in a fair and plain pursuit of those Prospects and those measures of Life, which Nature and Providence concurred to present me with, and to make my Duty.

As I had once done thus in my breaking away from my Parents, so I could not be content now, but I must go and leave the happy View I had of being a rich and thriving Man in my new Plantation, only to pursue a rash and immoderate Desire of rising faster than the Nature of the Thing admitted;

and thus I cast my self down again into the deepest Gulph of human Misery that ever Man fell into, or perhaps could be consistent with Life and a State of Health in the World.

To come then by the just Degrees, to the Particulars of this Part of my Story; you may suppose, that having now lived almost four Years in the Brasils , and beginning to thrive and prosper very well upon my Plantation;

I had not only learn'd the Language, but had contracted Acquaintance and Friendship among my Fellow-Planters, as well as among the Merchants at St.Salvadore, which was our Port; and that in my Discourses among them, I had frequently given them an Account of my two Voyages to the Coast of Guinea , the manner of Trading with the Negroes there, and how easy it was to purchase upon the Coast, for Trifles, such as Beads, Toys, Knives, Scissars, Hatchets, bits of Glass, and the like; not only Gold Dust, Guinea Grains, Elephants Teeth, & c.but Negroes for the Service of the Brasils , in great Numbers.

They listened always very attentively to my Discourses on these Heads, but especially to that Part which related to the buying Negroes , which was a Trade at that time not only not far entred into, but as far as it was, had been carried on by the Assiento's, or Permission of the Kings of Spain and Portugal , and engross'd in the Publick, so that few Negroes were brought, and those excessive dear.