THE JOURNAL OF A VOYAGE TO LISBON

by Henry Fielding

CONTENTS

 INTRODUCTION TO SEVERAL WORKS

 PREFACE

 DEDICATION TO THE PUBLIC

 INTRODUCTION TO THE VOYAGE TO LISBON

 THE VOYAGE

INTRODUCTION TO SEVERAL WORKS

When it was determined to extend the present edition of Fielding, notmerely by the addition of Jonathan Wild to the three universally popularnovels, but by two volumes of Miscellanies, there could be no doubtabout at least one of the contents of these latter. The Journal of aVoyage to Lisbon, if it does not rank in my estimation anywhere near toJonathan Wild as an example of our author's genius, is an invaluable anddelightful document for his character and memory. It is indeed, as hasbeen pointed out in the General Introduction to this series, our mainsource of indisputable information as to Fielding dans son naturel, andits value, so far as it goes, is of the very highest. The gentle andunaffected stoicism which the author displays under a disease which heknew well was probably, if not certainly, mortal, and which, whethermortal or not, must cause him much actual pain and discomfort of a kindmore intolerable than pain itself; his affectionate care for his family;even little personal touches, less admirable, but hardly less pleasantthan these, showing an Englishman's dislike to be "done" and anEnglishman's determination to be treated with proper respect, arescarcely less noticeable and important on the biographical side than theunimpaired brilliancy of his satiric and yet kindly observation of lifeand character is on the side of literature. 

There is, as is now well known since Mr. Dobson's separate edition ofthe Voyage, a little bibliographical problem about the first appearanceof this Journal in 1755. The best known issue of that year is muchshorter than the version inserted by Murphy and reprinted here, thepassages omitted being chiefly those reflecting on the captain, etc. , and so likely to seem invidious in a book published just after theauthor's death, and for the benefit, as was expressly announced, of hisfamily. But the curious thing is that there is ANOTHER edition, of dateso early that some argument is necessary to determine the priority, which does give these passages and is identical with the later orstandard version. For satisfaction on this point, however, I must referreaders to Mr. Dobson himself. 

There might have been a little, but not much, doubt as to a companionpiece for the Journal; for indeed, after we close this (with or withoutits "Fragment on Bolingbroke"), the remainder of Fielding's work lieson a distinctly lower level of interest. It is still interesting, orit would not be given here. It still has--at least that part which hereappears seems to its editor to have--interest intrinsic and "simple ofitself. " But it is impossible for anybody who speaks critically to denythat we now get into the region where work is more interesting becauseof its authorship than it would be if its authorship were differentor unknown. To put the same thing in a sharper antithesis, Fielding isinteresting, first of all, because he is the author of Joseph Andrews, of Tom Jones, of Amelia, of Jonathan Wild, of the Journal. His plays, his essays, his miscellanies generally are interesting, first of all, because they were written by Fielding. 

Yet of these works, the Journey from this World to the Next (which, bya grim trick of fortune, might have served as a title for the moreinteresting Voyage with which we have yoked it) stands clearly firstboth in scale and merit. It is indeed very unequal, and as the authorwas to leave it unfinished, it is a pity that he did not leave itunfinished much sooner than he actually did. The first ten chapters, ifof a kind of satire which has now grown rather obsolete for thenonce, are of a good kind and good in their kind; the history of themetempsychoses of Julian is of a less good kind, and less good in thatkind. The date of composition of the piece is not known, but it appearedin the Miscellanies of 1743, and may represent almost any period of itsauthor's development prior to that year. Its form was a very common format the time, and continued to be so. I do not know that it is necessaryto assign any very special origin to it, though Lucian, its chiefpractitioner, was evidently and almost avowedly a favorite study ofFielding's. The Spanish romancers, whether borrowing it from Lucian ornot, had been fond of it; their French followers, of whom the chief wereFontenelle and Le Sage, had carried it northwards; the English essayistshad almost from the beginning continued the process of acclimatization. Fielding therefore found it ready to his hand, though the presentcondition of this example would lead us to suppose that he did not findhis hand quite ready to it. Still, in the actual "journey, " there aretouches enough of the master--not yet quite in his stage of mastery. It seemed particularly desirable not to close the series without somerepresentation of the work to which Fielding gave the prime of hismanhood, and from which, had he not, fortunately for English literature, been driven decidedly against his will, we had had in all probability noJoseph Andrews, and pretty certainly no Tom Jones. Fielding's periodicaland dramatic work has been comparatively seldom reprinted, and hasnever yet been reprinted as a whole. The dramas indeed are open to twoobjections--the first, that they are not very "proper;" the second, andmuch more serious, that they do not redeem this want of propriety by thepossession of any remarkable literary merit. Three (or two and part ofa third) seemed to escape this double censure--the first two acts of theAuthor's Farce (practically a piece to themselves, for the Puppet Showwhich follows is almost entirely independent); the famous burlesque ofTom Thumb, which stands between the Rehearsal and the Critic, but nearerto the former; and Pasquin, the maturest example of Fielding's satiricwork in drama. These accordingly have been selected; the rest I haveread, and he who likes may read. I have read many worse things than eventhe worst of them, but not often worse things by so good a writer asHenry Fielding. The next question concerned the selection of writingsmore miscellaneous still, so as to give in little a complete idea ofFielding's various powers and experiments. Two difficulties beset thispart of the task--want of space and the absence of anything so markedlygood as absolutely to insist on inclusion. The Essay on Conversation, however, seemed pretty peremptorily to challenge a place. It is in astyle which Fielding was very slow to abandon, which indeed has leftstrong traces even on his great novels; and if its mannerism is notnow very attractive, the separate traits in it are often sharp andwell-drawn. The book would not have been complete without a specimen ortwo of Fielding's journalism. The Champion, his first attempt of thiskind, has not been drawn upon in consequence of the extreme difficultyof fixing with absolute certainty on Fielding's part in it. I do notknow whether political prejudice interferes, more than I have usuallyfound it interfere, with my judgment of the two Hanoverian-partisanpapers of the '45 time. But they certainly seem to me to fail inredeeming their dose of rancor and misrepresentation by any sufficientevidence of genius such as, to my taste, saves not only the partyjournalism in verse and prose of Swift and Canning and Praed on oneside, but that of Wolcot and Moore and Sydney Smith on the other. Eventhe often-quoted journal of events in London under the Chevalier isoverwrought and tedious. The best thing in the True Patriot seems to meto be Parson Adams' letter describing his adventure with a young "bowe"of his day; and this I select, together with one or two numbers of theCovent Garden Journal. I have not found in this latter anything morecharacteristic than Murphy's selection, though Mr. Dobson, with hisunfailing kindness, lent me an original and unusually complete set ofthe Journal itself. 

It is to the same kindness that I owe the opportunity of presenting thereader with something indisputably Fielding's and very characteristicof him, which Murphy did not print, and which has not, so far as I know, ever appeared either in a collection or a selection of Fielding's work. After the success of David Simple, Fielding gave his sister, for whom hehad already written a preface to that novel, another preface for a setof Familiar Letters between the characters of David Simple and others. This preface Murphy reprinted; but he either did not notice, or didnot choose to attend to, a note towards the end of the book attributingcertain of the letters to the author of the preface, the attributionbeing accompanied by an agreeably warm and sisterly denunciation ofthose who ascribed to Fielding matter unworthy of him. From these theletter which I have chosen, describing a row on the Thames, seems tome not only characteristic, but, like all this miscellaneous work, interesting no less for its weakness than for its strength. In hardlyany other instance known to me can we trace so clearly the influence ofa suitable medium and form on the genius of the artist. There are somewriters--Dryden is perhaps the greatest of them--to whom form and mediumseem almost indifferent, their all-round craftsmanship being such thatthey can turn any kind and every style to their purpose. There areothers, of whom I think our present author is the chief, who arenever really at home but in one kind. In Fielding's case that kind wasnarrative of a peculiar sort, half-sentimental, half-satirical, andalmost wholly sympathetic--narrative which has the singular gift ofportraying the liveliest character and yet of admitting the widestdisgression and soliloquy. 

Until comparatively late in his too short life, when he found thisspecial path of his (and it is impossible to say whether the actualfinding was in the case of Jonathan or in the case of Joseph), he didbut flounder and slip. When he had found it, and was content to walkin it, he strode with as sure and steady a step as any other, even thegreatest, of those who carry and hand on the torch of literature throughthe ages. But it is impossible to derive full satisfaction from hisfeats in this part of the race without some notion of his performanceselsewhere; and I believe that such a notion will be supplied to thereaders of his novels by the following volumes, in a very large numberof cases, for the first time. 

THE JOURNAL OF A VOYAGE TO LISBON

DEDICATION TO THE PUBLIC

Your candor is desired on the perusal of the following sheets, asthey are the product of a genius that has long been your delight andentertainment. It must be acknowledged that a lamp almost burnt out doesnot give so steady and uniform a light as when it blazes in its fullvigor; but yet it is well known that by its wavering, as if strugglingagainst its own dissolution, it sometimes darts a ray as bright as ever. In like manner, a strong and lively genius will, in its last struggles, sometimes mount aloft, and throw forth the most striking marks of itsoriginal luster. 

Wherever these are to be found, do you, the genuine patrons ofextraordinary capacities, be as liberal in your applauses of him who isnow no more as you were of him whilst he was yet amongst you. And, onthe other hand, if in this little work there should appear any traces ofa weakened and decayed life, let your own imaginations place before youreyes a true picture in that of a hand trembling in almost itslatest hour, of a body emaciated with pains, yet struggling for yourentertainment; and let this affecting picture open each tender heart, and call forth a melting tear, to blot out whatever failings may befound in a work begun in pain, and finished almost at the same periodwith life. It was thought proper by the friends of the deceased thatthis little piece should come into your hands as it came from the handsof the author, it being judged that you would be better pleased to havean opportunity of observing the faintest traces of a genius you havelong admired, than have it patched by a different hand, by which meansthe marks of its true author might have been effaced. That the successof the last written, though first published, volume of the author'sposthumous pieces may be attended with some convenience to thoseinnocents he hath left behind, will no doubt be a motive to encourageits circulation through the kingdom, which will engage every futuregenius to exert itself for your pleasure. The principles and spiritwhich breathe in every line of the small fragment begun in answer toLord Bolingbroke will unquestionably be a sufficient apology for itspublication, although vital strength was wanting to finish a work sohappily begun and so well designed. PREFACE THERE would not, perhaps, be a more pleasant or profitable study, among those which have theirprincipal end in amusement, than that of travels or voyages, if theywere wrote as they might be and ought to be, with a joint view tothe entertainment and information of mankind. If the conversation oftravelers be so eagerly sought after as it is, we may believe theirbooks will be still more agreeable company, as they will in general bemore instructive and more entertaining. But when I say the conversationof travelers is usually so welcome, I must be understood to mean thatonly of such as have had good sense enough to apply their peregrinationsto a proper use, so as to acquire from them a real and valuableknowledge of men and things, both which are best known by comparison. Ifthe customs and manners of men were everywhere the same, there would beno office so dull as that of a traveler, for the difference of hills, valleys, rivers, in short, the various views of which we may see theface of the earth, would scarce afford him a pleasure worthy ofhis labor; and surely it would give him very little opportunity ofcommunicating any kind of entertainment or improvement to others. 

To make a traveler an agreeable companion to a man of sense, it isnecessary, not only that he should have seen much, but that he shouldhave overlooked much of what he hath seen. Nature is not, any more thana great genius, always admirable in her productions, and therefore thetraveler, who may be called her commentator, should not expect to findeverywhere subjects worthy of his notice. It is certain, indeed, thatone may be guilty of omission, as well as of the opposite extreme; buta fault on that side will be more easily pardoned, as it is better tobe hungry than surfeited; and to miss your dessert at the table of a manwhose gardens abound with the choicest fruits, than to have yourtaste affronted with every sort of trash that can be picked up at thegreen-stall or the wheel-barrow. If we should carry on the analogybetween the traveler and the commentator, it is impossible to keep one'seye a moment off from the laborious much-read doctor Zachary Gray, ofwhose redundant notes on Hudibras I shall only say that it is, I amconfident, the single book extant in which above five hundred authorsare quoted, not one of which could be found in the collection of thelate doctor Mead. 

As there are few things which a traveler is to record, there are feweron which he is to offer his observations: this is the office of thereader; and it is so pleasant a one, that he seldom chooses to haveit taken from him, under the pretense of lending him assistance. Someoccasions, indeed, there are, when proper observations are pertinent, and others when they are necessary; but good sense alone must point themout. I shall lay down only one general rule; which I believe to be ofuniversal truth between relator and hearer, as it is between author andreader; this is, that the latter never forgive any observation of theformer which doth not convey some knowledge that they are sensible theycould not possibly have attained of themselves. 

But all his pains in collecting knowledge, all his judgment inselecting, and all his art in communicating it, will not suffice, unless he can make himself, in some degree, an agreeable as well as aninstructive companion. The highest instruction we can derive from thetedious tale of a dull fellow scarce ever pays us for our attention. There is nothing, I think, half so valuable as knowledge, and yet thereis nothing which men will give themselves so little trouble to attain;unless it be, perhaps, that lowest degree of it which is the objectof curiosity, and which hath therefore that active passion constantlyemployed in its service. This, indeed, it is in the power of everytraveler to gratify; but it is the leading principle in weak minds only. 

To render his relation agreeable to the man of sense, it is thereforenecessary that the voyager should possess several eminent and raretalents; so rare indeed, that it is almost wonderful to see them everunited in the same person. And if all these talents must concur in therelator, they are certainly in a more eminent degree necessary to thewriter; for here the narration admits of higher ornaments of style, and every fact and sentiment offers itself to the fullest and mostdeliberate examination. It would appear, therefore, I think, somewhatstrange if such writers as these should be found extremely common; sincenature hath been a most parsimonious distributor of her richest talents, and hath seldom bestowed many on the same person. But, on the otherhand, why there should scarce exist a single writer of this kind worthyour regard; and, whilst there is no other branch of history (for thisis history) which hath not exercised the greatest pens, why this aloneshould be overlooked by all men of great genius and erudition, anddelivered up to the Goths and Vandals as their lawful property, isaltogether as difficult to determine. And yet that this is the case, with some very few exceptions, is most manifest. Of these I shallwillingly admit Burnet and Addison; if the former was not, perhaps, tobe considered as a political essayist, and the latter as a commentatoron the classics, rather than as a writer of travels; which last title, perhaps, they would both of them have been least ambitious to affect. Indeed, if these two and two or three more should be removed fromthe mass, there would remain such a heap of dullness behind, that theappellation of voyage-writer would not appear very desirable. I amnot here unapprised that old Homer himself is by some considered as avoyage-writer; and, indeed, the beginning of his Odyssey may be urgedto countenance that opinion, which I shall not controvert. But, whateverspecies of writing the Odyssey is of, it is surely at the head of thatspecies, as much as the Iliad is of another; and so far the excellentLonginus would allow, I believe, at this day. 

But, in reality, the Odyssey, the Telemachus, and all of that kind, areto the voyage-writing I here intend, what romance is to true history, the former being the confounder and corrupter of the latter. I am farfrom supposing that Homer, Hesiod, and the other ancient poets andmythologists, had any settled design to pervert and confuse the recordsof antiquity; but it is certain they have effected it; and for my part Imust confess I should have honored and loved Homer more had he writtena true history of his own times in humble prose, than those noble poemsthat have so justly collected the praise of all ages; for, though I readthese with more admiration and astonishment, I still read Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon with more amusement and more satisfaction. Theoriginal poets were not, however, without excuse. They found the limitsof nature too straight for the immensity of their genius, which they hadnot room to exert without extending fact by fiction: and that especiallyat a time when the manners of men were too simple to afford that varietywhich they have since offered in vain to the choice of the meanestwriters. In doing this they are again excusable for the manner in whichthey have done it. 

 Ut speciosa dehine miracula promant. 

They are not, indeed, so properly said to turn reality into fiction, as fiction into reality. Their paintings are so bold, their colors sostrong, that everything they touch seems to exist in the very mannerthey represent it; their portraits are so just, and their landscapes sobeautiful, that we acknowledge the strokes of nature in both, withoutinquiring whether Nature herself, or her journeyman the poet, formed thefirst pattern of the piece. But other writers (I will put Pliny at theirhead) have no such pretensions to indulgence; they lie for lying sake, or in order insolently to impose the most monstrous improbabilities andabsurdities upon their readers on their own authority; treating them assome fathers treat children, and as other fathers do laymen, exactingtheir belief of whatever they relate, on no other foundation than theirown authority, without ever taking the pains or adapting their lies tohuman credulity, and of calculating them for the meridian of a commonunderstanding; but, with as much weakness as wickedness, and with moreimpudence often than either, they assert facts contrary to the honor ofGod, to the visible order of the creation, to the known laws of nature, to the histories of former ages, and to the experience of our own, and which no man can at once understand and believe. If it shouldbe objected (and it can nowhere be objected better than where I nowwrite, [12] as there is nowhere more pomp of bigotry) that whole nationshave been firm believers in such most absurd suppositions, I reply, the fact is not true. They have known nothing of the matter, and havebelieved they knew not what. It is, indeed, with me no matter of doubtbut that the pope and his clergy might teach any of those Christianheterodoxies, the tenets of which are the most diametrically opposite totheir own; nay, all the doctrines of Zoroaster, Confucius, and Mahomet, not only with certain and immediate success, but without one Catholic ina thousand knowing he had changed his religion. 

[Footnote 12: At Lisbon. ]

What motive a man can have to sit down, and to draw forth a list ofstupid, senseless, incredible lies upon paper, would be difficult todetermine, did not Vanity present herself so immediately as the adequatecause. The vanity of knowing more than other men is, perhaps, besideshunger, the only inducement to writing, at least to publishing, at all. Why then should not the voyage-writer be inflamed with the glory ofhaving seen what no man ever did or will see but himself? This isthe true source of the wonderful in the discourse and writings, andsometimes, I believe, in the actions of men. There is another fault, ofa kind directly opposite to this, to which these writers are sometimesliable, when, instead of filling their pages with monsters which nobodyhath ever seen, and with adventures which never have, nor could possiblyhave, happened to them, waste their time and paper with recording thingsand facts of so common a kind, that they challenge no other right ofbeing remembered than as they had the honor of having happened to theauthor, to whom nothing seems trivial that in any manner happens tohimself. 

Of such consequence do his own actions appear to one of this kind, thathe would probably think himself guilty of infidelity should he omit theminutest thing in the detail of his journal. That the fact is true issufficient to give it a place there, without any consideration whetherit is capable of pleasing or surprising, of diverting or informing, thereader. I have seen a play (if I mistake not it is one of Mrs. Behn'sor of Mrs. Centlivre's) where this vice in a voyage-writer is finelyridiculed. An ignorant pedant, to whose government, for I know not whatreason, the conduct of a young nobleman in his travels is committed, andwho is sent abroad to show my lord the world, of which he knows nothinghimself, before his departure from a town, calls for his Journal torecord the goodness of the wine and tobacco, with other articles of thesame importance, which are to furnish the materials of a voyage at hisreturn home. The humor, it is true, is here carried very far; and yet, perhaps, very little beyond what is to be found in writers who professno intention of dealing in humor at all. Of one or other, or both ofthese kinds, are, I conceive, all that vast pile of books which passunder the names of voyages, travels, adventures, lives, memoirs, histories, etc. , some of which a single traveler sends into the world inmany volumes, and others are, by judicious booksellers, collected intovast bodies in folio, and inscribed with their own names, as if theywere indeed their own travels: thus unjustly attributing to themselvesthe merit of others. 

Now, from both these faults we have endeavored to steer clear in thefollowing narrative; which, however the contrary may be insinuated byignorant, unlearned, and fresh-water critics, who have never traveledeither in books or ships, I do solemnly declare doth, in my ownimpartial opinion, deviate less from truth than any other voyage extant;my lord Anson's alone being, perhaps, excepted. Some few embellishmentsmust be allowed to every historian; for we are not to conceive that thespeeches in Livy, Sallust, or Thucydides, were literally spoken in thevery words in which we now read them. It is sufficient that every facthath its foundation in truth, as I do seriously aver is the ease inthe ensuing pages; and when it is so, a good critic will be so farfrom denying all kind of ornament of style or diction, or even ofcircumstance, to his author, that he would be rather sorry if he omittedit; for he could hence derive no other advantage than the loss of anadditional pleasure in the perusal. 

Again, if any merely common incident should appear in this journal, which will seldom I apprehend be the case, the candid reader willeasily perceive it is not introduced for its own sake, but for someobservations and reflections naturally resulting from it; and which, if but little to his amusement, tend directly to the instruction ofthe reader or to the information of the public; to whom if I choose toconvey such instruction or information with an air of joke and laughter, none but the dullest of fellows will, I believe, censure it; but ifthey should, I have the authority of more than one passage in Horace toallege in my defense. Having thus endeavored to obviate some censures, to which a man without the gift of foresight, or any fear of theimputation of being a conjurer, might conceive this work would beliable, I might now undertake a more pleasing task, and fall at once tothe direct and positive praises of the work itself; of which indeed, Icould say a thousand good things; but the task is so very pleasant thatI shall leave it wholly to the reader, and it is all the task that Iimpose on him. A moderation for which he may think himself obliged to mewhen he compares it with the conduct of authors, who often fill a wholesheet with their own praises, to which they sometimes set their own realnames, and sometimes a fictitious one. One hint, however, I must givethe kind reader; which is, that if he should be able to find no sort ofamusement in the book, he will be pleased to remember the public utilitywhich will arise from it. If entertainment, as Mr. Richardson observes, be but a secondary consideration in a romance; with which Mr. Addison, Ithink, agrees, affirming the use of the pastry cook to be the first; ifthis, I say, be true of a mere work of invention, sure it may well beso considered in a work founded, like this, on truth; and where thepolitical reflections form so distinguishing a part. But perhaps I mayhear, from some critic of the most saturnine complexion, that my vanitymust have made a horrid dupe of my judgment, if it hath flattered mewith an expectation of having anything here seen in a grave light, or ofconveying any useful instruction to the public, or to their guardians. Ianswer, with the great man whom I just now quoted, that my purpose isto convey instruction in the vehicle of entertainment; and so tobring about at once, like the revolution in the Rehearsal, aperfect reformation of the laws relating to our maritime affairs: anundertaking, I will not say more modest, but surely more feasible, thanthat of reforming a whole people, by making use of a vehicular story, towheel in among them worse manners than their own. 

INTRODUCTION

In the beginning of August, 1753, when I had taken the duke ofPortland's medicine, as it is called, near a year, the effects of whichhad been the carrying off the symptoms of a lingering imperfect gout, Iwas persuaded by Mr. Ranby, the king's premier sergeant-surgeon, and theablest advice, I believe, in all branches of the physical profession, to go immediately to Bath. I accordingly wrote that very night to Mrs. Bowden, who, by the next post, informed me she had taken me a lodgingfor a month certain. Within a few days after this, whilst I waspreparing for my journey, and when I was almost fatigued to death withseveral long examinations, relating to five different murders, all committed within the space of a week, by different gangs ofstreet-robbers, I received a message from his grace the duke ofNewcastle, by Mr. Carrington, the king's messenger, to attend hisgrace the next morning, in Lincoln's-inn-fields, upon some business ofimportance; but I excused myself from complying with the message, as, besides being lame, I was very ill with the great fatigues I had latelyundergone added to my distemper. 

His grace, however, sent Mr. Carrington, the very next morning, with another summons; with which, though in the utmost distress, Iimmediately complied; but the duke, happening, unfortunately for me, to be then particularly engaged, after I had waited some time, sent agentleman to discourse with me on the best plan which could be inventedfor putting an immediate end to those murders and robberies which wereevery day committed in the streets; upon which I promised to transmitmy opinion, in writing, to his grace, who, as the gentleman informed me, intended to lay it before the privy council. 

Though this visit cost me a severe cold, I, notwithstanding, set myselfdown to work; and in about four days sent the duke as regular a planas I could form, with all the reasons and arguments I could bring tosupport it, drawn out in several sheets of paper; and soon received amessage from the duke by Mr. Carrington, acquainting me that my plan washighly approved of, and that all the terms of it would be compliedwith. The principal and most material of those terms was the immediatelydepositing six hundred pound in my hands; at which small charge Iundertook to demolish the then reigning gangs, and to put the civilpolicy into such order, that no such gangs should ever be able, for thefuture, to form themselves into bodies, or at least to remain any timeformidable to the public. 

I had delayed my Bath journey for some time, contrary to the repeatedadvice of my physical acquaintance, and to the ardent desire of mywarmest friends, though my distemper was now turned to a deep jaundice;in which case the Bath waters are generally reputed to be almostinfallible. But I had the most eager desire of demolishing this gang ofvillains and cut-throats, which I was sure of accomplishing the momentI was enabled to pay a fellow who had undertaken, for a small sum, tobetray them into the hands of a set of thief-takers whom I hadenlisted into the service, all men of known and approved fidelity andintrepidity. 

After some weeks the money was paid at the treasury, and within a fewdays after two hundred pounds of it had come to my hands, the wholegang of cut-throats was entirely dispersed, seven of them were in actualcustody, and the rest driven, some out of the town, and others out ofthe kingdom. Though my health was now reduced to the last extremity, I continued to act with the utmost vigor against these villains; inexamining whom, and in taking the depositions against them, I have oftenspent whole days, nay, sometimes whole nights, especially when there wasany difficulty in procuring sufficient evidence to convict them; whichis a very common case in street-robberies, even when the guilt of theparty is sufficiently apparent to satisfy the most tender conscience. But courts of justice know nothing of a cause more than what is toldthem on oath by a witness; and the most flagitious villain upon earth istried in the same manner as a man of the best character who is accusedof the same crime. Meanwhile, amidst all my fatigues and distresses, Ihad the satisfaction to find my endeavors had been attended with suchsuccess that this hellish society were almost utterly extirpated, andthat, instead of reading of murders and street-robberies in the newsalmost every morning, there was, in the remaining part of the month ofNovember, and in all December, not only no such thing as a murder, butnot even a street-robbery committed. Some such, indeed, were mentionedin the public papers; but they were all found on the strictest inquiry, to be false. In this entire freedom from street-robberies, during thedark months, no man will, I believe, scruple to acknowledge that thewinter of 1753 stands unrivaled, during a course of many years; and thismay possibly appear the more extraordinary to those who recollectthe outrages with which it began. Having thus fully accomplished myundertaking, I went into the country, in a very weak and deplorablecondition, with no fewer or less diseases than a jaundice, a dropsy, andan asthma, altogether uniting their forces in the destruction of a bodyso entirely emaciated that it had lost all its muscular flesh. Mine wasnow no longer what was called a Bath case; nor, if it had been so, hadI strength remaining sufficient to go thither, a ride of six miles onlybeing attended with an intolerable fatigue. I now discharged my lodgingsat Bath, which I had hitherto kept. I began in earnest to look on mycase as desperate, and I had vanity enough to rank myself with thoseheroes who, of old times, became voluntary sacrifices to the good of thepublic. But, lest the reader should be too eager to catch at theword VANITY, and should be unwilling to indulge me with so sublime agratification, for I think he is not too apt to gratify me, I will takemy key a pitch lower, and will frankly own that I had a stronger motivethan the love of the public to push me on: I will therefore confess tohim that my private affairs at the beginning of the winter had but agloomy aspect; for I had not plundered the public or the poor of thosesums which men, who are always ready to plunder both as much as theycan, have been pleased to suspect me of taking: on the contrary, bycomposing, instead of inflaming the quarrels of porters and beggars(which I blush when I say hath not been universally practiced), and byrefusing to take a shilling from a man who most undoubtedly would nothave had another left, I had reduced an income of about five hundredpounds [13] a-year of the dirtiest money upon earth to little more thanthree hundred pounds; a considerable proportion of which remained withmy clerk; and, indeed, if the whole had done so, as it ought, he wouldbe but ill paid for sitting almost sixteen hours in the twenty-four inthe most unwholesome, as well as nauseous air in the universe, and whichhath in his case corrupted a good constitution without contaminating hismorals. 

[Footnote 13: A predecessor of mine used to boast that he made one thousandpounds a-year in his office; but how he did this (if indeed he did it)is to me a secret. His clerk, now mine, told me I had more business thanhe had ever known there; I am sure I had as much as any man could do. The truth is, the fees are so very low, when any are due, and so much isdone for nothing, that, if a single justice of peace had business enoughto employ twenty clerks, neither he nor they would get much by theirlabor. ]

The public will not, therefore, I hope, think I betray a secret when Iinform them that I received from the Government a yearly pension outof the public service money; which, I believe, indeed, would have beenlarger had my great patron been convinced of an error, which I haveheard him utter more than once, that he could not indeed say thatthe acting as a principal justice of peace in Westminster was on allaccounts very desirable, but that all the world knew it was a verylucrative office. Now, to have shown him plainly that a man must be arogue to make a very little this way, and that he could not make muchby being as great a rogue as he could be, would have required moreconfidence than, I believe, he had in me, and more of his conversationthan he chose to allow me; I therefore resigned the office andthe farther execution of my plan to my brother, who had long beenmy assistant. And now, lest the case between me and the reader shouldbe the same in both instances as it was between me and the great man, Iwill not add another word on the subject. 

But, not to trouble the reader with anecdotes, contrary to my own rulelaid down in my preface, I assure him I thought my family was veryslenderly provided for; and that my health began to decline so fast thatI had very little more of life left to accomplish what I had thought oftoo late. I rejoiced therefore greatly in seeing an opportunity, as Iapprehended, of gaining such merit in the eye of the public, that, if mylife were the sacrifice to it, my friends might think they did a popularact in putting my family at least beyond the reach of necessity, which Imyself began to despair of doing. And though I disclaim all pretense tothat Spartan or Roman patriotism which loved the public so well that itwas always ready to become a voluntary sacrifice to the public good, Ido solemnly declare I have that love for my family. 

After this confession therefore, that the public was not the principaldeity to which my life was offered a sacrifice, and when it is fartherconsidered what a poor sacrifice this was, being indeed no other thanthe giving up what I saw little likelihood of being able to hold muchlonger, and which, upon the terms I held it, nothing but the weaknessof human nature could represent to me as worth holding at all; the worldmay, I believe, without envy, allow me all the praise to which I haveany title. My aim, in fact, was not praise, which is the last gift theycare to bestow; at least, this was not my aim as an end, but rather as ameans of purchasing some moderate provision for my family, which, thoughit should exceed my merit, must fall infinitely short of my service, ifI succeeded in my attempt. To say the truth, the public never act morewisely than when they act most liberally in the distribution of theirrewards; and here the good they receive is often more to be consideredthan the motive from which they receive it. Example alone is the endof all public punishments and rewards. Laws never inflict disgrace inresentment, nor confer honor from gratitude. "For it is very hard, mylord, " said a convicted felon at the bar to the late excellent judgeBurnet, "to hang a poor man for stealing a horse. " "You are not to behanged sir, " answered my ever-honored and beloved friend, "for stealinga horse, but you are to be hanged that horses may not be stolen. " Inlike manner it might have been said to the late duke of Marlborough, when the parliament was so deservedly liberal to him, after the battleof Blenheim, "You receive not these honors and bounties on account of avictory past, but that other victories may be obtained. "

I was now, in the opinion of all men, dying of a complication ofdisorders; and, were I desirous of playing the advocate, I have anoccasion fair enough; but I disdain such an attempt. I relate factsplainly and simply as they are; and let the world draw from them whatconclusions they please, taking with them the following facts for theirinstruction: the one is, that the proclamation offering one hundredpounds for the apprehending felons for certain felonies committed incertain places, which I prevented from being revived, had formerly costthe government several thousand pounds within a single year. Secondly, that all such proclamations, instead of curing the evil, had actuallyincreased it; had multiplied the number of robberies; had propagatedthe worst and wickedest of perjuries; had laid snares for youth andignorance, which, by the temptation of these rewards, had been sometimesdrawn into guilt; and sometimes, which cannot be thought on without thehighest horror, had destroyed them without it. Thirdly, that my plan hadnot put the government to more than three hundred pound expense, and hadproduced none of the ill consequences above mentioned; but, lastly, hadactually suppressed the evil for a time, and had plainly pointed out themeans of suppressing it for ever. This I would myself have undertaken, had my health permitted, at the annual expense of the above-mentionedsum. 

After having stood the terrible six weeks which succeeded lastChristmas, and put a lucky end, if they had known their own interests, to such numbers of aged and infirm valetudinarians, who might havegasped through two or three mild winters more, I returned to town inFebruary, in a condition less despaired of by myself than by any of myfriends. I now became the patient of Dr. Ward, who wished I had takenhis advice earlier. By his advice I was tapped, and fourteen quartsof water drawn from my belly. The sudden relaxation which this caused, added to my enervate, emaciated habit of body, so weakened me thatwithin two days I was thought to be falling into the agonies of death. Iwas at the worst on that memorable day when the public lost Mr. Pelham. From that day I began slowly, as it were, to draw my feet out of thegrave; till in two months' time I had again acquired some little degreeof strength, but was again full of water. During this whole time I tookMr. Ward's medicines, which had seldom any perceptible operation. Thosein particular of the diaphoretic kind, the working of which is thoughtto require a great strength of constitution to support, had so littleeffect on me, that Mr. Ward declared it was as vain to attempt sweatingme as a deal board. In this situation I was tapped a second time. I hadone quart of water less taken from me now than before; but I bore allthe consequences of the operation much better. This I attributed greatlyto a dose of laudanum prescribed by my surgeon. It first gave me themost delicious flow of spirits, and afterwards as comfortable a nap. 

The month of May, which was now begun, it seemed reasonable toexpect would introduce the spring, and drive of that winter which yetmaintained its footing on the stage. I resolved therefore to visit alittle house of mine in the country, which stands at Ealing, in thecounty of Middlesex, in the best air, I believe, in the whole kingdom, and far superior to that of Kensington Gravel-pits; for the gravel ishere much wider and deeper, the place higher and more open towards thesouth, whilst it is guarded from the north wind by a ridge of hills, andfrom the smells and smoke of London by its distance; which last is notthe fate of Kensington, when the wind blows from any corner of the east. 

Obligations to Mr. Ward I shall always confess; for I am convinced thathe omitted no care in endeavoring to serve me, without any expectationor desire of fee or reward. 

The powers of Mr. Ward's remedies want indeed no unfair puffs of mineto give them credit; and though this distemper of the dropsy stands, Ibelieve, first in the list of those over which he is always certain oftriumphing, yet, possibly, there might be something particular in mycase capable of eluding that radical force which had healed so manythousands. The same distemper, in different constitutions, may possiblybe attended with such different symptoms, that to find an infalliblenostrum for the curing any one distemper in every patient may be almostas difficult as to find a panacea for the cure of all. 

But even such a panacea one of the greatest scholars and best of mendid lately apprehend he had discovered. It is true, indeed, he was nophysician; that is, he had not by the forms of his education acquireda right of applying his skill in the art of physic to his own privateadvantage; and yet, perhaps, it may be truly asserted that no othermodern hath contributed so much to make his physical skill useful to thepublic; at least, that none hath undergone the pains of communicatingthis discovery in writing to the world. The reader, I think, will scarceneed to be informed that the writer I mean is the late bishop of Cloyne, in Ireland, and the discovery that of the virtues of tar-water. 

I then happened to recollect, upon a hint given me by the inimitableand shamefully-distressed author of the Female Quixote, that I hadmany years before, from curiosity only, taken a cursory view of bishopBerkeley's treatise on the virtues of tar-water, which I had formerlyobserved he strongly contends to be that real panacea which Sydenhamsupposes to have an existence in nature, though it yet remainsundiscovered, and perhaps will always remain so. 

Upon the reperusal of this book I found the bishop only asserting hisopinion that tar-water might be useful in the dropsy, since he had knownit to have a surprising success in the cure of a most stubborn anasarca, which is indeed no other than, as the word implies, the dropsy of theflesh; and this was, at that time, a large part of my complaint. 

After a short trial, therefore, of a milk diet, which I presently founddid not suit with my case, I betook myself to the bishop's prescription, and dosed myself every morning and evening with half a pint oftar-water. 

It was no more than three weeks since my last tapping, and my belly andlimbs were distended with water. This did not give me the worse opinionof tar-water; for I never supposed there could be any such virtuein tar-water as immediately to carry off a quantity of water alreadycollected. For my delivery from this I well knew I must be again obligedto the trochar; and that if the tar-water did me any good at all itmust be only by the slowest degrees; and that if it should ever getthe better of my distemper it must be by the tedious operation ofundermining, and not by a sudden attack and storm. 

Some visible effects, however, and far beyond what my most sanguinehopes could with any modesty expect, I very soon experienced; thetar-water having, from the very first, lessened my illness, increasedmy appetite, and added, though in a very slow proportion, to my bodilystrength. But if my strength had increased a little my water dailyincreased much more. So that, by the end of May, my belly became againripe for the trochar, and I was a third time tapped; upon which, twovery favorable symptoms appeared. I had three quarts of water taken fromme less than had been taken the last time; and I bore the relaxationwith much less (indeed with scarce any) faintness. 

Those of my physical friends on whose judgment I chiefly depended seemedto think my only chance of life consisted in having the whole summerbefore me; in which I might hope to gather sufficient strength toencounter the inclemencies of the ensuing winter. But this chance begandaily to lessen. I saw the summer mouldering away, or rather, indeed, the year passing away without intending to bring on any summer at all. In the whole month of May the sun scarce appeared three times. So thatthe early fruits came to the fullness of their growth, and to someappearance of ripeness, without acquiring any real maturity; havingwanted the heat of the sun to soften and meliorate their juices. I sawthe dropsy gaining rather than losing ground; the distance growing stillshorter between the tappings. I saw the asthma likewise beginning againto become more troublesome. I saw the midsummer quarter drawing towardsa close. So that I conceived, if the Michaelmas quarter should stealoff in the same manner, as it was, in my opinion, very much to beapprehended it would, I should be delivered up to the attacks of winterbefore I recruited my forces, so as to be anywise able to withstandthem. 

I now began to recall an intention, which from the first dawnings of myrecovery I had conceived, of removing to a warmer climate; and, findingthis to be approved of by a very eminent physician, I resolved to putit into immediate execution. Aix in Provence was the place first thoughton; but the difficulties of getting thither were insuperable. TheJourney by land, beside the expense of it, was infinitely too long andfatiguing; and I could hear of no ship that was likely to set out fromLondon, within any reasonable time, for Marseilles, or any other port inthat part of the Mediterranean. 

Lisbon was presently fixed on in its room. The air here, as it was nearfour degrees to the south of Aix, must be more mild and warm, and thewinter shorter and less piercing. 

It was not difficult to find a ship bound to a place with which we carryon so immense a trade. Accordingly, my brother soon informed me of theexcellent accommodations for passengers which were to be found on boarda ship that was obliged to sail for Lisbon in three days. I eagerlyembraced the offer, notwithstanding the shortness of the time; and, having given my brother full power to contract for our passage, I beganto prepare my family for the voyage with the utmost expedition. 

But our great haste was needless; for the captain having twice put offhis sailing, I at length invited him to dinner with me at Fordhook, afull week after the time on which he had declared, and that with manyasseverations, he must and would weigh anchor. 

He dined with me according to his appointment; and when all matterswere settled between us, left me with positive orders to be on board theWednesday following, when he declared he would fall down the riverto Gravesend, and would not stay a moment for the greatest man in theworld. He advised me to go to Gravesend by land, and there wait thearrival of his ship, assigning many reasons for this, every one of whichwas, as I well remember, among those that had before determined me to goon board near the Tower. 

THE VOYAGE

WEDNESDAY, June 26, 1754. --On this day the most melancholy sun I hadever beheld arose, and found me awake at my house at Fordhook. By thelight of this sun I was, in my own opinion, last to behold and takeleave of some of those creatures on whom I doted with a mother-likefondness, guided by nature and passion, and uncured and unhardened byall the doctrine of that philosophical school where I had learned tobear pains and to despise death. In this situation, as I could notconquer Nature, I submitted entirely to her, and she made as great afool of me as she had ever done of any woman whatsoever; under pretenseof giving me leave to enjoy, she drew me in to suffer, the company of mylittle ones during eight hours; and I doubt not whether, in that time, Idid not undergo more than in all my distemper. 

At twelve precisely my coach was at the door, which was no sooner toldme than I kissed my children round, and went into it with some littleresolution. My wife, who behaved more like a heroine and philosopher, though at the same time the tenderest mother in the world, and my eldestdaughter, followed me; some friends went with us, and others here tooktheir leave; and I heard my behavior applauded, with many murmursand praises to which I well knew I had no title; as all other suchphilosophers may, if they have any modesty, confess on the likeoccasions. 

In two hours we arrived in Rotherhithe, and immediately went on board, and were to have sailed the next morning; but, as this was the king'sproclamation-day, and consequently a holiday at the custom-house, thecaptain could not clear his vessel till the Thursday; for these holidaysare as strictly observed as those in the popish calendar, and are almostas numerous. I might add that both are opposite to the genius of trade, and consequently contra bonum publicum. 

To go on board the ship it was necessary first to go into a boat; amatter of no small difficulty, as I had no use of my limbs, and wasto be carried by men who, though sufficiently strong for their burden, were, like Archimedes, puzzled to find a steady footing. Of this, asfew of my readers have not gone into wherries on the Thames, they willeasily be able to form to themselves an idea. However, by the assistanceof my friend, Mr. Welch, whom I never think or speak of but with loveand esteem, I conquered this difficulty, as I did afterwards that ofascending the ship, into which I was hoisted with more ease by a chairlifted with pulleys. I was soon seated in a great chair in the cabin, to refresh myself after a fatigue which had been more intolerable, in aquarter of a mile's passage from my coach to the ship, than I had beforeundergone in a land-journey of twelve miles, which I had traveled withthe utmost expedition. 

This latter fatigue was, perhaps, somewhat heightened by an indignationwhich I could not prevent arising in my mind. I think, upon my entranceinto the boat, I presented a spectacle of the highest horror. The totalloss of limbs was apparent to all who saw me, and my face containedmarks of a most diseased state, if not of death itself. Indeed, soghastly was my countenance, that timorous women with child had abstainedfrom my house, for fear of the ill consequences of looking at me. Inthis condition I ran the gauntlope (so I think I may justly call it)through rows of sailors and watermen, few of whom failed of paying theircompliments to me by all manner of insults and jests on my misery. Noman who knew me will think I conceived any personal resentment at thisbehavior; but it was a lively picture of that cruelty and inhumanityin the nature of men which I have often contemplated with concern, andwhich leads the mind into a train of very uncomfortable and melancholythoughts. It may be said that this barbarous custom is peculiar tothe English, and of them only to the lowest degree; that it is anexcrescence of an uncontrolled licentiousness mistaken for liberty, andnever shows itself in men who are polished and refined in such manneras human nature requires to produce that perfection of which it issusceptible, and to purge away that malevolence of disposition of which, at our birth, we partake in common with the savage creation. This maybe said, and this is all that can be said; and it is, I am afraid, butlittle satisfactory to account for the inhumanity of those who, whilethey boast of being made after God's own image, seem to bear in theirminds a resemblance of the vilest species of brutes; or rather, indeed, of our idea of devils; for I don't know that any brutes can be taxedwith such malevolence. A sirloin of beef was now placed on the table, for which, though little better than carrion, as much was charged by themaster of the little paltry ale-house who dressed it as would have beendemanded for all the elegance of the King's Arms, or any other politetavern or eating-house! for, indeed, the difference between the besthouse and the worst is, that at the former you pay largely for luxury, at the latter for nothing. 

Thursday, June 27. --This morning the captain, who lay on shore at hisown house, paid us a visit in the cabin, and behaved like an angrybashaw, declaring that, had he known we were not to be pleased, he wouldnot have carried us for five hundred pounds. He added many asseverationsthat he was a gentleman, and despised money; not forgetting severalhints of the presents which had been made him for his cabin, of twenty, thirty, and forty guineas, by several gentlemen, over and above the sumfor which they had contracted. This behavior greatly surprised me, as Iknew not how to account for it, nothing having happened since we partedfrom the captain the evening before in perfect good humor; and all thisbroke forth on the first moment of his arrival this morning. He didnot, however, suffer my amazement to have any long continuance beforehe clearly showed me that all this was meant only as an apology tointroduce another procrastination (being the fifth) of his weighinganchor, which was now postponed till Saturday, for such was his will andpleasure. 

Besides the disagreeable situation in which we then lay, in the confinesof Wapping and Rotherhithe, tasting a delicious mixture of the air ofboth these sweet places, and enjoying the concord of sweet sounds ofseamen, watermen, fish-women, oyster-women, and of all the vociferousinhabitants of both shores, composing altogether a greater variety ofharmony than Hogarth's imagination hath brought together in that printof his, which is enough to make a man deaf to look at--I had a moreurgent cause to press our departure, which was, that the dropsy, forwhich I had undergone three tappings, seemed to threaten me with afourth discharge before I should reach Lisbon, and when I should havenobody on board capable of performing the operation; but I was obligedto hearken to the voice of reason, if I may use the captain's own words, and to rest myself contented. Indeed, there was no alternative within myreach but what would have cost me much too dear. There are many evilsin society from which people of the highest rank are so entirely exempt, that they have not the least knowledge or idea of them; nor indeed ofthe characters which are formed by them. Such, for instance, is theconveyance of goods and passengers from one place to another. Now thereis no such thing as any kind of knowledge contemptible in itself; and, as the particular knowledge I here mean is entirely necessary to thewell understanding and well enjoying this journal; and, lastly, as inthis case the most ignorant will be those very readers whose amusementwe chiefly consult, and to whom we wish to be supposed principally towrite, we will here enter somewhat largely into the discussion of thismatter; the rather, for that no ancient or modern author (if we cantrust the catalogue of doctor Mead's library) hath ever undertaken it, but that it seems (in the style of Don Quixote) a task reserved for mypen alone. 

When I first conceived this intention I began to entertain thoughts ofinquiring into the antiquity of traveling; and, as many persons haveperformed in this way (I mean have traveled) at the expense of thepublic, I flattered myself that the spirit of improving arts andsciences, and of advancing useful and substantial learning, whichso eminently distinguishes this age, and hath given rise to morespeculative societies in Europe than I at present can recollect thenames of--perhaps, indeed, than I or any other, besides their very nearneighbors, ever heard mentioned--would assist in promoting so curiousa work; a work begun with the same views, calculated for the samepurposes, and fitted for the same uses, with the labors which thoseright honorable societies have so cheerfully undertaken themselves, and encouraged in others; sometimes with the highest honors, even withadmission into their colleges, and with enrollment among their members. 

From these societies I promised myself all assistance in their power, particularly the communication of such valuable manuscripts and recordsas they must be supposed to have collected from those obscure agesof antiquity when history yields us such imperfect accounts of theresidence, and much more imperfect of the travels, of the human race;unless, perhaps, as a curious and learned member of the young Societyof Antiquarians is said to have hinted his conjectures, that theirresidence and their travels were one and the same; and this discovery(for such it seems to be) he is said to have owed to the lighting byaccident on a book, which we shall have occasion to mention presently, the contents of which were then little known to the society. 

The king of Prussia, moreover, who, from a degree of benevolenceand taste which in either case is a rare production in so northern aclimate, is the great encourager of art and science, I was well assuredwould promote so useful a design, and order his archives to be searchedon my behalf. But after well weighing all these advantages, and muchmeditation on the order of my work, my whole design was subverted in amoment by hearing of the discovery just mentioned to have been made bythe young antiquarian, who, from the most ancient record in the world(though I don't find the society are all agreed on this point), one longpreceding the date of the earliest modern collections, either of booksor butterflies, none of which pretend to go beyond the flood, showsus that the first man was a traveler, and that he and his family werescarce settled in Paradise before they disliked their own home, andbecame passengers to another place. Hence it appears that the humor oftraveling is as old as the human race, and that it was their curse fromthe beginning. By this discovery my plan became much shortened, andI found it only necessary to treat of the conveyance of goods andpassengers from place to place; which, not being universally known, seemed proper to be explained before we examined into its original. There are indeed two different ways of tracing all things used by thehistorian and the antiquary; these are upwards and downwards. 

The former shows you how things are, and leaves to others to discoverwhen they began to be so. The latter shows you how things were, andleaves their present existence to be examined by others. Hence theformer is more useful, the latter more curious. The former receives thethanks of mankind; the latter of that valuable part, the virtuosi. 

In explaining, therefore, this mystery of carrying goods and passengersfrom one place to another, hitherto so profound a secret to the verybest of our readers, we shall pursue the historical method, and endeavorto show by what means it is at present performed, referring the morecurious inquiry either to some other pen or to some other opportunity. 

Now there are two general ways of performing (if God permit) thisconveyance, viz. , by land and water, both of which have much variety;that by land being performed in different vehicles, such as coaches, caravans, wagons, etc. ; and that by water in ships, barges, and boats, of various sizes and denominations. But, as all these methods ofconveyance are formed on the same principles, they agree so welltogether, that it is fully sufficient to comprehend them all in thegeneral view, without descending to such minute particulars as woulddistinguish one method from another. 

Common to all of these is one general principle that, as the goods to beconveyed are usually the larger, so they are to be chiefly considered inthe conveyance; the owner being indeed little more than an appendage tohis trunk, or box, or bale, or at best a small part of his own baggage, very little care is to be taken in stowing or packing them up withconvenience to himself; for the conveyance is not of passengers andgoods, but of goods and passengers. 

Secondly, from this conveyance arises a new kind of relation, or ratherof subjection, in the society, by which the passenger becomes bound inallegiance to his conveyer. This allegiance is indeed only temporaryand local, but the most absolute during its continuance of any known inGreat Britain, and, to say truth, scarce consistent with the libertiesof a free people, nor could it be reconciled with them, did it not movedownwards; a circumstance universally apprehended to be incompatibleto all kinds of slavery; for Aristotle in his Politics hath provedabundantly to my satisfaction that no men are born to be slaves, exceptbarbarians; and these only to such as are not themselves barbarians; andindeed Mr. Montesquieu hath carried it very little farther in the caseof the Africans; the real truth being that no man is born to be a slave, unless to him who is able to make him so. 

Thirdly, this subjection is absolute, and consists of a perfectresignation both of body and soul to the disposal of another; afterwhich resignation, during a certain time, his subject retains no morepower over his own will than an Asiatic slave, or an English wife, bythe laws of both countries, and by the customs of one of them. If Ishould mention the instance of a stage-coachman, many of my readerswould recognize the truth of what I have here observed; all, indeed, that ever have been under the dominion of that tyrant, who in this freecountry is as absolute as a Turkish bashaw. In two particulars only hispower is defective; he cannot press you into his service, and if youenter yourself at one place, on condition of being discharged at acertain time at another, he is obliged to perform his agreement, ifGod permit, but all the intermediate time you are absolutely under hisgovernment; he carries you how he will, when he will, and whither hewill, provided it be not much out of the road; you have nothing to eator to drink, but what, and when, and where he pleases. Nay, you cannotsleep unless he pleases you should; for he will order you sometimes outof bed at midnight and hurry you away at a moment's warning: indeed, ifyou can sleep in his vehicle he cannot prevent it; nay, indeed, togive him his due, this he is ordinarily disposed to encourage: for theearlier he forces you to rise in the morning, the more time he will giveyou in the heat of the day, sometimes even six hours at an ale-house, orat their doors, where he always gives you the same indulgence whichhe allows himself; and for this he is generally very moderate in hisdemands. I have known a whole bundle of passengers charged no more thanhalf-a-crown for being suffered to remain quiet at an ale-house door forabove a whole hour, and that even in the hottest day in summer. But asthis kind of tyranny, though it hath escaped our political writers, hath been I think touched by our dramatic, and is more trite amongthe generality of readers; and as this and all other kinds of suchsubjection are alike unknown to my friends, I will quit the passengersby land, and treat of those who travel by water; for whatever is said onthis subject is applicable to both alike, and we may bring them togetheras closely as they are brought in the liturgy, when they are recommendedto the prayers of all Christian congregations; and (which I have oftenthought very remarkable) where they are joined with other miserablewretches, such as women in labor, people in sickness, infants just born, prisoners and captives. Goods and passengers are conveyed by water indivers vehicles, the principal of which being a ship, it shall sufficeto mention that alone. Here the tyrant doth not derive his title, as thestage-coachman doth, from the vehicle itself in which he stows his goodsand passengers, but he is called the captain--a word of such varioususe and uncertain signification, that it seems very difficult to fix anypositive idea to it: if, indeed, there be any general meaning which maycomprehend all its different uses, that of the head or chief of any bodyof men seems to be most capable of this comprehension; for whether theybe a company of soldiers, a crew of sailors, or a gang of rogues, he whois at the head of them is always styled the captain. 

The particular tyrant whose fortune it was to stow us aboard laid afarther claim to this appellation than the bare command of a vehicle ofconveyance. He had been the captain of a privateer, which he chose tocall being in the king's service, and thence derived a right of hoistingthe military ornament of a cockade over the button of his hat. Helikewise wore a sword of no ordinary length by his side, with which heswaggered in his cabin, among the wretches his passengers, whom he hadstowed in cupboards on each side. He was a person of a very singularcharacter. He had taken it into his head that he was a gentleman, fromthose very reasons that proved he was not one; and to show himself afine gentleman, by a behavior which seemed to insinuate he had neverseen one. He was, moreover, a man of gallantry; at the age of seventyhe had the finicalness of Sir Courtly Nice, with the roughness of Surly;and, while he was deaf himself, had a voice capable of deafening allothers. 

Now, as I saw myself in danger by the delays of the captain, who was, inreality, waiting for more freight, and as the wind had been long nested, as it were, in the southwest, where it constantly blew hurricanes, Ibegan with great reason to apprehend that our voyage might be long, andthat my belly, which began already to be much extended, would requirethe water to be let out at a time when no assistance was at hand;though, indeed, the captain comforted me with assurances that he hada pretty young fellow on board who acted as his surgeon, as I found helikewise did as steward, cook, butler, sailor. In short, he had asmany offices as Scrub in the play, and went through them all with greatdexterity; this of surgeon was, perhaps, the only one in which his skillwas somewhat deficient, at least that branch of tapping for the dropsy;for he very ingenuously and modestly confessed he had never seen theoperation performed, nor was possessed of that chirurgical instrumentwith which it is performed. 

Friday, June 28. --By way of prevention, therefore, I this day sent formy friend, Mr. Hunter, the great surgeon and anatomist of Covent-garden;and, though my belly was not yet very full and tight, let out tenquarts of water; the young sea-surgeon attended the operation, not as aperformer, but as a student. 

I was now eased of the greatest apprehension which I had from the lengthof the passage; and I told the captain I was become indifferent asto the time of his sailing. He expressed much satisfaction in thisdeclaration, and at hearing from me that I found myself, since mytapping, much lighter and better. In this, I believe, he was sincere;for he was, as we shall have occasion to observe more than once, a verygood-natured man; and, as he was a very brave one too, I found that theheroic constancy with which I had borne an operation that is attendedwith scarce any degree of pain had not a little raised me in his esteem. That he might adhere, therefore, in the most religious and rigorousmanner to his word, when he had no longer any temptation from interestto break it, as he had no longer any hopes of more goods or passengers, he ordered his ship to fall down to Gravesend on Sunday morning, andthere to wait his arrival. 

Sunday, June 30. --Nothing worth notice passed till that morning, whenmy poor wife, after passing a night in the utmost torments of thetoothache, resolved to have it drawn. I despatched therefore a servantinto Wapping to bring in haste the best tooth-drawer he could find. He soon found out a female of great eminence in the art; but when hebrought her to the boat, at the waterside, they were informed thatthe ship was gone; for indeed she had set out a few minutes after hisquitting her; nor did the pilot, who well knew the errand on which I hadsent my servant, think fit to wait a moment for his return, or to giveme any notice of his setting out, though I had very patiently attendedthe delays of the captain four days, after many solemn promises ofweighing anchor every one of the three last. But of all the pettybashaws or turbulent tyrants I ever beheld, this sour-faced pilot wasthe worst tempered; for, during the time that he had the guidance of theship, which was till we arrived in the Downs, he complied with no one'sdesires, nor did he give a civil word, or indeed a civil look, to any onboard. 

The tooth-drawer, who, as I said before, was one of great eminence amongher neighbors, refused to follow the ship; so that my man made himselfthe best of his way, and with some difficulty came up with us before wewere got under full sail; for after that, as we had both wind and tidewith us, he would have found it impossible to overtake the ship till shewas come to an anchor at Gravesend. 

The morning was fair and bright, and we had a passage thither, I think, as pleasant as can be conceived: for, take it with all its advantages, particularly the number of fine ships you are always sure of seeing bythe way, there is nothing to equal it in all the rivers of the world. The yards of Deptford and of Woolwich are noble sights, and give us ajust idea of the great perfection to which we are arrived in buildingthose floating castles, and the figure which we may always make inEurope among the other maritime powers. That of Woolwich, at least, verystrongly imprinted this idea on my mind; for there was now on the stocksthere the Royal Anne, supposed to be the largest ship ever built, andwhich contains ten carriage-guns more than had ever yet equipped afirst-rate. 

It is true, perhaps, that there is more of ostentation than of realutility in ships of this vast and unwieldy burden, which are rarelycapable of acting against an enemy; but if the building such contributesto preserve, among other nations, the notion of the British superiorityin naval affairs, the expense, though very great, is well incurred, andthe ostentation is laudable and truly political. Indeed, I should besorry to allow that Holland, France, or Spain, possessed a vessel largerand more beautiful than the largest and most beautiful of ours; for thishonor I would always administer to the pride of our sailors, who shouldchallenge it from all their neighbors with truth and success. And sure Iam that not our honest tars alone, but every inhabitant of this island, may exult in the comparison, when he considers the king of Great Britainas a maritime prince, in opposition to any other prince in Europe; butI am not so certain that the same idea of superiority will result fromcomparing our land forces with those of many other crowned heads. Innumbers they all far exceed us, and in the goodness and splendor oftheir troops many nations, particularly the Germans and French, andperhaps the Dutch, cast us at a distance; for, however we may flatterourselves with the Edwards and Henrys of former ages, the change of thewhole art of war since those days, by which the advantage of personalstrength is in a manner entirely lost, hath produced a change inmilitary affairs to the advantage of our enemies. As for our successesin later days, if they were not entirely owing to the superior geniusof our general, they were not a little due to the superior force of hismoney. Indeed, if we should arraign marshal Saxe of ostentation whenhe showed his army, drawn up, to our captive general, the day after thebattle of La Val, we cannot say that the ostentation was entirely vain;since he certainly showed him an army which had not been often equaled, either in the number or goodness of the troops, and which, in thoserespects, so far exceeded ours, that none can ever cast any reflectionon the brave young prince who could not reap the laurels of conquest inthat day; but his retreat will be always mentioned as an addition to hisglory. 

In our marine the case is entirely the reverse, and it must be our ownfault if it doth not continue so; for continue so it will as long as theflourishing state of our trade shall support it, and this support it cannever want till our legislature shall cease to give sufficient attentionto the protection of our trade, and our magistrates want sufficientpower, ability, and honesty, to execute the laws; a circumstance notto be apprehended, as it cannot happen till our senates and our benchesshall be filled with the blindest ignorance, or with the blackestcorruption. 

Besides the ships in the docks, we saw many on the water: the yachtsare sights of great parade, and the king's body yacht is, I believe, unequaled in any country for convenience as well as magnificence;both which are consulted in building and equipping her with the mostexquisite art and workmanship. 

We saw likewise several Indiamen just returned from their voyage. 

These are, I believe, the largest and finest vessels which are anywhereemployed in commercial affairs. The colliers, likewise, which are verynumerous, and even assemble in fleets, are ships of great bulk; and ifwe descend to those used in the American, African, and European trades, and pass through those which visit our own coasts, to the small craftthat lie between Chatham and the Tower, the whole forms a most pleasingobject to the eye, as well as highly warming to the heart of anEnglishman who has any degree of love for his country, or can recognizeany effect of the patriot in his constitution. Lastly, the RoyalHospital at Greenwich, which presents so delightful a front to thewater, and doth such honor at once to its builder and the nation, tothe great skill and ingenuity of the one, and to the no less sensiblegratitude of the other, very properly closes the account of this scene;which may well appear romantic to those who have not themselves seenthat, in this one instance, truth and reality are capable, perhaps, ofexceeding the power of fiction. When we had passed by Greenwich we sawonly two or three gentlemen's houses, all of very moderate account, tillwe reached Gravesend: these are all on the Kentish shore, which affordsa much dryer, wholesomer, and pleasanter situation, than doth that ofits opposite, Essex. This circumstance, I own, is somewhat surprisingto me, when I reflect on the numerous villas that crowd the river fromChelsea upwards as far as Shepperton, where the narrower channel affordsnot half so noble a prospect, and where the continual succession ofthe small craft, like the frequent repetition of all things, which havenothing in them great, beautiful, or admirable, tire the eye, andgive us distaste and aversion, instead of pleasure. With some of thesesituations, such as Barnes, Mortlake, etc. , even the shore of Essexmight contend, not upon very unequal terms; but on the Kentish bordersthere are many spots to be chosen by the builder which might justlyclaim the preference over almost the very finest of those in Middlesexand Surrey. 

How shall we account for this depravity in taste? for surely there arenone so very mean and contemptible as to bring the pleasure of seeinga number of little wherries, gliding along after one another, incompetition with what we enjoy in viewing a succession of ships, withall their sails expanded to the winds, bounding over the waves beforeus. 

And here I cannot pass by another observation on the deplorable want oftaste in our enjoyments, which we show by almost totally neglecting thepursuit of what seems to me the highest degree of amusement; this is, the sailing ourselves in little vessels of our own, contrived only forour ease and accommodation, to which such situations of our villas as Ihave recommended would be so convenient, and even necessary. 

This amusement, I confess, if enjoyed in any perfection, would be ofthe expensive kind; but such expense would not exceed the reach of amoderate fortune, and would fall very short of the prices which aredaily paid for pleasures of a far inferior rate. 

The truth, I believe, is, that sailing in the manner I have justmentioned is a pleasure rather unknown, or unthought of, than rejectedby those who have experienced it; unless, perhaps, the apprehension ofdanger or seasickness may be supposed, by the timorous and delicate, to make too large deductions--insisting that all their enjoyments shallcome to them pure and unmixed, and being ever ready to cry out, ----Nocet empta dolore voluptas. 

This, however, was my present case; for the ease and lightness which Ifelt from my tapping, the gayety of the morning, the pleasant sailingwith wind and tide, and the many agreeable objects with which I wasconstantly entertained during the whole way, were all suppressed andovercome by the single consideration of my wife's pain, which continuedincessantly to torment her till we came to an anchor, when I dispatcheda messenger in great haste for the best reputed operator in Gravesend. A surgeon of some eminence now appeared, who did not declinetooth-drawing, though he certainly would have been offended with theappellation of tooth-drawer no less than his brethren, the membersof that venerable body, would be with that of barber, since the lateseparation between those long-united companies, by which, if thesurgeons have gained much, the barbers are supposed to have lost verylittle. This able and careful person (for so I sincerely believe he is)after examining the guilty tooth, declared that it was such a rottenshell, and so placed at the very remotest end of the upper jaw, where itwas in a manner covered and secured by a large fine firm tooth, that hedespaired of his power of drawing it. 

He said, indeed, more to my wife, and used more rhetoric to dissuadeher from having it drawn, than is generally employed to persuadeyoung ladies to prefer a pain of three moments to one of three months'continuance, especially if those young ladies happen to be past fortyand fifty years of age, when, by submitting to support a rackingtorment, the only good circumstance attending which is, it is so shortthat scarce one in a thousand can cry out "I feel it, " they are to do aviolence to their charms, and lose one of those beautiful holders withwhich alone Sir Courtly Nice declares a lady can ever lay hold of hisheart. He said at last so much, and seemed to reason so justly, that Icame over to his side, and assisted him in prevailing on my wife (for itwas no easy matter) to resolve on keeping her tooth a little longer, andto apply palliatives only for relief. These were opium applied to thetooth, and blisters behind the ears. 

Whilst we were at dinner this day in the cabin, on a sudden the windowon one side was beat into the room with a crash as if a twenty-pounderhad been discharged among us. We were all alarmed at the suddenness ofthe accident, for which, however, we were soon able to account, for thesash, which was shivered all to pieces, was pursued into the middleof the cabin by the bowsprit of a little ship called a cod-smack, themaster of which made us amends for running (carelessly at best) againstus, and injuring the ship, in the sea-way; that is to say, by damning usall to hell, and uttering several pious wishes that it had done us muchmore mischief. All which were answered in their own kind and phraseby our men, between whom and the other crew a dialogue of oaths andscurrility was carried on as long as they continued in each other'shearing. 

It is difficult, I think, to assign a satisfactory reason why sailors ingeneral should, of all others, think themselves entirely discharged fromthe common bands of humanity, and should seem to glory in the languageand behavior of savages! They see more of the world, and have, most ofthem, a more erudite education than is the portion of landmen of theirdegree. Nor do I believe that in any country they visit (Holland itselfnot excepted) they can ever find a parallel to what daily passes onthe river Thames. Is it that they think true courage (for they are thebravest fellows upon earth) inconsistent with all the gentleness ofa humane carriage, and that the contempt of civil order springs upin minds but little cultivated, at the same time and from the sameprinciples with the contempt of danger and death? Is it--? in short, itis so; and how it comes to be so I leave to form a question in the RobinHood Society, or to be propounded for solution among the enigmas in theWoman's Almanac for the next year. 

Monday, July 1. --This day Mr. Welch took his leave of me after dinner, as did a young lady of her sister, who was proceeding with my wife toLisbon. They both set out together in a post-chaise for London. Soonafter their departure our cabin, where my wife and I were sittingtogether, was visited by two ruffians, whose appearance greatlycorresponded with that of the sheriffs, or rather the knight-marshal'sbailiffs. One of these especially, who seemed to affect a more thanordinary degree of rudeness and insolence, came in without any kind ofceremony, with a broad gold lace on his hat, which was cocked with muchmilitary fierceness on his head. An inkhorn at his buttonhole and somepapers in his hand sufficiently assured me what he was, and I asked himif he and his companion were not custom-house officers: he answered withsufficient dignity that they were, as an information which he seemedto conclude would strike the hearer with awe, and suppress all furtherinquiry; but, on the contrary, I proceeded to ask of what rank he wasin the custom-house, and, receiving an answer from his companion, as Iremember, that the gentleman was a riding surveyor, I replied that hemight be a riding surveyor, but could be no gentleman, for that none whohad any title to that denomination would break into the presence ofa lady without an apology or even moving his hat. He then took hiscovering from his head and laid it on the table, saying, he askedpardon, and blamed the mate, who should, he said, have informed him ifany persons of distinction were below. I told him he might guess by ourappearance (which, perhaps, was rather more than could be said with thestrictest adherence to truth) that he was before a gentleman and lady, which should teach him to be very civil in his behavior, though weshould not happen to be of that number whom the world calls people offashion and distinction. However, I said, that as he seemed sensible ofhis error, and had asked pardon, the lady would permit him to puthis hat on again if he chose it. This he refused with some degree ofsurliness, and failed not to convince me that, if I should condescendto become more gentle, he would soon grow more rude. I now renewed areflection, which I have often seen occasion to make, that there isnothing so incongruous in nature as any kind of power with lowness ofmind and of ability, and that there is nothing more deplorable thanthe want of truth in the whimsical notion of Plato, who tells us that"Saturn, well knowing the state of human affairs, gave us kings andrulers, not of human but divine original; for, as we make not shepherdsof sheep, nor oxherds of oxen, nor goatherds of goats, but place some ofour own kind over all as being better and fitter to govern them; inthe same manner were demons by the divine love set over us as a raceof beings of a superior order to men, and who, with great ease tothemselves, might regulate our affairs and establish peace, modesty, freedom, and justice, and, totally destroying all sedition, mightcomplete the happiness of the human race. So far, at least, may even nowbe said with truth, that in all states which are under the government ofmere man, without any divine assistance, there is nothing but labor andmisery to be found. From what I have said, therefore, we may at leastlearn, with our utmost endeavors, to imitate the Saturnian institution;borrowing all assistance from our immortal part, while we pay to thisthe strictest obedience, we should form both our private economy andpublic policy from its dictates. By this dispensation of our immortalminds we are to establish a law and to call it by that name. But if anygovernment be in the hands of a single person, of the few, or of themany, and such governor or governors shall abandon himself or themselvesto the unbridled pursuit of the wildest pleasures or desires, unable torestrain any passion, but possessed with an insatiable bad disease; ifsuch shall attempt to govern, and at the same time to trample on alllaws, there can be no means of preservation left for the wretchedpeople. " Plato de Leg. , lib. Iv. P. 713, c. 714, edit. Serrani. 

It is true that Plato is here treating of the highest or sovereign powerin a state, but it is as true that his observations are general and maybe applied to all inferior powers; and, indeed, every subordinate degreeis immediately derived from the highest; and, as it is equally protectedby the same force and sanctified by the same authority, is alikedangerous to the well-being of the subject. Of all powers, perhaps, there is none so sanctified and protected as this which is underour present consideration. So numerous, indeed, and strong, are thesanctions given to it by many acts of parliament, that, having onceestablished the laws of customs on merchandise, it seems to have beenthe sole view of the legislature to strengthen the hands and to protectthe persons of the officers who became established by those laws, many of whom are so far from bearing any resemblance to the Saturnianinstitution, and to be chosen from a degree of beings superior to therest of human race, that they sometimes seem industriously picked out ofthe lowest and vilest orders of mankind. There is, indeed, nothing, souseful to man in general, nor so beneficial to particular societies andindividuals, as trade. This is that alma mater at whose plentiful breastall mankind are nourished. It is true, like other parents, she is notalways equally indulgent to all her children, but, though she gives toher favorites a vast proportion of redundancy and superfluity, there arevery few whom she refuses to supply with the conveniences, and none withthe necessaries, of life. 

Such a benefactress as this must naturally be beloved by mankind ingeneral; it would be wonderful, therefore, if her interest was notconsidered by them, and protected from the fraud and violence of someof her rebellious offspring, who, coveting more than their share or morethan she thinks proper to allow them, are daily employed in meditatingmischief against her, and in endeavoring to steal from their brethrenthose shares which this great alma mater had allowed them. 

At length our governor came on board, and about six in the eveningwe weighed anchor, and fell down to the Nore, whither our passage wasextremely pleasant, the evening being very delightful, the moon justpast the full, and both wind and tide favorable to us. 

Tuesday, July 2. --This morning we again set sail, under all theadvantages we had enjoyed the evening before. This day we left theshore of Essex and coasted along Kent, passing by the pleasant island ofThanet, which is an island, and that of Sheppy, which is not an island, and about three o 'clock, the wind being now full in our teeth, we cameto an anchor in the Downs, within two miles of Deal. --My wife, havingsuffered intolerable pain from her tooth, again renewed her resolutionof having it drawn, and another surgeon was sent for from Deal, but withno better success than the former. He likewise declined the operation, for the same reason which had been assigned by the former: however, suchwas her resolution, backed with pain, that he was obliged to make theattempt, which concluded more in honor of his judgment than of hisoperation; for, after having put my poor wife to inexpressible torment, he was obliged to leave her tooth in statu quo; and she had now thecomfortable prospect of a long fit of pain, which might have lastedher whole voyage, without any possibility of relief. In these pleasingsensations, of which I had my just share, nature, overcome with fatigue, about eight in the evening resigned her to rest--a circumstance whichwould have given me some happiness, could I have known how to employthose spirits which were raised by it; but, unfortunately for me, Iwas left in a disposition of enjoying an agreeable hour without theassistance of a companion, which has always appeared to me necessary tosuch enjoyment; my daughter and her companion were both retired sea-sickto bed; the other passengers were a rude school-boy of fourteen yearsold and an illiterate Portuguese friar, who understood no language buthis own, in which I had not the least smattering. The captain was theonly person left in whose conversation I might indulge myself; butunluckily, besides a total ignorance of everything in the world but aship, he had the misfortune of being so deaf, that to make him hear, Iwill not say understand, my words, I must run the risk of conveying themto the ears of my wife, who, though in another room (called, I think, the state-room--being, indeed, a most stately apartment, capable ofcontaining one human body in length, if not very tall, and three bodiesin breadth), lay asleep within a yard of me. In this situation necessityand choice were one and the same thing; the captain and I sat downtogether to a small bowl of punch, over which we both soon fell fastasleep, and so concluded the evening. 

Wednesday, July 3. --This morning I awaked at four o'clock for mydistemper seldom suffered me to sleep later. I presently got up, and hadthe pleasure of enjoying the sight of a tempestuous sea for four hoursbefore the captain was stirring; for he loved to indulge himself inmorning slumbers, which were attended with a wind-music, much moreagreeable to the performers than to the hearers, especially such ashave, as I had, the privilege of sitting in the orchestra. At eight o'clock the captain rose, and sent his boat on shore. I ordered myman likewise to go in it, as my distemper was not of that kind whichentirely deprives us of appetite. Now, though the captain had wellvictualled his ship with all manner of salt provisions for the voyage, and had added great quantities of fresh stores, particularly ofvegetables, at Gravesend, such as beans and peas, which had been onboard only two days, and had possibly not been gathered above two more, I apprehended I could provide better for myself at Deal than the ship'sordinary seemed to promise. I accordingly sent for fresh provisions ofall kinds from the shore, in order to put off the evil day of starvingas long as possible. My man returned with most of the articles I sentfor, and I now thought myself in a condition of living a week on my ownprovisions. I therefore ordered my own dinner, which I wanted nothingbut a cook to dress and a proper fire to dress it at; but those werenot to be had, nor indeed any addition to my roast mutton, except thepleasure of the captain's company, with that of the other passengers;for my wife continued the whole day in a state of dozing, and my otherfemales, whose sickness did not abate by the rolling of the ship atanchor, seemed more inclined to empty their stomachs than to fill them. Thus I passed the whole day (except about an hour at dinner) by myself, and the evening concluded with the captain as the preceding one haddone; one comfortable piece of news he communicated to me, which was, that he had no doubt of a prosperous wind in the morning; but as he didnot divulge the reasons of this confidence, and as I saw none myselfbesides the wind being directly opposite, my faith in this prophecy wasnot strong enough to build any great hopes upon. 

Thursday, July 4. --This morning, however, the captain seemed resolvedto fulfill his own predictions, whether the wind would or no; heaccordingly weighed anchor, and, taking the advantage of the tide whenthe wind was not very boisterous, he hoisted his sails; and, as if hispower had been no less absolute over Aeolus than it was over Neptune, heforced the wind to blow him on in its own despite. 

But as all men who have ever been at sea well know how weak suchattempts are, and want no authorities of Scripture to prove that themost absolute power of a captain of a ship is very contemptible in thewind's eye, so did it befall our noble commander, who, having struggledwith the wind three or four hours, was obliged to give over, and lostin a few minutes all that he had been so long a-gaining; in short, we returned to our former station, and once more cast anchor in theneighborhood of Deal. 

Here, though we lay near the shore, that we might promise ourselvesall the emolument which could be derived from it, we found ourselvesdeceived; and that we might with as much conveniency be out of the sightof land; for, except when the captain launched forth his own boat, whichhe did always with great reluctance, we were incapable of procuringanything from Deal, but at a price too exorbitant, and beyond the reacheven of modern luxury--the fare of a boat from Deal, which lay at twomiles' distance, being at least three half-crowns, and, if we had beenin any distress for it, as many half-guineas; for these good peopleconsider the sea as a large common appendant to their manor; in whichwhen they find any of their fellow-creatures impounded, they concludethat they have a full right of making them pay at their own discretionfor their deliverance: to say the truth, whether it be that men who liveon the sea-shore are of an amphibious kind, and do not entirely partakeof human nature, or whatever else may be the reason, they are so farfrom taking any share in the distresses of mankind, or of being movedwith any compassion for them, that they look upon them as blessingsshowered down from above, and which the more they improve to theirown use, the greater is their gratitude and piety. Thus at Gravesenda sculler requires a shilling for going less way than he would row inLondon for threepence; and at Deal a boat often brings more profit in aday than it can produce in London in a week, or perhaps in a month; inboth places the owner of the boat founds his demand on the necessityand distress of one who stands more or less in absolute want ofhis assistance, and with the urgency of these always rises in theexorbitancy of his demand, without ever considering that, from thesevery circumstances, the power or ease of gratifying such demand is inlike proportion lessened. Now, as I am unwilling that some conclusions, which may be, I am aware, too justly drawn from these observations, should be imputed to human nature in general, I have endeavored toaccount for them in a way more consistent with the goodness and dignityof that nature. However it be, it seems a little to reflect on thegovernors of such monsters that they do not take some means to restrainthese impositions, and prevent them from triumphing any longer inthe miseries of those who are, in many circumstances at least, theirfellow-creatures, and considering the distresses of a wretched seaman, from his being wrecked to his being barely windbound, as a blessing sentamong them from above, and calling it by that blasphemous name. 

Friday, July 5. --This day I sent a servant on board a man-of-war thatwas stationed here, with my compliments to the captain, to represent tohim the distress of the ladies, and to desire the favor of his long-boatto conduct us to Dover, at about seven miles' distance; and at the sametime presumed to make use of a great lady's name, the wife of the firstlord commissioner of the admiralty, who would, I told him, be pleasedwith any kindness shown by him towards us in our miserable condition. And this I am convinced was true, from the humanity of the lady, thoughshe was entirely unknown to me. 

The captain returned a verbal answer to a long letter acquainting methat what I desired could not be complied with, it being a favor not inhis power to grant. This might be, and I suppose was, true; but it isas true that, if he was able to write, and had pen, ink, and paper onboard, he might have sent a written answer, and that it was the part ofa gentleman so to have done; but this is a character seldom maintainedon the watery element, especially by those who exercise any power on it. Every commander of a vessel here seems to think himself entirely freefrom all those rules of decency and civility which direct and restrainthe conduct of the members of a society on shore; and each, claimingabsolute dominion in his little wooden world, rules by his own laws andhis own discretion. I do not, indeed, know so pregnant an instanceof the dangerous consequences of absolute power, and its aptness tointoxicate the mind, as that of those petty tyrants, who become such ina moment, from very well-disposed and social members of that communionin which they affect no superiority, but live in an orderly state oflegal subjection with their fellow-citizens. 

Saturday, July 6. --This morning our commander, declaring he was sure thewind would change, took the advantage of an ebbing tide, and weighedhis anchor. His assurance, however, had the same completion, and hisendeavors the same success, with his formal trial; and he was soonobliged to return once more to his old quarters. Just before we let goour anchor, a small sloop, rather than submit to yield us an inch ofway, ran foul of our ship, and carried off her bowsprit. This obstinatefrolic would have cost those aboard the sloop very dear, if oursteersman had not been too generous to exert his superiority, thecertain consequence of which would have been the immediate sinkingof the other. This contention of the inferior with a might capable ofcrushing it in an instant may seem to argue no small share of follyor madness, as well as of impudence; but I am convinced there is verylittle danger in it: contempt is a port to which the pride of mansubmits to fly with reluctance, but those who are within it are alwaysin a place of the most assured security; for whosoever throws away hissword prefers, indeed, a less honorable but much safer means of avoidingdanger than he who defends himself with it. And here we shall offeranother distinction, of the truth of which much reading and experiencehave well convinced us, that as in the most absolute governments thereis a regular progression of slavery downwards, from the top to thebottom, the mischief of which is seldom felt with any great force andbitterness but by the next immediate degree; so in the most dissoluteand anarchical states there is as regular an ascent of what is calledrank or condition, which is always laying hold of the head of him who isadvanced but one step higher on the ladder, who might, if he did not toomuch despise such efforts, kick his pursuer headlong to the bottom. Wewill conclude this digression with one general and short observation, which will, perhaps, set the whole matter in a clearer light than thelongest and most labored harangue. Whereas envy of all things mostexposes us to danger from others, so contempt of all things best securesus from them. And thus, while the dung-cart and the sloop are alwaysmeditating mischief against the coach and the ship, and throwingthemselves designedly in their way, the latter consider only their ownsecurity, and are not ashamed to break the road and let the other passby them. 

Monday, July 8. --Having passed our Sunday without anything remarkable, unless the catching a great number of whitings in the afternoon maybe thought so, we now set sail on Monday at six o'clock, with a littlevariation of wind; but this was so very little, and the breeze itself sosmall, but the tide was our best and indeed almost our only friend. Thisconducted us along the short remainder of the Kentish shore. Herewe passed that cliff of Dover which makes so tremendous a figurein Shakespeare, and which whoever reads without being giddy, must, according to Mr. Addison's observation, have either a very good head ora very bad, one; but which, whoever contracts any such ideas from thesight of, must have at least a poetic if not a Shakesperian genius. In truth, mountains, rivers, heroes, and gods owe great part of theirexistence to the poets; and Greece and Italy do so plentifully aboundin the former, because they furnish so glorious a number of the latter;who, while they bestowed immortality on every little hillock and blindstream, left the noblest rivers and mountains in the world to share thesame obscurity with the eastern and western poets, in which theyare celebrated. This evening we beat the sea of Sussex in sight ofDungeness, with much more pleasure than progress; for the weather wasalmost a perfect calm, and the moon, which was almost at the full, scarce suffered a single cloud to veil her from our sight. 

Tuesday, Wednesday, July 9, 10. --These two days we had much the samefine weather, and made much the same way; but in the evening of thelatter day a pretty fresh gale sprung up at N. N. W. , which brought us bythe morning in sight of the Isle of Wight. 

Thursday, July 11. --This gale continued till towards noon; when the eastend of the island bore but little ahead of us. The captain swaggered anddeclared he would keep the sea; but the wind got the better of him, sothat about three he gave up the victory, and making a sudden tack stoodin for the shore, passed by Spithead and Portsmouth, and came to ananchor at a place called Ryde on the island. 

A most tragical incident fell out this day at sea. While the ship wasunder sail, but making as will appear no great way, a kitten, one offour of the feline inhabitants of the cabin, fell from the window intothe water: an alarm was immediately given to the captain, who was thenupon deck, and received it with the utmost concern and many bitteroaths. He immediately gave orders to the steersman in favor of the poorthing, as he called it; the sails were instantly slackened, and allhands, as the phrase is, employed to recover the poor animal. I was, I own, extremely surprised at all this; less indeed at the captain'sextreme tenderness than at his conceiving any possibility of success;for if puss had had nine thousand instead of nine lives, I concludedthey had been all lost. The boatswain, however, had more sanguine hopes, for, having stripped himself of his jacket, breeches, and shirt, heleaped boldly into the water, and to my great astonishment in a fewminutes returned to the ship, bearing the motionless animal in hismouth. Nor was this, I observed, a matter of such great difficulty asit appeared to my ignorance, and possibly may seem to that of myfresh-water reader. The kitten was now exposed to air and sun on thedeck, where its life, of which it retained no symptoms, was despaired ofby all. 

The captain's humanity, if I may so call it, did not so totally destroyhis philosophy as to make him yield himself up to affliction on thismelancholy occasion. Having felt his loss like a man, he resolved toshow he could bear it like one; and, having declared he had rather havelost a cask of rum or brandy, betook himself to threshing at backgammonwith the Portuguese friar, in which innocent amusement they had passedabout two-thirds of their time. 

But as I have, perhaps, a little too wantonly endeavored to raise thetender passions of my readers in this narrative, I should think myselfunpardonable if I concluded it without giving them the satisfaction ofhearing that the kitten at last recovered, to the great joy of the goodcaptain, but to the great disappointment of some of the sailors, whoasserted that the drowning a cat was the very surest way of raising afavorable wind; a supposition of which, though we have heard severalplausible accounts, we will not presume to assign the true originalreason. 

Friday, July 12. --This day our ladies went ashore at Ryde, and dranktheir afternoon tea at an ale-house there with great satisfaction: herethey were regaled with fresh cream, to which they had been strangerssince they left the Downs. 

Saturday, July 13. --The wind seeming likely to continue in the samecorner where it had been almost constantly for two months together, Iwas persuaded by my wife to go ashore and stay at Ryde till we sailed. I approved the motion much; for though I am a great lover of the sea, I now fancied there was more pleasure in breathing the fresh air of theland; but how to get thither was the question; for, being really thatdead luggage which I considered all passengers to be in the beginningof this narrative, and incapable of any bodily motion without externalimpulse, it was in vain to leave the ship, or to determine to do it, without the assistance of others. In one instance, perhaps, the living, luggage is more difficult to be moved or removed than an equal or muchsuperior weight of dead matter; which, if of the brittle kind, mayindeed be liable to be broken through negligence; but this, by propercare, may be almost certainly prevented; whereas the fractures to whichthe living lumps are exposed are sometimes by no caution avoidable, andoften by no art to be amended. 

I was deliberating on the means of conveyance, not so much out of theship to the boat as out of a little tottering boat to the land; a matterwhich, as I had already experienced in the Thames, was not extremelyeasy, when to be performed by any other limbs than your own. Whilst Iweighed all that could suggest itself on this head, without strictlyexamining the merit of the several schemes which were advanced by thecaptain and sailors, and, indeed, giving no very deep attention even tomy wife, who, as well as her friend and my daughter, were exerting theirtender concern for my ease and safety, Fortune, for I am convinced shehad a hand in it, sent me a present of a buck; a present welcome enoughof itself, but more welcome on account of the vessel in which it came, being a large hoy, which in some places would pass for a ship, and manypeople would go some miles to see the sight. 

I was pretty easily conveyed on board this hoy; but to get from henceto the shore was not so easy a task; for, however strange it may appear, the water itself did not extend so far; an instance which seems toexplain those lines of Ovid, Omnia pontus erant, deerant quoque littora ponto, in a less tautological sense than hath generally been imputed to them. 

In fact, between the sea and the shore there was, at low water, animpassable gulf, if I may so call it, of deep mud, which could neitherbe traversed by walking nor swimming; so that for near one half of thetwenty-four hours Ryde was inaccessible by friend or foe. But as themagistrates of this place seemed more to desire the company of theformer than to fear that of the latter, they had begun to make a smallcauseway to the low-water mark, so that foot passengers might landwhenever they pleased; but as this work was of a public kind, andwould have cost a large sum of money, at least ten pounds, andthe magistrates, that is to say, the churchwardens, the overseers, constable, and tithingman, and the principal inhabitants, had everyone of them some separate scheme of private interest to advance at theexpense of the public, they fell out among themselves; and, after havingthrown away one half of the requisite sum, resolved at least to save theother half, and rather be contented to sit down losers themselves thanto enjoy any benefit which might bring in a greater profit to another. Thus that unanimity which is so necessary in all public affairs becamewanting, and every man, from the fear of being a bubble to another, was, in reality, a bubble to himself. 

However, as there is scarce any difficulty to which the strength of men, assisted with the cunning of art, is not equal, I was at last hoistedinto a small boat, and being rowed pretty near the shore, was taken upby two sailors, who waded with me through the mud, and placed me in achair on the land, whence they afterwards conveyed me a quarter of amile farther, and brought me to a house which seemed to bid the fairestfor hospitality of any in Ryde. 

We brought with us our provisions from the ship, so that we wantednothing but a fire to dress our dinner, and a room in which we might eatit. In neither of these had we any reason to apprehend a disappointment, our dinner consisting only of beans and bacon; and the worst apartmentin his majesty's dominions, either at home or abroad, being fullysufficient to answer our present ideas of delicacy. 

Unluckily, however, we were disappointed in both; for when we arrivedabout four at our inn, exulting in the hopes of immediately seeing ourbeans smoking on the table, we had the mortification of seeing them onthe table indeed, but without that circumstance which would have madethe sight agreeable, being in the same state in which we had dispatchedthem from our ship. In excuse for this delay, though we had exceeded, almost purposely, the time appointed, and our provision had arrivedthree hours before, the mistress of the house acquainted us that it wasnot for want of time to dress them that they were not ready, but forfear of their being cold or over-done before we should come; which sheassured us was much worse than waiting a few minutes for our dinner; anobservation so very just, that it is impossible to find any objectionin it; but, indeed, it was not altogether so proper at this time, for wehad given the most absolute orders to have them ready at four, andhad been ourselves, not without much care and difficulty, mostexactly punctual in keeping to the very minute of our appointment. But tradesmen, inn-keepers, and servants, never care to indulge us inmatters contrary to our true interest, which they always know betterthan ourselves; nor can any bribes corrupt them to go out of their waywhile they are consulting our good in our own despite. 

Our disappointment in the other particular, in defiance of our humility, as it was more extraordinary, was more provoking. In short, Mrs. Francis (for that was the name of the good woman of the house) no soonerreceived the news of our intended arrival than she considered more thegentility than the humanity of her guests, and applied herself not tothat which kindles but to that which extinguishes fire, and, forgettingto put on her pot, fell to washing her house. 

As the messenger who had brought my venison was impatient to bedispatched, I ordered it to be brought and laid on the table in the roomwhere I was seated; and the table not being large enough, one side, andthat a very bloody one, was laid on the brick floor. I then ordered Mrs. Francis to be called in, in order to give her instructions concerningit; in particular, what I would have roasted and what baked; concludingthat she would be highly pleased with the prospect of so much moneybeing spent in her house as she might have now reason to expect, ifthe wind continued only a few days longer to blow from the same pointswhence it had blown for several weeks past. 

I soon saw good cause, I must confess, to despise my own sagacity. Mrs. Francis, having received her orders, without making any answer, snatchedthe side from the floor, which remained stained with blood, and, biddinga servant to take up that on the table, left the room with no pleasantcountenance, muttering to herself that, "had she known the litter whichwas to have been made, she would not have taken such pains to wash herhouse that morning. If this was gentility, much good may it do suchgentlefolks; for her part she had no notion of it. " From these murmursI received two hints. The one, that it was not from a mistake ofour inclination that the good woman had starved us, but from wiselyconsulting her own dignity, or rather perhaps her vanity, to which ourhunger was offered up as a sacrifice. The other, that I was now sittingin a damp room, a circumstance, though it had hitherto escaped my noticefrom the color of the bricks, which was by no means to be neglected in avaletudinary state. 

My wife, who, besides discharging excellently well her own and allthe tender offices becoming the female character; who, besides beinga faithful friend, an amiable companion, and a tender nurse, couldlikewise supply the wants of a decrepit husband, and occasionallyperform his part, had, before this, discovered the immoderate attentionto neatness in Mrs. Francis, and provided against its ill consequences. She had found, though not under the same roof, a very snug apartmentbelonging to Mr. Francis, and which had escaped the mop by his wife'sbeing satisfied it could not possibly be visited by gentle-folks. Thiswas a dry, warm, oaken-floored barn, lined on both sides with wheatenstraw, and opening at one end into a green field and a beautifulprospect. Here, without hesitation, she ordered the cloth to be laid, and came hastily to snatch me from worse perils by water than the commondangers of the sea. 

Mrs. Francis, who could not trust her own ears, or could not believe afootman in so extraordinary a phenomenon, followed my wife, and askedher if she had indeed ordered the cloth to be laid in the barn? Sheanswered in the affirmative; upon which Mrs. Francis declared she wouldnot dispute her pleasure, but it was the first time she believed thatquality had ever preferred a barn to a house. She showed at the sametime the most pregnant marks of contempt, and again lamented the laborshe had undergone, through her ignorance of the absurd taste of herguests. 

At length we were seated in one of the most pleasant spots I believe inthe kingdom, and were regaled with our beans and bacon, in which therewas nothing deficient but the quantity. This defect was however sodeplorable that we had consumed our whole dish before we had visiblylessened our hunger. We now waited with impatience the arrival of oursecond course, which necessity, and not luxury, had dictated. This wasa joint of mutton which Mrs. Francis had been ordered to provide; butwhen, being tired with expectation, we ordered our servants TO SEE FORSOMETHING ELSE, we were informed that there was nothing else; on whichMrs. Francis, being summoned, declared there was no such thing as muttonto be had at Ryde. When I expressed some astonishment at their having nobutcher in a village so situated, she answered they had a very good one, and one that killed all sorts of meat in season, beef two or three timesa year, and mutton the whole year round; but that, it being then beansand peas time, he killed no meat, by reason he was not sure of sellingit. This she had not thought worthy of communication, any more than thatthere lived a fisherman at next door, who was then provided with plentyof soles, and whitings, and lobsters, far superior to those which adorna city feast. This discovery being made by accident, we completed thebest, the pleasantest, and the merriest meal, with more appetite, more real solid luxury, and more festivity, than was ever seen in anentertainment at White's. 

It may be wondered at, perhaps, that Mrs. Francis should be so negligentof providing for her guests, as she may seem to be thus inattentiveto her own interest; but this was not the case; for, having clapped apoll-tax on our heads at our arrival, and determined at what price todischarge our bodies from her house, the less she suffered any other toshare in the levy the clearer it came into her own pocket; and thatit was better to get twelve pence in a shilling than ten pence, whichlatter would be the case if she afforded us fish at any rate. 

Thus we passed a most agreeable day owing to good appetites and goodhumor; two hearty feeders which will devour with satisfaction whateverfood you place before them; whereas, without these, the elegance of St. James's, the charde, the perigord-pie, or the ortolan, the venison, theturtle, or the custard, may titillate the throat, but will never conveyhappiness to the heart or cheerfulness to the countenance. 

As the wind appeared still immovable, my wife proposed my lying onshore. I presently agreed, though in defiance of an act of parliament, by which persons wandering abroad and lodging in ale-houses aredecreed to be rogues and vagabonds; and this too after having been verysingularly officious in putting that law in execution. My wife, havingreconnoitered the house, reported that there was one room in whichwere two beds. It was concluded, therefore, that she and Harriot shouldoccupy one and myself take possession of the other. She added likewisean ingenious recommendation of this room to one who had so long been ina cabin, which it exactly resembled, as it was sunk down with age on oneside, and was in the form of a ship with gunwales too. 

For my own part, I make little doubt but this apartment was an ancienttemple, built with the materials of a wreck, and probably dedicated toNeptune in honor of THE BLESSING sent by him to the inhabitants; suchblessings having in all ages been very common to them. The timberemployed in it confirms this opinion, being such as is seldom used byally but ship-builders. I do not find indeed any mention of this matterin Hearn; but perhaps its antiquity was too modern to deserve hisnotice. Certain it is that this island of Wight was not an early convertto Christianity; nay, there is some reason to doubt whether it was everentirely converted. But I have only time to touch slightly on thingsof this kind, which, luckily for us, we have a society whose peculiarprofession it is to discuss and develop. 

Sunday, July 19. --This morning early I summoned Mrs. Francis, in orderto pay her the preceding day's account. As I could recollect only twoor three articles I thought there was no necessity of pen and ink. Ina single instance only we had exceeded what the law allows gratis to afoot-soldier on his march, viz. , vinegar, salt, etc. , and dressing hismeat. I found, however, I was mistaken in my calculation; for when thegood woman attended with her bill it contained as follows:--

 L. S. D. 

 Bread and beer 0 2 4

 Wind 0 2 0

 Rum 0 2 0

 Dressing dinner 0 3 0

 Tea 0 1 6

 Firing 0 1 0

 Lodging 0 1 6 Servants' lodging 0 0 6

 -----------------

 L 0 13 10

Now that five people and two servants should live a day and night at apublic-house for so small a sum will appear incredible to any person inLondon above the degree of a chimney-sweeper; but more astonishing willit seem that these people should remain so long at such a house withouttasting any other delicacy than bread, small beer, a teacupful ofmilk called cream, a glass of rum converted into punch by their ownmaterials, and one bottle of wind, of which we only tasted a singleglass though possibly, indeed, our servants drank the remainder of thebottle. 

This wind is a liquor of English manufacture, and its flavor is thoughtvery delicious by the generality of the English, who drink it in greatquantities. Every seventh year is thought to produce as much as theother six. It is then drank so plentifully that the whole nation arein a manner intoxicated by it; and consequently very little business iscarried on at that season. It resembles in color the red wine which isimported from Portugal, as it doth in its intoxicating quality; hence, and from this agreement in the orthography, the one is often confoundedwith the other, though both are seldom esteemed by the same person. Itis to be had in every parish of the kingdom, and a pretty large quantityis consumed in the metropolis, where several taverns are set apartsolely for the vendition of this liquor, the masters never dealingin any other. The disagreement in our computation produced some smallremonstrance to Mrs. Francis on my side; but this received an immediateanswer: "She scorned to overcharge gentlemen; her house had been alwaysfrequented by the very best gentry of the island; and she had never hada bill found fault with in her life, though she had lived upwards offorty years in the house, and within that time the greatest gentry inHampshire had been at it; and that lawyer Willis never went to anyother when he came to those parts. That for her part she did not get herlivelihood by travelers, who were gone and away, and she never expectedto see them more, but that her neighbors might come again; wherefore, tobe sure, they had the only right to complain. "

She was proceeding thus, and from her volubility of tongue seemed likelyto stretch the discourse to an immoderate length, when I suddenly cutall short by paying the bill. 

This morning our ladies went to church, more, I fear, from curiositythan religion; they were attended by the captain in a most militaryattire, with his cockade in his hat and his sword by his side. Sounusual an appearance in this little chapel drew the attention of allpresent, and probably disconcerted the women, who were in dishabille, and wished themselves dressed, for the sake of the curate, who was thegreatest of their beholders. While I was left alone I received a visitfrom Mr. Francis himself, who was much more considerable as a farmerthan as an inn-holder. Indeed, he left the latter entirely to the careof his wife, and he acted wisely, I believe, in so doing. As nothingmore remarkable passed on this day I will close it with the account ofthese two characters, as far as a few days' residence could inform me ofthem. If they should appear as new to the reader as they did to me, hewill not be displeased at finding them here. This amiable couple seemedto border hard on their grand climacteric; nor indeed were they shy ofowning enough to fix their ages within a year or two of that time. Theyappeared to be rather proud of having employed their time well thanashamed of having lived so long; the only reason which I could everassign why some fine ladies, and fine gentlemen too, should desire tobe thought younger than they really are by the contemporaries of theirgrandchildren. Some, indeed, who too hastily credit appearances, mightdoubt whether they had made so good a use of their time as I wouldinsinuate, since there was no appearance of anything but poverty, want, and wretchedness, about their house; nor could they produce anythingto a customer in exchange for his money but a few bottles of wind, andspirituous liquors, and some very bad ale, to drink; with rusty baconand worse cheese to eat. But then it should be considered, on the otherside, that whatever they received was almost as entirely clear profit asthe blessing of a wreck itself; such an inn being the very reverse of acoffee-house; for here you can neither sit for nothing nor have anythingfor your money. 

Again, as many marks of want abounded everywhere, so were the marks ofantiquity visible. Scarce anything was to be seen which had not somescar upon it, made by the hand of Time; not an utensil, it was manifest, had been purchased within a dozen years last past; so that whatevermoney had come into the house during that period at least must haveremained in it, unless it had been sent abroad for food, or otherperishable commodities; but these were supplied by a small portion ofthe fruits of the farm, in which the farmer allowed he had a very goodbargain. In fact, it is inconceivable what sums may be collected bystarving only, and how easy it is for a man to die rich if he will butbe contented to live miserable. 

Nor is there in this kind of starving anything so terrible as someapprehend. It neither wastes a man's flesh nor robs him of hischeerfulness. The famous Cornaro's case well proves the contrary; and sodid farmer Francis, who was of a round stature, had a plump, round face, with a kind of smile on it, and seemed to borrow an air of wretchednessrather from his coat's age than from his own. 

The truth is, there is a certain diet which emaciates men more than anypossible degree of abstinence; though I do not remember to have seen anycaution against it, either in Cheney, Arbuthnot, or in any other modernwriter or regimen. 

Nay, the very name is not, I believe, in the learned Dr. James'sDictionary; all which is the more extraordinary as it is a very commonfood in this kingdom, and the college themselves were not long sincevery liberally entertained with it by the present attorney and othereminent lawyers in Lincoln's-inn-hall, and were all made horribly sickby it. 

But though it should not be found among our English physical writers, we may be assured of meeting with it among the Greeks; for nothingconsiderable in nature escapes their notice, though many thingsconsiderable in them, it is to be feared, have escaped the notice oftheir readers. The Greeks, then, to all such as feed too voraciouslyon this diet, give the name of HEAUTOFAGI, which our physicians will, Isuppose, translate MEN THAT EAT THEMSELVES. 

As nothing is so destructive to the body as this kind of food, sonothing is so plentiful and cheap; but it was perhaps the only cheapthing the farmer disliked. Probably living much on fish might producethis disgust; for Diodorus Siculus attributes the same aversion in apeople of Ethiopia to the same cause; he calls them the fish-eaters, and asserts that they cannot be brought to eat a single meal with theHeautofagi by any persuasion, threat, or violence whatever, not eventhough they should kill their children before their faces. 

What hath puzzled our physicians, and prevented them from setting thismatter in the clearest light, is possibly one simple mistake, arisingfrom a very excusable ignorance; that the passions of men are capable ofswallowing food as well as their appetites; that the former, in feeding, resemble the state of those animals who chew the cud; and therefore, such men, in some sense, may be said to prey on themselves, and as itwere to devour their own entrails. And hence ensues a meager aspect andthin habit of body, as surely as from what is called a consumption. Ourfarmer was one of these. He had no more passion than an Ichthuofagus orEthiopian fisher. He wished not for anything, thought not of anything;indeed, he scarce did anything or said anything. Here I cannot beunderstood strictly; for then I must describe a nonentity, whereas Iwould rob him of nothing but that free agency which is the cause of allthe corruption and of all the misery of human nature. No man, indeed, ever did more than the farmer, for he was an absolute slave to laborall the week; but in truth, as my sagacious reader must have at firstapprehended, when I said he resigned the care of the house to his wife, I meant more than I then expressed, even the house and all that belongedto it; for he was really a farmer only under the direction of his wife. In a word, so composed, so serene, so placid a countenance, I never saw;and he satisfied himself by answering to every question he was asked, "Idon't know anything about it, sir; I leaves all that to my wife. "

Now, as a couple of this kind would, like two vessels of oil, have madeno composition in life, and for want of all savor must have palled everytaste; nature or fortune, or both of them, took care to provide a properquantity of acid in the materials that formed the wife, and to renderher a perfect helpmate for so tranquil a husband. She abounded inwhatsoever he was defective; that is to say, in almost everything. Shewas indeed as vinegar to oil, or a brisk wind to a standing-pool, andpreserved all from stagnation and corruption. 

Quin the player, on taking a nice and severe survey of afellow-comedian, burst forth into this exclamation:--"If that fellow benot a rogue, God Almighty doth not write a legible hand. "

Whether he guessed right or no is not worth my while to examine; certainit is that the latter, having wrought his features into a proper harmonyto become the characters of Iago, Shylock, and others of the same cast, gave us a semblance of truth to the observation that was sufficientto confirm the wit of it. Indeed, we may remark, in favor of thephysiognomist, though the law has made him a rogue and vagabond, thatNature is seldom curious in her works within, without employing somelittle pains on the outside; and this more particularly in mischievouscharacters, in forming which, as Mr. Derham observes, in venomousinsects, as the sting or saw of a wasp, she is sometimes wonderfullyindustrious. Now, when she hath thus completely armed our hero to carryon a war with man, she never fails of furnishing that innocent lambkinwith some means of knowing his enemy, and foreseeing his designs. Thusshe hath been observed to act in the case of a rattlesnake, which nevermeditates a human prey without giving warning of his approach. Thisobservation will, I am convinced, hold most true, if applied to themost venomous individuals of human insects. A tyrant, a trickster, anda bully, generally wear the marks of their several dispositions intheir countenances; so do the vixen, the shrew, the scold, and all otherfemales of the like kind. But, perhaps, nature hath never afforded astronger example of all this than in the case of Mrs. Francis. She was ashort, squat woman; her head was closely joined to her shoulders, whereit was fixed somewhat awry; every feature of her countenance wassharp and pointed; her face was furrowed with the smallpox; and hercomplexion, which seemed to be able to turn milk to curds, not a littleresembled in color such milk as had already undergone that operation. She appeared, indeed, to have many symptoms of a deep jaundice in herlook; but the strength and firmness of her voice overbalanced them all;the tone of this was a sharp treble at a distance, for I seldom heardit on the same floor, but was usually waked with it in the morning, andentertained with it almost continually through the whole day. 

Though vocal be usually put in opposition to instrumental music, Iquestion whether this might not be thought to partake of the nature ofboth; for she played on two instruments, which she seemed to keep forno other use from morning till night; these were two maids, or ratherscolding-stocks, who, I suppose, by some means or other, earned theirboard, and she gave them their lodging gratis, or for no other servicethan to keep her lungs in constant exercise. 

She differed, as I have said, in every particular from her husband; butvery remarkably in this, that, as it was impossible to displease him, soit was as impossible to please her; and as no art could remove a smilefrom his countenance, so could no art carry it into hers. If her billswere remonstrated against she was offended with the tacit censure ofher fair-dealing; if they were not, she seemed to regard it as a tacitsarcasm on her folly, which might have set down larger prices with thesame success. On this lather hint she did indeed improve, for she dailyraised some of her articles. A pennyworth of fire was to-day rated at ashilling, to-morrow at eighteen-pence; and if she dressed us two dishesfor two shillings on the Saturday, we paid half-a-crown for the cookeryof one on the Sunday; and, whenever she was paid, she never left theroom without lamenting the small amount of her bill, saying, "she knewnot how it was that others got their money by gentle-folks, but for herpart she had not the art of it. " When she was asked why she complained, when she was paid all she demanded, she answered, "she could not denythat, nor did she know she had omitted anything; but that it was buta poor bill for gentle-folks to pay. " I accounted for all this by herhaving heard, that it is a maxim with the principal inn-holders on thecontinent, to levy considerable sums on their guests, who travel withmany horses and servants, though such guests should eat little ornothing in their houses; the method being, I believe, in such cases, tolay a capitation on the horses, and not on their masters. But she didnot consider that in most of these inns a very great degree of hunger, without any degree of delicacy, may be satisfied; and that in all suchinns there is some appearance, at least, of provision, as well as of aman-cook to dress it, one of the hostlers being always furnished with acook's cap, waistcoat, and apron, ready to attend gentlemen and ladieson their summons; that the case therefore of such inns differed fromhers, where there was nothing to eat or to drink, and in reality nohouse to inhabit, no chair to sit upon, nor any bed to lie in; thatone third or fourth part therefore of the levy imposed at inns was, intruth, a higher tax than the whole was when laid on in the other, where, in order to raise a small sum, a man is obliged to submit to pay as manyvarious ways for the same thing as he doth to the government for thelight which enters through his own window into his own house, from hisown estate; such are the articles of bread and beer, firing, eating anddressing dinner. 

The foregoing is a very imperfect sketch of this extraordinary couple;for everything is here lowered instead of being heightened. Those whowould see them set forth in more lively colors, and with the properornaments, may read the descriptions of the Furies in some of theclassical poets, or of the Stoic philosophers in the works of Lucian. 

Monday, July 20. --This day nothing remarkable passed; Mrs. Francislevied a tax of fourteen shillings for the Sunday. We regaled ourselvesat dinner with venison and good claret of our own; and in the afternoon, the women, attended by the captain, walked to see a delightful scene twomiles distant, with the beauties of which they declared themselves mosthighly charmed at their return, as well as with the goodness of the ladyof the mansion, who had slipped out of the way that my wife and theircompany might refresh themselves with the flowers and fruits with whichher garden abounded. 

Tuesday, July 21. --This day, having paid our taxes of yesterday, we werepermitted to regale ourselves with more venison. Some of this we wouldwillingly have exchanged for mutton; but no such flesh was to be hadnearer than Portsmouth, from whence it would have cost more to conveya joint to us than the freight of a Portugal ham from Lisbon to Londonamounts to; for though the water-carriage be somewhat cheaper here thanat Deal, yet can you find no waterman who will go on board his boat, unless by two or three hours' rowing he can get drunk for the residue ofthe week. 

And here I have an opportunity, which possibly may not offer again, ofpublishing some observations on that political economy of this nation, which, as it concerns only the regulation of the mob, is below thenotice of our great men; though on the due regulation of this orderdepend many emoluments, which the great men themselves, or at least manywho tread close on their heels, may enjoy, as well as some dangers whichmay some time or other arise from introducing a pure state of anarchyamong them. I will represent the case, as it appears to me, very fairlyand impartially between the mob and their betters. The whole mischiefwhich infects this part of our economy arises from the vague anduncertain use of a word called liberty, of which, as scarce any two menwith whom I have ever conversed seem to have one and the same idea, Iam inclined to doubt whether there be any simple universal notionrepresented by this word, or whether it conveys any clearer or moredeterminate idea than some of those old Punic compositions of syllablespreserved in one of the comedies of Plautus, but at present, as Iconceive, not supposed to be understood by any one. 

By liberty, however, I apprehend, is commonly understood the power ofdoing what we please; not absolutely, for then it would be inconsistentwith law, by whose control the liberty of the freest people, except onlythe Hottentots and wild Indians, must always be restrained. 

But, indeed, however largely we extend, or however moderately weconfine, the sense of the word, no politician will, I presume, contendthat it is to pervade in an equal degree, and be, with the same extent, enjoyed by, every member of society; no such polity having been everfound, unless among those vile people just before commemorated. Amongthe Greeks and Romans the servile and free conditions were opposed toeach other; and no man who had the misfortune to be enrolled under theformer could lay any claim to liberty till the right was conveyed to himby that master whose slave he was, either by the means of conquest, ofpurchase, or of birth. 

This was the state of all the free nations in the world; and this, tillvery lately, was understood to be the case of our own. 

I will not indeed say this is the case at present, the lowest class ofour people having shaken off all the shackles of their superiors, andbecome not only as free, but even freer, than most of their superiors. Ibelieve it cannot be doubted, though perhaps we have no recent instanceof it, that the personal attendance of every man who hath three hundredpounds per annum, in parliament, is indispensably his duty; and that, if the citizens and burgesses of any city or borough shall choose sucha one, however reluctant he appear, he may be obliged to attend, and beforcibly brought to his duty by the sergeant-at-arms. 

Again, there are numbers of subordinate offices, some of which are ofburden, and others of expense, in the civil government--all of whichpersons who are qualified are liable to have imposed on them, may beobliged to undertake and properly execute, notwithstanding any bodilylabor, or even danger, to which they may subject themselves, under thepenalty of fines and imprisonment; nay, and what may appear somewhathard, may be compelled to satisfy the losses which are eventuallyincident, to that of sheriff in particular, out of their own privatefortunes; and though this should prove the ruin of a family, yet thepublic, to whom the price is due, incurs no debt or obligation topreserve its officer harmless, let his innocence appear ever so clearly. I purposely omit the mention of those military or military dutieswhich our old constitution laid upon its greatest members. These might, indeed, supply their posts with some other able-bodied men; but if nosuch could have been found, the obligation nevertheless remained, andthey were compellable to serve in their own proper persons. The onlyone, therefore, who is possessed of absolute liberty is the lowestmember of the society, who, if he prefers hunger, or the wild product ofthe fields, hedges, lanes, and rivers, with the indulgence of ease andlaziness, to a food a little more delicate, but purchased at the expenseof labor, may lay himself under a shade; nor can be forced to take theother alternative from that which he hath, I will not affirm whetherwisely or foolishly, chosen. 

Here I may, perhaps, be reminded of the last Vagrant Act, where allsuch persons are compellable to work for the usual and accustomed wagesallowed in the place; but this is a clause little known to the justicesof the peace, and least likely to be executed by those who do know it, as they know likewise that it is formed on the ancient power of thejustices to fix and settle these wages every year, making properallowances for the scarcity and plenty of the times, the cheapness anddearness of the place; and that THE USUAL AND ACCUSTOMED WAGES are wordswithout any force or meaning, when there are no such; but every manspunges and raps whatever he can get; and will haggle as long andstruggle as hard to cheat his employer of twopence in a day's labor asan honest tradesman will to cheat his customers of the same sum in ayard of cloth or silk. 

It is a great pity then that this power, or rather this practice, wasnot revived; but, this having been so long omitted that it is becomeobsolete, will be best done by a new law, in which this power, as wellas the consequent power of forcing the poor to labor at a moderateand reasonable rate, should be well considered and their executionfacilitated; for gentlemen who give their time and labor gratis, andeven voluntarily, to the public, have a right to expect that all theirbusiness be made as easy as possible; and to enact laws without doingthis is to fill our statute-books, much too full already, stillfuller with dead letter, of no use but to the printer of the acts ofparliament. That the evil which I have here pointed at is of itselfworth redressing, is, I apprehend, no subject of dispute; for whyshould any persons in distress be deprived of the assistance of theirfellow-subjects, when they are willing amply to reward them for theirlabor? or, why should the lowest of the people be permitted to exactten times the value of their work? For those exactions increase with thedegrees of necessity in their object, insomuch that on the former sidemany are horribly imposed upon, and that often in no trifling matters. I was very well assured that at Deal no less than ten guineas wasrequired, and paid by the supercargo of an Indiaman, for carrying him onboard two miles from the shore when she was just ready to sail; so thathis necessity, as his pillager well understood, was absolute. Again, many others, whose indignation will not submit to such plunder, areforced to refuse the assistance, though they are often great sufferersby so doing. On the latter side, the lowest of the people are encouragedin laziness and idleness; while they live by a twentieth part of thelabor that ought to maintain them, which is diametrically opposite tothe interest of the public; for that requires a great deal to be done, not to be paid, for a little. And moreover, they are confirmed inhabits of exaction, and are taught to consider the distresses of theirsuperiors as their own fair emolument. But enough of this matter, ofwhich I at first intended only to convey a hint to those who are alonecapable of applying the remedy, though they are the last to whom thenotice of those evils would occur, without some such monitor as myself, who am forced to travel about the world in the form of a passenger. Icannot but say I heartily wish our governors would attentivelyconsider this method of fixing the price of labor, and by that meansof compelling the poor to work, since the due execution of such powerswill, I apprehend, be found the true and only means of making themuseful, and of advancing trade from its present visibly declining stateto the height to which Sir William Petty, in his Political Arithmetic, thinks it capable of being carried. 

In the afternoon the lady of the above-mentioned mansion called at ourinn, and left her compliments to us with Mrs. Francis, with an assurancethat while we continued wind-bound in that place, where she feared wecould be but indifferently accommodated, we were extremely welcome tothe use of anything which her garden or her house afforded. So polite amessage convinced us, in spite of some arguments to the contrary, thatwe were not on the coast of Africa, or on some island where the fewsavage inhabitants have little of human in them besides their form. Andhere I mean nothing less than to derogate from the merit of this lady, who is not only extremely polite in her behavior to strangers of her ownrank, but so extremely good and charitable to all her poor neighbors whostand in need of her assistance, that she hath the universal love andpraises of all who live near her. But, in reality, how little doth theacquisition of so valuable a character, and the full indulgence of soworthy a disposition, cost those who possess it! Both are accomplishedby the very offals which fall from a table moderately plentiful. Thatthey are enjoyed therefore by so few arises truly from there being sofew who have any such disposition to gratify, or who aim at any suchcharacter. 

Wednesday, July 22. --This morning, after having been mulcted as usual, we dispatched a servant with proper acknowledgments of the lady'sgoodness; but confined our wants entirely to the productions of hergarden. He soon returned, in company with the gardener, both richlyladen with almost every particular which a garden at this most fruitfulseason of the year produces. While we were regaling ourselves withthese, towards the close of our dinner, we received orders from ourcommander, who had dined that day with some inferior officers on boarda man-of-war, to return instantly to the ship; for that the wind wasbecome favorable and he should weigh that evening. These orders weresoon followed by the captain himself, who was still in the utmost hurry, though the occasion of it had long since ceased; for the wind had, indeed, a little shifted that afternoon, but was before this veryquietly set down in its old quarters. 

This last was a lucky hit for me; for, as the captain, to whose orderswe resolved to pay no obedience, unless delivered by himself, didnot return till past six, so much time seemed requisite to put up thefurniture of our bed-chamber or dining-room, for almost every article, even to some of the chairs, were either our own or the captain'sproperty; so much more in conveying it as well as myself, as dead aluggage as any, to the shore, and thence to the ship, that the nightthreatened first to overtake us. A terrible circumstance to me, in mydecayed condition; especially as very heavy showers of rain, attendedwith a high wind, continued to fall incessantly; the being carriedthrough which two miles in the dark, in a wet and open boat, seemedlittle less than certain death. However, as my commander was absolute, his orders peremptory, and my obedience necessary, I resolved to availmyself of a philosophy which hath been of notable use to me in thelatter part of my life, and which is contained in this hemistich ofVirgil:--

 ----Superanda omnis fortuna ferendo est. 

The meaning of which, if Virgil had any, I think I rightly understood, and rightly applied. As I was therefore to be entirely passive in mymotion, I resolved to abandon myself to the conduct of those who were tocarry me into a cart when it returned from unloading the goods. 

But before this, the captain, perceiving what had happened in theclouds, and that the wind remained as much his enemy as ever, cameupstairs to me with a reprieve till the morning. This was, I own, veryagreeable news, and I little regretted the trouble of refurnishing myapartment, by sending back for the goods. 

Mrs. Francis was not well pleased with this. 

As she understood the reprieve to be only till the morning, she sawnothing but lodging to be possibly added, out of which she was to deductfire and candle, and the remainder, she thought, would scarce pay herfor her trouble. She exerted therefore all the ill-humor of which shewas mistress, and did all she could to thwart and perplex everythingduring the whole evening. 

Thursday, July 23. --Early in the morning the captain, who had remainedon shore all night, came to visit us, and to press us to make haste onboard. "I am resolved, " says he, "not to lose a moment now the wind iscoming about fair: for my own part, I never was surer of a wind inall my life. " I use his very words; nor will I presume to interpret orcomment upon them farther than by observing that they were spoke in theutmost hurry. 

We promised to be ready as soon as breakfast was over, but this was notso soon as was expected; for, in removing our goods the evening before, the tea-chest was unhappily lost. Every place was immediately searched, and many where it was impossible for it to be; for this was a lossof much greater consequence than it may at first seem to many of myreaders. Ladies and valetudinarians do not easily dispense with the useof this sovereign cordial in a single instance; but to undertake a longvoyage, without any probability of being supplied with it the whole way, was above the reach of patience. And yet, dreadful as this calamity was, it seemed unavoidable. The whole town of Ryde could not supply a singleleaf; for, as to what Mrs. Francis and the shop called by that name, itwas not of Chinese growth. It did not indeed in the least resemble tea, either in smell or taste, or in any particular, unless in being a leaf;for it was in truth no other than a tobacco of the mundungus species. And as for the hopes of relief in any other port, they were not to bedepended upon, for the captain had positively declared he was sure of awind, and would let go his anchor no more till he arrived in the Tajo. 

When a good deal of time had been spent, most of it indeed wasted onthis occasion, a thought occurred which every one wondered at its nothaving presented itself the first moment. This was to apply to thegood lady, who could not fail of pitying and relieving such distress. Amessenger was immediately despatched with an account of our misfortune, till whose return we employed ourselves in preparatives for ourdeparture, that we might have nothing to do but to swallow our breakfastwhen it arrived. The tea-chest, though of no less consequence to usthan the military-chest to a general, was given up as lost, or ratheras stolen, for though I would not, for the world, mention any particularname, it is certain we had suspicions, and all, I am afraid, fell on thesame person. 

The man returned from the worthy lady with much expedition, and broughtwith him a canister of tea, despatched with so true a generosity, aswell as politeness, that if our voyage had been as long again we shouldhave incurred no danger of being brought to a short allowance in thismost important article. At the very same instant likewise arrivedWilliam the footman with our own tea-chest. It had been, indeed, left inthe hoy, when the other goods were re-landed, as William, when he firstheard it was missing, had suspected; and whence, had not the owner ofthe hoy been unluckily out of the way, he had retrieved it soon enoughto have prevented our giving the lady an opportunity of displayingsome part of her goodness. To search the hoy was, indeed, too natural asuggestion to have escaped any one, nor did it escape being mentionedby many of us; but we were dissuaded from it by my wife's maid, whoperfectly well remembered she had left the chest in the bed-chamber; forthat she had never given it out of her hand in her way to or from thehoy; but William perhaps knew the maid better, and best understood howfar she was to be believed; for otherwise he would hardly of his ownaccord, after hearing her declaration, have hunted out the hoy-man, withmuch pains and difficulty. Thus ended this scene, which began with suchappearance of distress, and ended with becoming the subject of mirth andlaughter. Nothing now remained but to pay our taxes, which were indeedlaid with inconceivable severity. Lodging was raised sixpence, fire inthe same proportion, and even candles, which had hitherto escaped, werecharged with a wantonness of imposition, from the beginning, and placedunder the style of oversight. We were raised a whole pound, whereaswe had only burned ten, in five nights, and the pound consisted oftwenty-four. 

Lastly, an attempt was made which almost as far exceeds human credulityto believe as it did human patience to submit to. This was to make uspay as much for existing an hour or two as for existing a whole day; anddressing dinner was introduced as an article, though we left thehouse before either pot or spit had approached the fire. Here I ownmy patience failed me, and I became an example of the truth of theobservation, "That all tyranny and oppression may be carried too far, and that a yoke may be made too intolerable for the neck of the tamestslave. " When I remonstrated, with some warmth, against this grievance, Mrs. Francis gave me a look, and left the room without making anyanswer. She returned in a minute, running to me with pen, ink, andpaper, in her hand, and desired me to make my own bill; "for she hoped, "she said "I did not expect that her house was to be dirtied, and hergoods spoiled and consumed for nothing. The whole is but thirteenshillings. Can gentlefolks lie a whole night at a public-house for less?If they can I am sure it is time to give off being a landlady: butpay me what you please; I would have people know that I value money aslittle as other folks. But I was always a fool, as I says to my husband, and never knows which side my bread is buttered of. And yet, to be sure, your honor shall be my warning not to be bit so again. Some folks knowsbetter than other some how to make their bills. Candles! why yes, to besure; why should not travelers pay for candles? I am sure I pays for mycandles, and the chandler pays the king's majesty for them; and if hedid not I must, so as it comes to the same thing in the end. To be sureI am out of sixteens at present, but these burn as white and as clear, though not quite so large. I expects my chandler here soon, or I wouldsend to Portsmouth, if your honor was to stay any time longer. But whenfolks stays only for a wind, you knows there can be no dependence onsuch!" Here she put on a little slyness of aspect, and seemed willing tosubmit to interruption. I interrupted her accordingly by throwing downhalf a guinea, and declared I had no more English money, which wasindeed true; and, as she could not immediately change the thirty-sixshilling pieces, it put a final end to the dispute. Mrs. Francis soonleft the room, and we soon after left the house; nor would this goodwoman see us or wish us a good voyage. I must not, however, quit thisplace, where we had been so ill-treated, without doing it impartialjustice, and recording what may, with the strictest truth, be said inits favor. 

First, then, as to its situation, it is, I think, most delightful, andin the most pleasant spot in the whole island. It is true it wants theadvantage of that beautiful river which leads from Newport to Cowes;but the prospect here extending to the sea, and taking in Portsmouth, Spithead, and St. Helen's, would be more than a recompense for the lossof the Thames itself, even in the most delightful part of Berkshire orBuckinghamshire, though another Denham, or another Pope, should unite incelebrating it. For my own part, I confess myself so entirely fond of asea prospect, that I think nothing on the land can equal it; and if itbe set off with shipping, I desire to borrow no ornament from the terrafirma. A fleet of ships is, in my opinion, the noblest object whichthe art of man hath ever produced; and far beyond the power of thosearchitects who deal in brick, in stone, or in marble. 

When the late Sir Robert Walpole, one of the best of men and ofministers, used to equip us a yearly fleet at Spithead, his enemies oftaste must have allowed that he, at least, treated the nation with afine sight for their money. A much finer, indeed, than the same expensein an encampment could have produced. For what indeed is the best ideawhich the prospect of a number of huts can furnish to the mind, but ofa number of men forming themselves into a society before the art ofbuilding more substantial houses was known? This, perhaps, would beagreeable enough; but, in truth, there is a much worse idea ready tostep in before it, and that is of a body of cut-throats, the supports oftyranny, the invaders of the just liberties and properties of mankind, the plunderers of the industrious, the ravishers of the chaste, themurderers of the innocent, and, in a word, the destroyers of the plenty, the peace, and the safety, of their fellow-creatures. 

And what, it may be said, are these men-of-war which seem so delightfulan object to our eyes? Are they not alike the support of tyranny andoppression of innocence, carrying with them desolation and ruin wherevertheir masters please to send them? This is indeed too true; and howeverthe ship of war may, in its bulk and equipment, exceed the honestmerchantman, I heartily wish there was no necessity for it; for, thoughI must own the superior beauty of the object on one side, I am morepleased with the superior excellence of the idea which I can raise inmy mind on the other, while I reflect on the art and industry of mankindengaged in the daily improvements of commerce to the mutual benefit ofall countries, and to the establishment and happiness of social life. This pleasant village is situated on a gentle ascent from the water, whence it affords that charming prospect I have above described. Itssoil is a gravel, which, assisted with its declivity, preserves italways so dry that immediately after the most violent rain a fine ladymay walk without wetting her silken shoes. The fertility of the place isapparent from its extraordinary verdure, and it is so shaded with largeand flourishing elms, that its narrow lanes are a natural grove or walk, which, in the regularity of its plantation, vies with the power of art, and in its wanton exuberancy greatly exceeds it. 

In a field in the ascent of this hill, about a quarter of a mile fromthe sea, stands a neat little chapel. It is very small, but adequate tothe number of inhabitants; for the parish doth not seem to contain abovethirty houses. 

At about two miles distant from this parish lives that polite and goodlady to whose kindness we were so much obliged. It is placed on a hillwhose bottom is washed by the sea, and which from its eminence at top, commands a view of great part of the island as well as it does that ofthe opposite shore. This house was formerly built by one Boyce, who, from a blacksmith at Gosport, became possessed, by great success insmuggling, of forty thousand pound. With part of this he purchased anestate here, and, by chance probably, fixed on this spot for buildinga large house. Perhaps the convenience of carrying on his business, towhich it is so well adapted, might dictate the situation to him. We canhardly, at least, attribute it to the same taste with which he furnishedhis house, or at least his library, by sending an order to a booksellerin London to pack him up five hundred pounds' worth of his handsomestbooks. They tell here several almost incredible stories of theignorance, the folly, and the pride, which this poor man and his wifediscovered during the short continuance of his prosperity; for he didnot long escape the sharp eyes of the revenue solicitors, and was, byextents from the court of Exchequer, soon reduced below his originalstate to that of confinement in the Fleet. All his effects were sold, and among the rest his books, by an auction at Portsmouth, for avery small price; for the bookseller was now discovered to have beenperfectly a master of his trade, and, relying on Mr. Boyce's findinglittle time to read, had sent him not only the most lasting wares of hisshop, but duplicates of the same, under different titles. 

His estate and house were purchased by a gentleman of these parts, whosewidow now enjoys them, and who hath improved them, particularly hergardens, with so elegant a taste, that the painter who would assist hisimagination in the composition of a most exquisite landscape, or thepoet who would describe an earthly paradise, could nowhere furnishthemselves with a richer pattern. 

We left this place about eleven in the morning, and were again conveyed, with more sunshine than wind, aboard our ship. 

Whence our captain had acquired his power of prophecy, when he promisedus and himself a prosperous wind, I will not determine; it is sufficientto observe that he was a false prophet, and that the weathercockscontinued to point as before. He would not, however, so easily give uphis skill in prediction. He persevered in asserting that the wind waschanged, and, having weighed his anchor, fell down that afternoon to St. Helen's, which was at about the distance of five miles; and whitherhis friend the tide, in defiance of the wind, which was most manifestlyagainst him, softly wafted him in as many hours. 

Here, about seven in the evening, before which time we could not procureit, we sat down to regale ourselves with some roasted venison, which wasmuch better dressed than we imagined it would be, and an excellent coldpasty which my wife had made at Ryde, and which we had reserved uncutto eat on board our ship, whither we all cheerfully exulted inbeing returned from the presence of Mrs. Francis, who, by the exactresemblance she bore to a fury, seemed to have been with no greatpropriety settled in paradise. 

Friday, July 24. --As we passed by Spithead on the preceding evening wesaw the two regiments of soldiers who were just returned from Gibraltarand Minorca; and this day a lieutenant belonging to one of them, who wasthe captain's nephew, came to pay a visit to his uncle. He was what iscalled by some a very pretty fellow; indeed, much too pretty a fellowat his years; for he was turned of thirty-four, though his address andconversation would have become him more before he had reached twenty. Inhis conversation, it is true, there was something military enough, as itconsisted chiefly of oaths, and of the great actions and wise sayingsof Jack, and Will, and Tom of our regiment, a phrase eternally in hismouth; and he seemed to conclude that it conveyed to all the officerssuch a degree of public notoriety and importance that it entitled himlike the head of a profession, or a first minister, to be the subjectof conversation among those who had not the least personal acquaintancewith him. This did not much surprise me, as I have seen several examplesof the same; but the defects in his address, especially to the women, were so great that they seemed absolutely inconsistent with the behaviorof a pretty fellow, much less of one in a red coat; and yet, besideshaving been eleven years in the army, he had had, as his uncle informedme, an education in France. This, I own, would have appeared to havebeen absolutely thrown away had not his animal spirits, which werelikewise thrown away upon him in great abundance, borne the visiblestamp of the growth of that country. The character to which he had anindisputable title was that of a merry fellow; so very merry was he thathe laughed at everything he said, and always before he spoke. Possibly, indeed, he often laughed at what he did not utter, for every speechbegun with a laugh, though it did not always end with a jest. There wasno great analogy between the characters of the uncle and the nephew, and yet they seemed entirely to agree in enjoying the honor which thered-coat did to his family. This the uncle expressed with great pleasurein his countenance, and seemed desirous of showing all present the honorwhich he had for his nephew, who, on his side, was at some pains toconvince us of his concurring in this opinion, and at the same time ofdisplaying the contempt he had for the parts, as well as the occupationof his uncle, which he seemed to think reflected some disgrace onhimself, who was a member of that profession which makes every man agentleman. Not that I would be understood to insinuate that the nephewendeavored to shake off or disown his uncle, or indeed to keep himat any distance. On the contrary, he treated him with the utmostfamiliarity, often calling him Dick, and dear Dick, and old Dick, andfrequently beginning an oration with D--n me, Dick. 

All this condescension on the part of the young man was received withsuitable marks of complaisance and obligation by the old one; especiallywhen it was attended with evidences of the same familiarity with generalofficers and other persons of rank; one of whom, in particular, I knowto have the pride and insolence of the devil himself, and who, withoutsome strong bias of interest, is no more liable to converse familiarlywith a lieutenant than of being mistaken in his judgment of a fool;which was not, perhaps, so certainly the case of the worthy lieutenant, who, in declaring to us the qualifications which recommended men to hiscountenance and conversation, as well as what effectually set a barto all hopes of that honor, exclaimed, "No, sir, by the d-- I hate allfools-- No, d--n me, excuse me for that. That's a little too much, oldDick. There are two or three officers of our regiment whom I know to befools; but d--n me if I am ever seen in their company. If a man hath afool of a relation, Dick, you know he can't help that, old boy. " Suchjokes as these the old man not only tools in good part, but gliblygulped down the whole narrative of his nephew; nor did he, I amconvinced, in the least doubt of our as readily swallowing the same. This made him so charmed with the lieutenant, that it is probable weshould have been pestered with him the whole evening, had not the northwind, dearer to our sea-captain even than this glory of his family, sprung suddenly up, and called aloud to him to weigh his anchor. Whilethis ceremony was performing, the sea-captain ordered out his boat torow the land-captain to shore; not indeed on an uninhabited island, butone which, in this part, looked but little better, not presenting us theview of a single house. Indeed, our old friend, when his boat returnedon shore, perhaps being no longer able to stifle his envy of thesuperiority of his nephew, told us with a smile that the young man had agood five mile to walk before he could be accommodated with a passage toPortsmouth. 

It appeared now that the captain had been only mistaken in the date ofhis prediction, by placing the event a day earlier than it happened; forthe wind which now arose was not only favorable but brisk, and was nosooner in reach of our sails than it swept us away by the back of theIsle of Wight, and, having in the night carried us by Christchurch andPeveral-point, brought us the next noon, Saturday, July 25, oft theisland of Portland, so famous for the smallness and sweetness of itsmutton, of which a leg seldom weighs four pounds. We would have boughta sheep, but our captain would not permit it; though he needed not havebeen in such a hurry, for presently the wind, I will not positivelyassert in resentment of his surliness, showed him a dog's trick, andslyly slipped back again to his summer-house in the south-west. 

The captain now grew outrageous, and, declaring open war with the wind, took a resolution, rather more bold than wise, of sailing in defiance ofit, and in its teeth. He swore he would let go his anchor no more, butwould beat the sea while he had either yard or sail left. He accordinglystood from the shore, and made so large a tack that before night, thoughhe seemed to advance but little on his way, he was got out of sight ofland. 

Towards evening the wind began, in the captain's own language, and indeed it freshened so much, that before ten it blew a perfecthurricane. The captain having got, as he supposed, to a safe distance, tacked again towards the English shore; and now the wind veered a pointonly in his favor, and continued to blow with such violence, that theship ran above eight knots or miles an hour during this whole day andtempestuous night till bed-time. I was obliged to betake myselfonce more to my solitude, for my women were again all down in theirsea-sickness, and the captain was busy on deck; for he began to growuneasy, chiefly, I believe, because he did not well know where hewas, and would, I am convinced, have been very glad to have been inPortland-road, eating some sheep's-head broth. 

Having contracted no great degree of good-humor by living a whole dayalone, without a single soul to converse with, I took but ill physic topurge it off, by a bed-conversation with the captain, who, amongst manybitter lamentations of his fate, and protesting he had more patiencethan a Job, frequently intermixed summons to the commanding officer onthe deck, who now happened to be one Morrison, a carpenter, the onlyfellow that had either common sense or common civility in the ship. OfMorrison he inquired every quarter of an hour concerning the stateof affairs: the wind, the care of the ship, and other matters ofnavigation. The frequency of these summons, as well as the solicitudewith which they were made, sufficiently testified the state of thecaptain's mind; he endeavored to conceal it, and would have given nosmall alarm to a man who had either not learned what it is to die, orknown what it is to be miserable. And my dear wife and child must pardonme, if what I did not conceive to be any great evil to myself I was notmuch terrified with the thoughts of happening to them; in truth, I haveoften thought they are both too good and too gentle to be trusted to thepower of any man I know, to whom they could possibly be so trusted. 

Can I say then I had no fear? indeed I cannot. Reader, I was afraid forthee, lest thou shouldst have been deprived of that pleasure thou artnow enjoying; and that I should not live to draw out on paper thatmilitary character which thou didst peruse in the journal of yesterday. 

From all these fears we were relieved, at six in the morning, by thearrival of Mr. Morrison, who acquainted us that he was sure he beheldland very near; for he could not see half a mile, by reason of thehaziness of the weather. This land he said was, he believed, theBerry-head, which forms one side of Torbay: the captain declared that itwas impossible, and swore, on condition he was right, he would give himhis mother for a maid. A forfeit which became afterwards strictly dueand payable; for the captain, whipping on his night-gown, ran up withouthis breeches, and within half an hour returning into the cabin, wishedme joy of our lying safe at anchor in the bay. 

Sunday, July 26. --Things now began to put on an aspect very differentfrom what they had lately worn; the news that the ship had almost lostits mizzen, and that we had procured very fine clouted cream and freshbread and butter from the shore, restored health and spirits to ourwomen, and we all sat down to a very cheerful breakfast. But, howeverpleasant our stay promised to be here, we were all desirous it shouldbe short: I resolved immediately to despatch my man into the countryto purchase a present of cider, for my friends of that which is calledSoutham, as well as to take with me a hogshead of it to Lisbon; for itis, in my opinion, much more delicious than that which is the growthof Herefordshire. I purchased three hogsheads for five pounds tenshillings, all which I should have scarce thought worth mentioning, hadI not believed it might be of equal service to the honest farmer whosold it me, and who is by the neighboring gentlemen reputed to deal inthe very best; and to the reader, who, from ignorance of the means ofproviding better for himself, swallows at a dearer rate the juiceof Middlesex turnip, instead of that Vinum Pomonae which Mr. GilesLeverance of Cheeshurst, near Dartmouth in Devon, will, at the price offorty shillings per hogshead, send in double casks to any part of theworld. Had the wind been very sudden in shifting, I had lost my cider byan attempt of a boatman to exact, according to custom. He required fiveshillings for conveying my man a mile and a half to the shore, andfour more if he stayed to bring him back. This I thought to be suchinsufferable impudence that I ordered him to be immediately chased fromthe ship, without any answer. Indeed, there are few inconveniences thatI would not rather encounter than encourage the insolent demands ofthese wretches, at the expense of my own indignation, of which I ownthey are not the only objects, but rather those who purchase a paltryconvenience by encouraging them. But of this I have already spoken verylargely. I shall conclude, therefore, with the leave which this fellowtook of our ship; saying he should know it again, and would not putoff from the shore to relieve it in any distress whatever. It will, doubtless, surprise many of my readers to hear that, when we lay atanchor within a mile or two of a town several days together, and even inthe most temperate weather, we should frequently want fresh provisionsand herbage, and other emoluments of the shore, as much as if we hadbeen a hundred leagues from land. And this too while numbers of boatswere in our sight, whose owners get their livelihood by rowing peopleup and down, and could be at any time summoned by a signal to ourassistance, and while the captain had a little boat of his own, with menalways ready to row it at his command. 

This, however, hath been partly accounted for already by the imposingdisposition of the people, who asked so much more than the proper priceof their labor. And as to the usefulness of the captain's boat, itrequires to be a little expatiated upon, as it will tend to layopen some of the grievances which demand the utmost regard of ourlegislature, as they affect the most valuable part of the king'ssubjects--those by whom the commerce of the nation is carried intoexecution. Our captain then, who was a very good and experienced seaman, having been above thirty years the master of a vessel, part of whichhe had served, so he phrased it, as commander of a privateer, and haddischarged himself with great courage and conduct, and with as greatsuccess, discovered the utmost aversion to the sending his boat ashorewhenever we lay wind-bound in any of our harbors. This aversion did notarise from any fear of wearing out his boat by using it, but was, intruth, the result of experience, that it was easier to send his menon shore than to recall them. They acknowledged him to be their masterwhile they remained on shipboard, but did not allow his power to extendto the shores, where they had no sooner set their foot than every manbecame sui juris, and thought himself at full liberty to return when hepleased. Now it is not any delight that these fellows have in the freshair or verdant fields on the land. Every one of them would preferhis ship and his hammock to all the sweets of Arabia the Happy; but, unluckily for them, there are in every seaport in England certainhouses whose chief livelihood depends on providing entertainment for thegentlemen of the jacket. For this purpose they are always well furnishedwith those cordial liquors which do immediately inspire the heart withgladness, banishing all careful thoughts, and indeed all others, from the mind, and opening the mouth with songs of cheerfulness andthanksgiving for the many wonderful blessings with which a seafaringlife overflows. 

For my own part, however whimsical it may appear, I confess I havethought the strange story of Circe in the Odyssey no other than aningenious allegory, in which Homer intended to convey to his countrymenthe same kind of instruction which we intend to communicate to our ownin this digression. As teaching the art of war to the Greeks was theplain design of the Iliad, so was teaching them the art of navigationthe no less manifest intention of the Odyssey. For the improvement ofthis, their situation was most excellently adapted; and accordingly wefind Thucydides, in the beginning of his history, considers the Greeksas a set of pirates or privateers, plundering each other by sea. This being probably the first institution of commerce before the ArsCauponaria was invented, and merchants, instead of robbing, began tocheat and outwit each other, and by degrees changed the Metabletic, the only kind of traffic allowed by Aristotle in his Politics, into theChrematistic. 

By this allegory then I suppose Ulysses to have been the captain of amerchant-ship, and Circe some good ale-wife, who made his crew drunkwith the spirituous liquors of those days. With this the transformationinto swine, as well as all other incidents of the fable, will notablyagree; and thus a key will be found out for unlocking the whole mystery, and forging at least some meaning to a story which, at present, appearsvery strange and absurd. 

Hence, moreover, will appear the very near resemblance between thesea-faring men of all ages and nations; and here perhaps may beestablished the truth and justice of that observation, which will occuroftener than once in this voyage, that all human flesh is not the sameflesh, but that there is one kind of flesh of landmen, and another ofseamen. 

Philosophers, divines, and others, who have treated the gratificationof human appetites with contempt, have, among other instances, insistedvery strongly on that satiety which is so apt to overtake them even inthe very act of enjoyment. And here they more particularly deserveour attention, as most of them may be supposed to speak from their ownexperience, and very probably gave us their lessons with a full stomach. Thus hunger and thirst, whatever delight they may afford while we areeating and drinking, pass both away from us with the plate and the cup;and though we should imitate the Romans, if, indeed, they were such dullbeasts, which I can scarce believe, to unload the belly like a dung-pot, in order to fill it again with another load, yet would the pleasure beso considerably lessened that it would scarce repay us the trouble ofpurchasing it with swallowing a basin of camomile tea. A second haunchof venison, or a second dose of turtle, would hardly allure a cityglutton with its smell. Even the celebrated Jew himself, when wellfilled with calipash and calipee, goes contentedly home to tell hismoney, and expects no more pleasure from his throat during thenext twenty-four hours. Hence I suppose Dr. South took that elegantcomparison of the joys of a speculative man to the solemn silence of anArchimedes over a problem, and those of a glutton to the stillness of asow at her wash. A simile which, if it became the pulpit at all, couldonly become it in the afternoon. Whereas in those potations which themind seems to enjoy, rather than the bodily appetite, there is happilyno such satiety; but the more a man drinks, the more he desires; as if, like Mark Anthony in Dryden, his appetite increased with feeding, andthis to such an immoderate degree, ut nullus sit desiderio aut pudoraut modus. Hence, as with the gang of Captain Ulysses, ensues so totala transformation, that the man no more continues what he was. Perhapshe ceases for a time to be at all; or, though he may retain the sameoutward form and figure he had before, yet is his nobler part, as we aretaught to call it, so changed, that, instead of being the same man, he scarce remembers what he was a few hours before. And thistransformation, being once obtained, is so easily preserved by the samepotations, which induced no satiety, that the captain in vain sends orgoes in quest of his crew. They know him no longer; or, if they do, they acknowledge not his power, having indeed as entirely forgottenthemselves as if they had taken a large draught of the river of Lethe. 

Nor is the captain always sure of even finding out the place to whichCirce hath conveyed them. There are many of those houses in everyport-town. Nay, there are some where the sorceress doth not trust onlyto her drugs; but hath instruments of a different kind to executeher purposes, by whose means the tar is effectually secreted from theknowledge and pursuit of his captain. This would, indeed, be very fatal, was it not for one circumstance; that the sailor is seldom providedwith the proper bait for these harpies. However, the contrary sometimeshappens, as these harpies will bite at almost anything, and will snap ata pair of silver buttons, or buckles, as surely as at the specie itself. Nay, sometimes they are so voracious, that the very naked hook will godown, and the jolly young sailor is sacrificed for his own sake. 

In vain, at such a season as this, would the vows of a pious heathenhave prevailed over Neptune, Aeolus, or any other marine deity. Invain would the prayers of a Christian captain be attended with thelike success. The wind may change how it pleases while all hands are onshore; the anchor would remain firm in the ground, and the ship wouldcontinue in durance, unless, like other forcible prison-breakers, itforcibly got loose for no good purpose. Now, as the favor of winds andcourts, and such like, is always to be laid hold on at the very firstmotion, for within twenty-four hours all may be changed again; so, inthe former case, the loss of a day may be the loss of a voyage: for, though it may appear to persons not well skilled in navigation, who seeships meet and sail by each other, that the wind blows sometimes eastand west, north and south, backwards and forwards, at the same instant;yet, certain it is that the land is so contrived, that even the samewind will not, like the same horse, always bring a man to the end ofhis journey; but, that the gale which the mariner prayed heartily foryesterday, he may as heartily deprecate to-morrow; while all useand benefit which would have arisen to him from the westerly wind ofto-morrow may be totally lost and thrown away by neglecting the offer ofthe easterly blast which blows to-day. 

Hence ensues grief and disreputation to the innocent captain, loss anddisappointment to the worthy merchant, and not seldom great prejudice tothe trade of a nation whose manufactures are thus liable to lie unsoldin a foreign warehouse the market being forestalled by some rivalwhose sailors are under a better discipline. To guard against theseinconveniences the prudent captain takes every precaution in his power;he makes the strongest contracts with his crew, and thereby binds themso firmly, that none but the greatest or least of men can break throughthem with impunity; but for one of these two reasons, which I will notdetermine, the sailor, like his brother fish the eel, is too slippery tobe held, and plunges into his element with perfect impunity. To speak aplain truth, there is no trusting to any contract with one whom the wisecitizens of London call a bad man; for, with such a one, though yourbond be ever so strong, it will prove in the end good for nothing. 

What then is to be done in this case? What, indeed, but to call in theassistance of that tremendous magistrate, the justice of peace, who can, and often doth, lay good and bad men in equal durance; and, though heseldom cares to stretch his bonds to what is great, never finds anythingtoo minute for their detention, but will hold the smallest reptile aliveso fast in his noose, that he can never get out till he is let dropthrough it. Why, therefore, upon the breach of those contracts, shouldnot an immediate application be made to the nearest magistrate of thisorder, who should be empowered to convey the delinquent either to shipor to prison, at the election of the captain, to be fettered by the legin either place? But, as the case now stands, the condition of this poorcaptain without any commission, and of this absolute commander withoutany power, is much worse than we have hitherto shown it to be; for, notwithstanding all the aforesaid contracts to sail in the good shipthe Elizabeth, if the sailor should, for better wages, find it more hisinterest to go on board the better ship the Mary, either before theirsetting out or on their speedy meeting in some port, he may prefer thelatter without any other danger than that of "doing what he ought notto have done, " contrary to a rule which he is seldom Christian enough tohave much at heart, while the captain is generally too good a Christianto punish a man out of revenge only, when he is to be at a considerableexpense for so doing. There are many other deficiencies in our lawsrelating to maritime affairs, and which would probably have been longsince corrected, had we any seamen in the House of Commons. Not that Iwould insinuate that the legislature wants a supply of many gentlemen inthe sea-service; but, as these gentlemen are by their attendance in thehouse unfortunately prevented from ever going to sea, and there learningwhat they might communicate to their landed brethren, these latterremain as ignorant in that branch of knowledge as they would be if nonebut courtiers and fox-hunters had been elected into parliament, withouta single fish among them. The following seems to me to be an effect ofthis kind, and it strikes me the stronger as I remember the case to havehappened, and remember it to have been dispunishable. A captain of atrading vessel, of which he was part owner, took in a large freight ofoats at Liverpool, consigned to the market at Bearkey: this he carriedto a port in Hampshire, and there sold it as his own, and, freightinghis vessel with wheat for the port of Cadiz, in Spain, dropped it atOporto in his way; and there, selling it for his own use, took in alading of wine, with which he sailed again, and, having converted it inthe same manner, together with a large sum of money with which he wasintrusted, for the benefit of certain merchants, sold the ship and cargoin another port, and then wisely sat down contented with the fortunehe had made, and returned to London to enjoy the remainder of his days, with the fruits of his former labors and a good conscience. 

The sum he brought home with him consisted of near six thousand pounds, all in specie, and most of it in that coin which Portugal distributes soliberally over Europe. 

He was not yet old enough to be past all sense of pleasure, nor sopuffed up with the pride of his good fortune as to overlook his oldacquaintances the journeymen tailors, from among whom he had beenformerly pressed into the sea-service, and, having there laid thefoundation of his future success by his shares in prizes, had afterwardsbecome captain of a trading vessel, in which he purchased an interest, and had soon begun to trade in the honorable manner above mentioned. Thecaptain now took up his residence at an ale-house in Drury-lane, where, having all his money by him in a trunk, he spent about five pounds aday among his old friends the gentlemen and ladies of those parts. Themerchant of Liverpool, having luckily had notice from a friend duringthe blaze of his fortune, did, by the assistance of a justice of peace, without the assistance of the law, recover his whole loss. The captain, however, wisely chose to refund no more; but, perceiving with what hastystrides Envy was pursuing his fortune, he took speedy means to retireout of her reach, and to enjoy the rest of his wealth in an ingloriousobscurity; nor could the same justice overtake him time enough to assista second merchant as he had done the first. 

This was a very extraordinary case, and the more so as the ingeniousgentleman had steered entirely clear of all crimes in our law. Now, howit comes about that a robbery so very easy to be committed, and towhich there is such immediate temptation always before the eyes ofthese fellows, should receive the encouragement of impunity, is tobe accounted for only from the oversight of the legislature, as thatoversight can only be, I think, derived from the reasons I have assignedfor it. 

But I will dwell no longer on this subject. If what I have here saidshould seem of sufficient consequence to engage the attention of anyman in power, and should thus be the means of applying any remedy to themost inveterate evils, at least, I have obtained my whole desire, andshall have lain so long wind-bound in the ports of this kingdom to somepurpose. I would, indeed, have this work--which, if I should live tofinish it, a matter of no great certainty, if indeed of any great hopeto me, will be probably the last I shall ever undertake--to produce somebetter end than the mere diversion of the reader. 

Monday. --This day our captain went ashore, to dine with a gentleman wholives in these parts, and who so exactly resembles the character givenby Homer of Axylus, that the only difference I can trace between themis, the one, living by the highway, erected his hospitality chieflyin favor of land-travelers; and the other, living by the water-side, gratified his humanity by accommodating the wants of the mariner. 

In the evening our commander received a visit from a brother bashaw, wholay wind-bound in the same harbor. This latter captain was a Swiss. Hewas then master of a vessel bound to Guinea, and had formerly beena privateering, when our own hero was employed in the same laudableservice. The honesty and freedom of the Switzer, his vivacity, in whichhe was in no respect inferior to his near neighbors the French, the awkward and affected politeness, which was likewise of Frenchextraction, mixed with the brutal roughness of the English tar--for hehad served under the colors of this nation and his crew had been of thesame--made such an odd variety, such a hotch-potch of character, that Ishould have been much diverted with him, had not his voice, which was asloud as a speaking-trumpet, unfortunately made my head ache. The noisewhich he conveyed into the deaf ears of his brother captain, who sat onone side of him, the soft addresses with which, mixed with awkward bows, he saluted the ladies on the other, were so agreeably contrasted, thata man must not only have been void of all taste of humor, and insensibleof mirth, but duller than Cibber is represented in the Dunciad, whocould be unentertained with him a little while; for, I confess, suchentertainments should always be very short, as they are very liable topall. But he suffered not this to happen at present; for, havinggiven us his company a quarter of an hour only, he retired, after manyapologies for the shortness of his visit. 

Tuesday. --The wind being less boisterous than it had hitherto been sinceour arrival here, several fishing-boats, which the tempestuous weatheryesterday had prevented from working, came on board us with fish. Thiswas so fresh, so good in kind, and so very cheap, that we suppliedourselves in great numbers, among which were very large soles atfourpence a pair, and whitings of almost a preposterous size atninepence a score. The only fish which bore any price was a john doree, as it is called. I bought one of at least four pounds weight for as manyshillings. It resembles a turbot in shape, but exceeds it in firmnessand flavor. The price had the appearance of being considerable whenopposed to the extraordinary cheapness of others of value, but was, intruth, so very reasonable when estimated by its goodness, that it leftme under no other surprise than how the gentlemen of this country, notgreatly eminent for the delicacy of their taste, had discovered thepreference of the doree to all other fish: but I was informed that Mr. Quin, whose distinguishing tooth hath been so justly celebrated, hadlately visited Plymouth, and had done those honors to the doree whichare so justly due to it from that sect of modern philosophers who, with Sir Epicure Mammon, or Sir Epicure Quin, their head, seem more todelight in a fish-pond than in a garden, as the old Epicureans are saidto have done. 

Unfortunately for the fishmongers of London, the doree resides only inthose seas; for, could any of this company but convey one to the templeof luxury under the Piazza, where Macklin the high-priest daily servesup his rich offerings to that goddess, great would be the reward of thatfishmonger, in blessings poured down upon him from the goddess, as greatwould his merit be towards the high-priest, who could never be thoughtto overrate such valuable incense. 

And here, having mentioned the extreme cheapness of fish in theDevonshire sea, and given some little hint of the extreme dearness withwhich this commodity is dispensed by those who deal in it in London, Icannot pass on without throwing forth an observation or two, with thesame view with which I have scattered my several remarks through thisvoyage, sufficiently satisfied in having finished my life, as I haveprobably lost it, in the service of my country, from the best ofmotives, though it should be attended with the worst of success. Meansare always in our power; ends are very seldom so. 

Of all the animal foods with which man is furnished, there are none soplenty as fish. A little rivulet, that glides almost unperceived througha vast tract of rich land, will support more hundreds with the flesh ofits inhabitants than the meadow will nourish individuals. But if thisbe true of rivers, it is much truer of the sea-shores, which abound withsuch immense variety of fish that the curious fisherman, after he hathmade his draught, often culls only the daintiest part and leaves therest of his prey to perish on the shore. If this be true it wouldappear, I think, that there is nothing which might be had in suchabundance, and consequently so cheap, as fish, of which Nature seems tohave provided such inexhaustible stores with some peculiar design. Inthe production of terrestrial animals she proceeds with such slowness, that in the larger kind a single female seldom produces more than onea-year, and this again requires three, for, or five years more to bringit to perfection. And though the lesser quadrupeds, those of the wildkind particularly, with the birds, do multiply much faster, yet can noneof these bear any proportion with the aquatic animals, of whom everyfemale matrix is furnished with an annual offspring almost exceeding thepower of numbers, and which, in many instances at least, a single yearis capable of bringing to some degree of maturity. 

What then ought in general to be so plentiful, what so cheap, as fish?What then so properly the food of the poor? So in many places they are, and so might they always be in great cities, which are always situatednear the sea, or on the conflux of large rivers. How comes it then, tolook no farther abroad for instances, that in our city of London thecase is so far otherwise that, except that of sprats, there is not onepoor palate in a hundred that knows the taste of fish?

It is true indeed that this taste is generally of such excellent flavorthat it exceeds the power of French cookery to treat the palates ofthe rich with anything more exquisitely delicate; so that was fish thecommon food of the poor it might put them too much upon an equality withtheir betters in the great article of eating, in which, at present, inthe opinion of some, the great difference in happiness between man andman consists. But this argument I shall treat with the utmost disdain:for if ortolans were as big as buzzards, and at the same time as plentyas sparrows, I should hold it yet reasonable to indulge the poor withthe dainty, and that for this cause especially, that the rich would soonfind a sparrow, if as scarce as an ortolan, to be much the greater, asit would certainly be the rarer, dainty of the two. 

Vanity or scarcity will be always the favorite of luxury; but honesthunger will be satisfied with plenty. Not to search deeper into thecause of the evil, I should think it abundantly sufficient to proposethe remedies of it. And, first, I humbly submit the absolute necessityof immediately hanging all the fishmongers within the bills ofmortality; and, however it might have been some time ago the opinion ofmild and temporizing men that the evil complained of might be removed bygentler methods, I suppose at this day there are none who do not see theimpossibility of using such with any effect. Cuncta prius tentandamight have been formerly urged with some plausibility, but cunctaprius tentata may now be replied: for surely, if a few monopolizingfishmongers could defeat that excellent scheme of the Westminstermarket, to the erecting which so many justices of peace, as well asother wise and learned men, did so vehemently apply themselves, thatthey might be truly said not only to have laid the whole strength oftheir heads, but of their shoulders too, to the business, it would be avain endeavor for any other body of men to attempt to remove so stubborna nuisance. 

If it should be doubted whether we can bring this case within the letterof any capital law now subsisting, I am ashamed to own it cannot; forsurely no crime better deserves such punishment; but the remedy may, nevertheless, be immediate; and if a law was made at the beginning ofnext session, to take place immediately, by which the starving thousandsof poor was declared to be felony, without benefit of clergy, thefishmongers would be hanged before the end of the session. A secondmethod of filling the mouths of the poor, if not with loaves at leastwith fishes, is to desire the magistrates to carry into execution one atleast out of near a hundred acts of parliament, for preserving the smallfry of the river of Thames, by which means as few fish would satisfythousands as may now be devoured by a small number of individuals. Butwhile a fisherman can break through the strongest meshes of an actof parliament, we may be assured he will learn so to contrive his ownmeshes that the smallest fry will not be able to swim through them. 

Other methods may, we doubt not, he suggested by those who shallattentively consider the evil here hinted at; but we have dwelt too longon it already, and shall conclude with observing that it is difficult toaffirm whether the atrocity of the evil itself, the facility of curingit, or the shameful neglect of the cure, be the more scandalous or moreastonishing. 

After having, however, gloriously regaled myself with this food, I waswashing it down with some good claret with my wife and her friend, inthe cabin, when the captain's valet-de-chambre, head cook, house andship steward, footman in livery and out on't, secretary and fore-mastman, all burst into the cabin at once, being, indeed, all but oneperson, and, without saying, by your leave, began to pack half ahogshead of small beer in bottles, the necessary consequence of whichmust have been either a total stop to conversation at that cheerfulseason when it is most agreeable, or the admitting that polyonymousofficer aforesaid to the participation of it. I desired him therefore todelay his purpose a little longer, but he refused to grant my request;nor was he prevailed on to quit the room till he was threatened withhaving one bottle to pack more than his number, which then happened tostand empty within my reach. With these menaces he retired at last, butnot without muttering some menaces on his side, and which, to our greatterror, he failed not to put into immediate execution. 

Our captain was gone to dinner this day with his Swiss brother;and, though he was a very sober man, was a little elevated with somechampagne, which, as it cost the Swiss little or nothing, he dispensedat his table more liberally than our hospitable English noblemen putabout those bottles, which the ingenious Peter Taylor teaches a ledcaptain to avoid by distinguishing by the name of that generous liquor, which all humble companions are taught to postpone to the flavor ofmethuen, or honest port. 

While our two captains were thus regaling themselves, and celebratingtheir own heroic exploits with all the inspiration which the liquor, atleast, of wit could afford them, the polyonymous officer arrived, and, being saluted by the name of Honest Tom, was ordered to sit down andtake his glass before he delivered his message; for every sailor is byturns his captain's mate over a cann, except only that captain bashawwho presides in a man-of-war, and who upon earth has no other mate, unless it be another of the same bashaws. Tom had no sooner swallowedhis draught than he hastily began his narrative, and faithfully relatedwhat had happened on board our ship; we say faithfully, though from whathappened it may be suspected that Tom chose to add perhaps only five orsix immaterial circumstances, as is always I believe the case, and maypossibly have been done by me in relating this very story, though ithappened not many hours ago. 

No sooner was the captain informed of the interruption which had beengiven to his officer, and indeed to his orders, for he thought no timeso convenient as that of his absence for causing any confusion in thecabin, than he leaped with such haste from his chair that he had like tohave broke his sword, with which he always begirt himself when he walkedout of his ship, and sometimes when he walked about in it; at the sametime, grasping eagerly that other implement called a cockade, whichmodern soldiers wear on their helmets with the same view as the ancientsdid their crests--to terrify the enemy he muttered something, but soinarticulately that the word DAMN was only intelligible; he then hastilytook leave of the Swiss captain, who was too well bred to press his stayon such an occasion, and leaped first from the ship to his boat, andthen from his boat to his own ship, with as much fierceness in hislooks as he had ever expressed on boarding his defenseless prey in thehonorable calling of a privateer. Having regained the middle deck, hepaused a moment while Tom and others loaded themselves with bottles, andthen descending into the cabin exclaimed with a thundering voice, "D--nme, why arn't the bottles stowed in, according to my orders?"

I answered him very mildly that I had prevented his man from doingit, as it was at an inconvenient time to me, and as in his absence, atleast, I esteemed the cabin to be my own. "Your cabin!" repeated he manytimes; "no, d--n me! 'tis my cabin. Your cabin! d--n me! I have broughtmy hogs to a fair market. I suppose indeed you think it your cabin, andyour ship, by your commanding in it; but I will command in it, d--nme! I will show the world I am the commander, and nobody but I! Did youthink I sold you the command of my ship for that pitiful thirty pounds?I wish I had not seen you nor your thirty pounds aboard of her. " He thenrepeated the words thirty pounds often, with great disdain, and with acontempt which I own the sum did not seem to deserve in my eye, eitherin itself or on the present occasion; being, indeed, paid for thefreight of ---- weight of human flesh, which is above fifty per centdearer than the freight of any other luggage, whilst in reality it takesup less room; in fact, no room at all. 

In truth, the sum was paid for nothing more than for a liberty to sixpersons (two of them servants) to stay on board a ship while she sailsfrom one port to another, every shilling of which comes clear into thecaptain's pocket. Ignorant people may perhaps imagine, especially whenthey are told that the captain is obliged to sustain them, that theirdiet at least is worth something, which may probably be now and thenso far the case as to deduct a tenth part from the net profits on thisaccount; but it was otherwise at present; for when I had contracted withthe captain at a price which I by no means thought moderate, I had somecontent in thinking I should have no more to pay for my voyage; but Iwas whispered that it was expected the passengers should find themselvesin several things; such as tea, wine, and such like; and particularlythat gentlemen should stow of the latter a much larger quantity thanthey could use, in order to leave the remainder as a present to thecaptain at the end of the voyage; and it was expected likewise thatgentlemen should put aboard some fresh stores, and the more of suchthings were put aboard the welcomer they would be to the captain. 

I was prevailed with by these hints to follow the advice proposed; andaccordingly, besides tea and a large hamper of wine, with several hamsand tongues, I caused a number of live chickens and sheep to be conveyedaboard; in truth, treble the quantity of provisions which would havesupported the persons I took with me, had the voyage continued threeweeks, as it was supposed, with a bare possibility, it might. 

Indeed it continued much longer; but as this was occasioned by our beingwind-bound in our own ports, it was by no means of any ill consequenceto the captain, as the additional stores of fish, fresh meat, butter, bread, &c. , which I constantly laid in, greatly exceeded theconsumption, and went some way in maintaining the ship's crew. It istrue I was not obliged to do this; but it seemed to be expected; for thecaptain did not think himself obliged to do it, and I can truly say Isoon ceased to expect it of him. He had, I confess, on board a number offowls and ducks sufficient for a West India voyage; all of them, as heoften said, "Very fine birds, and of the largest breed. " This I believewas really the fact, and I can add that they were all arrived at thefull perfection of their size. Nor was there, I am convinced, any wantof provisions of a more substantial kind; such as dried beef, pork, and fish; so that the captain seemed ready to perform his contract, and amply to provide for his passengers. What I did then was not fromnecessity, but, perhaps, from a less excusable motive, and was by nomeans chargeable to the account of the captain. 

But, let the motive have been what it would, the consequence was stillthe same; and this was such that I am firmly persuaded the whole pitifulthirty pounds came pure and neat into the captain's pocket, and not onlyso, but attended with the value of ten pound more in sundries intothe bargain. I must confess myself therefore at a loss how the epithetPITIFUL came to be annexed to the above sum; for, not being a pitifulprice for what it was given, I cannot conceive it to be pitiful initself; nor do I believe it is thought by the greatest men in thekingdom; none of whom would scruple to search for it in the dirtiestkennel, where they had only a reasonable hope of success. How, therefore, such a sum should acquire the idea of pitiful in the eyesof the master of a ship seems not easy to be accounted for; since itappears more likely to produce in him ideas of a different kind. Somemen, perhaps, are no more sincere in the contempt for it which theyexpress than others in their contempt of money in general; and I am therather inclined to this persuasion, as I have seldom heard of eitherwho have refused or refunded this their despised object. Besides, it issometimes impossible to believe these professions, as every action ofthe man's life is a contradiction to it. Who can believe a tradesman whosays he would not tell his name for the profit he gets by the sellingsuch a parcel of goods, when he hath told a thousand lies in order toget it? Pitiful, indeed, is often applied to an object not absolutely, but comparatively with our expectations, or with a greater object: inwhich sense it is not easy to set any bounds to the use of the word. Thus, a handful of halfpence daily appear pitiful to a porter, and ahandful of silver to a drawer. The latter, I am convinced, at a politetavern, will not tell his name (for he will not give you any answer)under the price of gold. And in this sense thirty pound may be accountedpitiful by the lowest mechanic. 

One difficulty only seems to occur, and that is this: how comes it that, if the profits of the meanest arts are so considerable, the professorsof them are not richer than we generally see them? One answer to thisshall suffice. Men do not become rich by what they get, but by what theykeep. He who is worth no more than his annual wages or salary, spendsthe whole; he will be always a beggar let his income be what it will, and so will be his family when he dies. This we see daily to be the caseof ecclesiastics, who, during their lives, are extremely well providedfor, only because they desire to maintain the honor of the cloth byliving like gentlemen, which would, perhaps, be better maintained byliving unlike them. 

But, to return from so long a digression, to which the use of soimproper an epithet gave occasion, and to which the novelty of thesubject allured, I will make the reader amends by concisely tellinghim that the captain poured forth such a torrent of abuse that I veryhastily and very foolishly resolved to quit the ship. 

I gave immediate orders to summon a hoy to carry me that evening toDartmouth, without considering any consequence. Those orders I gave inno very low voice, so that those above stairs might possibly conceivethere was more than one master in the cabin. In the same tone I likewisethreatened the captain with that which, he afterwards said, he fearedmore than any rock or quicksand. Nor can we wonder at this when we aretold he had been twice obliged to bring to and cast anchor there before, and had neither time escaped without the loss of almost his whole cargo. 

The most distant sound of law thus frightened a man who had often, I amconvinced, heard numbers of cannon roar round him with intrepidity. Nordid he sooner see the hoy approaching the vessel than he ran down againinto the cabin, and, his rage being perfectly subsided, he tumbled onhis knees, and a little too abjectly implored for mercy. 

I did not suffer a brave man and an old man to remain a moment in thisposture, but I immediately forgave him. 

And here, that I may not be thought the sly trumpeter of my own praises, I do utterly disclaim all praise on the occasion. Neither did thegreatness of my mind dictate, nor the force of my Christianity exact, this forgiveness. To speak truth, I forgave him from a motive whichwould make men much more forgiving if they were much wiser than theyare, because it was convenient for me so to do. 

Wednesday. --This morning the captain dressed himself in scarlet in orderto pay a visit to a Devonshire squire, to whom a captain of a ship is aguest of no ordinary consequence, as he is a stranger and a gentleman, who hath seen a great deal of the world in foreign parts, and knows allthe news of the times. 

The squire, therefore, was to send his boat for the captain, but a mostunfortunate accident happened; for, as the wind was extremely rough andagainst the hoy, while this was endeavoring to avail itself of greatseamanship in hauling up against the wind, a sudden squall carried offsail and yard, or at least so disabled them that they were no longer ofany use and unable to reach the ship; but the captain, from the deck, saw his hopes of venison disappointed, and was forced either to stay onboard his ship, or to hoist forth his own long-boat, which he could notprevail with himself to think of, though the smell of the venison hadhad twenty times its attraction. He did, indeed, love his ship as hiswife, and his boats as children, and never willingly trusted the latter, poor things! to the dangers of the sea. 

To say truth, notwithstanding the strict rigor with which he preservedthe dignity of his stations and the hasty impatience with which heresented any affront to his person or orders, disobedience to which hecould in no instance brook in any person on board, he was one ofthe best natured fellows alive. He acted the part of a father to hissailors; he expressed great tenderness for any of them when ill, andnever suffered any the least work of supererogation to go unrewarded bya glass of gin. He even extended his humanity, if I may so call it, to animals, and even his cats and kittens had large shares in hisaffections. 

An instance of which we saw this evening, when the cat, which had shownit could not be drowned, was found suffocated under a feather-bed inthe cabin. I will not endeavor to describe his lamentations with moreprolixity than barely by saying they were grievous, and seemed to havesome mixture of the Irish howl in them. Nay, he carried his fondnesseven to inanimate objects, of which we have above set down a pregnantexample in his demonstration of love and tenderness towards his boatsand ship. He spoke of a ship which he had commanded formerly, and whichwas long since no more, which he had called the Princess of Brazil, as awidower of a deceased wife. This ship, after having followed the honestbusiness of carrying goods and passengers for hire many years, did atlast take to evil courses and turn privateer, in which service, to usehis own words, she received many dreadful wounds, which he himself hadfelt as if they had been his own. 

Thursday. --As the wind did not yesterday discover any purpose ofshifting, and the water in my belly grew troublesome and rendered meshort-breathed, I began a second time to have apprehensions of wantingthe assistance of a trochar when none was to be found; I thereforeconcluded to be tapped again by way of precaution, and accordingly Ithis morning summoned on board a surgeon from a neighboring parish, onewhom the captain greatly recommended, and who did indeed perform hisoffice with much dexterity. He was, I believe, likewise a man of greatjudgment and knowledge in the profession; but of this I cannot speakwith perfect certainty, for, when he was going to open on the dropsyat large and on the particular degree of the distemper under which Ilabored, I was obliged to stop him short, for the wind was changed, andthe captain in the utmost hurry to depart; and to desire him, insteadof his opinion, to assist me with his execution. I was now once moredelivered from my burden, which was not indeed so great as I hadapprehended, wanting two quarts of what was let out at the lastoperation. 

While the surgeon was drawing away my water the sailors were drawing upthe anchor; both were finished at the same time; we unfurled our sailsand soon passed the Berry-head, which forms the mouth of the bay. 

We had not however sailed far when the wind, which, had though with aslow pace, kept us company about six miles, suddenly turned about, andoffered to conduct us back again; a favor which, though sorely againstthe grain, we were obliged to accept. 

Nothing remarkable happened this day; for as to the firm persuasionof the captain that he was under the spell of witchcraft, I would notrepeat it too often, though indeed he repeated it an hundred times everyday; in truth, he talked of nothing else, and seemed not only to besatisfied in general of his being bewitched, but actually to have fixedwith good certainty on the person of the witch, whom, had he lived inthe days of Sir Matthew Hale, he would have infallibly indicted, andvery possibly have hanged, for the detestable sin of witchcraft; butthat law, and the whole doctrine that supported it, are now out offashion; and witches, as a learned divine once chose to express himself, are put down by act of parliament. This witch, in the captain's opinion, was no other than Mrs. Francis of Ryde, who, as he insinuated, out ofanger to me for not spending more money in her house than she couldproduce anything to exchange for, or ally pretense to charge for, hadlaid this spell on his ship. 

Though we were again got near our harbor by three in the afternoon, yetit seemed to require a full hour or more before we could come to ourformer place of anchoring, or berth, as the captain called it. On thisoccasion we exemplified one of the few advantages which the travelers bywater have over the travelers by land. What would the latter often givefor the sight of one of those hospitable mansions where he is assuredTHAT THERE IS GOOD ENTERTAINMENT FOR MAN AND HORSE; and where both mayconsequently promise themselves to assuage that hunger which exercise isso sure to raise in a healthy constitution. 

At their arrival at this mansion how much happier is the state of thehorse than that of the master! The former is immediately led tohis repast, such as it is, and, whatever it is, he falls to it withappetite. But the latter is in a much worse situation. His hunger, however violent, is always in some degree delicate, and his foodmust have some kind of ornament, or, as the more usual phrase is, of dressing, to recommend it. Now all dressing requires time, andtherefore, though perhaps the sheep might be just killed before youcame to the inn, yet in cutting him up, fetching the joint, which thelandlord by mistake said he had in the house, from the butcher at twomiles' distance, and afterwards warming it a little by the fire, twohours at least must be consumed, while hunger, for want of better food, preys all the time on the vitals of the man. 

How different was the case with us! we carried our provision, ourkitchen, and our cook with us, and we were at one and the same timetraveling on our road, and sitting down to a repast of fish, with whichthe greatest table in London can scarce at any rate be supplied. 

Friday. --As we were disappointed of our wind, and obliged to return backthe preceding evening, we resolved to extract all the good we could outof our misfortune, and to add considerably to our fresh stores ofmeat and bread, with which we were very indifferently provided when wehurried away yesterday. By the captain's advice we likewise laid in somestores of butter, which we salted and potted ourselves, for our use atLisbon, and we had great reason afterwards to thank him for his advice. 

In the afternoon I persuaded my wife whom it was no easy matter forme to force from my side, to take a walk on shore, whither the gallantcaptain declared he was ready to attend her. Accordingly the ladiesset out, and left me to enjoy a sweet and comfortable nap after theoperation of the preceding day. 

Thus we enjoyed our separate pleasures full three hours, when we metagain, and my wife gave the foregoing account of the gentleman whom Ihave before compared to Axylus, and of his habitation, to both which shehad been introduced by the captain, in the style of an old friend andacquaintance, though this foundation of intimacy seemed to her to be nodeeper laid than in an accidental dinner, eaten many years before, atthis temple of hospitality, when the captain lay wind-bound in the samebay. 

Saturday. --Early this morning the wind seemed inclined to change in ourfavor. Our alert captain snatched its very first motion, and got undersail with so very gentle a breeze that, as the tide was against him, herecommended to a fishing boy to bring after him a vast salmon and someother provisions which lay ready for him on shore. 

Our anchor was up at six, and before nine in the morning we had doubledthe Berry-head, and were arrived off Dartmouth, having gone full threemiles in as many hours, in direct opposition to the tide, which onlybefriended us out of our harbor; and though the wind was perhaps ourfriend, it was so very silent, and exerted itself so little in ourfavor, that, like some cool partisans, it was difficult to say whetherit was with us or against us. The captain, however, declared the formerto be the case during the whole three hours; but at last he perceivedhis error, or rather, perhaps, this friend, which had hitherto waveredin choosing his side, became now more determined. The captain thensuddenly tacked about, and, asserting that he was bewitched, submittedto return to the place from whence he came. Now, though I am as freefrom superstition as any man breathing, and never did believe inwitches, notwithstanding all the excellent arguments of my lordchief-justice Hale in their favor, and long before they were put down byact of parliament, yet by what power a ship of burden should sail threemiles against both wind and tide, I cannot conceive, unless there wassome supernatural interposition in the case; nay, could we admit thatthe wind stood neuter, the difficulty would still remain. So thatwe must of necessity conclude that the ship was either bewinded orbewitched. The captain, perhaps, had another meaning. He imaginedhimself, I believe, bewitched, because the wind, instead of perseveringin its change in his favor, for change it certainly did that morning, should suddenly return to its favorite station, and blow him backtowards the bay. But, if this was his opinion, he soon saw cause toalter; for he had not measured half the way back when the wind againdeclared in his favor, and so loudly, that there was no possibility ofbeing mistaken. The orders for the second tack were given, and obeyedwith much more alacrity than those had been for the first. We were allof us indeed in high spirits on the occasion; though some of us a littleregretted the good things we were likely to leave behind us by thefisherman's neglect; I might give it a worse name, for he faithfullypromised to execute the commission, which he had had abundantopportunity to do; but nautica fides deserves as much to be proverbialas ever Punica fides could formerly have done. Nay, when we considerthat the Carthaginians came from the Phoenicians who are supposed to haveproduced the first mariners, we may probably see the true reason ofthe adage, and it may open a field of very curious discoveries to theantiquarian. 

We were, however, too eager to pursue our voyage to suffer anything weleft behind us to interrupt our happiness, which, indeed, many agreeablecircumstances conspired to advance. The weather was inexpressiblypleasant, and we were all seated on the deck, when our canvas began toswell with the wind. We had likewise in our view above thirty other sailaround us, all in the same situation. Here an observation occurred tome, which, perhaps, though extremely obvious, did not offer itselfto every individual in our little fleet: when I perceived with whatdifferent success we proceeded under the influence of a superior powerwhich, while we lay almost idle ourselves, pushed us forward on ourintended voyage, and compared this with the slow progress which we hadmade in the morning, of ourselves, and without any such assistance, I could not help reflecting how often the greatest abilities liewind-bound as it were in life; or, if they venture out and attempt tobeat the seas, they struggle in vain against wind and tide, and, if theyhave not sufficient prudence to put back, are most probably cast away onthe rocks and quicksands which are every day ready to devour them. 

It was now our fortune to set out melioribus avibus. The wind freshenedso briskly in our poop that the shore appeared to move from us as fastas we did from the shore. The captain declared he was sure of a wind, meaning its continuance; but he had disappointed us so often that he hadlost all credit. However, he kept his word a little better now, and welost sight of our native land as joyfully, at least, as it is usual toregain it. 

Sunday. --The next morning the captain told me he thought himself thirtymiles to the westward of Plymouth, and before evening declared that theLizard Point, which is the extremity of Cornwall, bore several leaguesto leeward. Nothing remarkable passed this day, except the captain'sdevotion, who, in his own phrase, summoned all hands to prayers, whichwere read by a common sailor upon deck, with more devout force andaddress than they are commonly read by a country curate, and receivedwith more decency and attention by the sailors than are usuallypreserved in city congregations. I am indeed assured, that if any suchaffected disregard of the solemn office in which they were engaged, asI have seen practiced by fine gentlemen and ladies, expressing a kind ofapprehension lest they should be suspected of being really in earnestin their devotion, had been shown here, they would have contracted thecontempt of the whole audience. To say the truth, from what I observedin the behavior of the sailors in this voyage, and on comparing it withwhat I have formerly seen of them at sea and on shore, I am convincedthat on land there is nothing more idle and dissolute; in their ownelement there are no persons near the level of their degree who live inthe constant practice of half so many good qualities. 

They are, for much the greater part, perfect masters of their business, and always extremely alert, and ready in executing it, without anyregard to fatigue or hazard. The soldiers themselves are not betterdisciplined nor more obedient to orders than these whilst aboard;they submit to every difficulty which attends their calling withcheerfulness, and no less virtues and patience and fortitude areexercised by them every day of their lives. All these good qualities, however, they always leave behind them on shipboard; the sailor out ofwater is, indeed, as wretched an animal as the fish out of water; forthough the former hath, in common with amphibious animals, the barepower of existing on the land, yet if he be kept there any time he neverfails to become a nuisance. The ship having had a good deal of motionsince she was last under sail, our women returned to their sickness, andI to my solitude; having, for twenty-four hours together, scarce openedmy lips to a single person. This circumstance of being shut up withinthe circumference of a few yards, with a score of human creatures, withnot one of whom it was possible to converse, was perhaps so rare asscarce ever to have happened before, nor could it ever happen to onewho disliked it more than myself, or to myself at a season when I wantedmore food for my social disposition, or could converse less wholesomelyand happily with my own thoughts. To this accident, which fortune openedto me in the Downs, was owing the first serious thought which I everentertained of enrolling myself among the voyage-writers; some of themost amusing pages, if, indeed, there be any which deserve that name, were possibly the production of the most disagreeable hours which everhaunted the author. 

Monday. --At noon the captain took an observation, by which it appearedthat Ushant bore some leagues northward of us, and that we were justentering the bay of Biscay. We had advanced a very few miles in this baybefore we were entirely becalmed: we furled our sails, as being ofno use to us while we lay in this most disagreeable situation, moredetested by the sailors than the most violent tempest: we were alarmedwith the loss of a fine piece of salt beef, which had been hung inthe sea to freshen it; this being, it seems, the strange propertyof salt-water. The thief was immediately suspected, and presentlyafterwards taken by the sailors. He was, indeed, no other than a hugeshark, who, not knowing when he was well off, swallowed another pieceof beef, together with a great iron crook on which it was hung, and bywhich he was dragged into the ship. I should scarce have mentioned thecatching this shark, though so exactly conformable to the rules andpractice of voyage-writing, had it not been for a strange circumstancethat attended it. This was the recovery of the stolen beef out of theshark's maw, where it lay unchewed and undigested, and whence, beingconveyed into the pot, the flesh, and the thief that had stolen it, joined together in furnishing variety to the ship's crew. 

During this calm we likewise found the mast of a large vessel, which thecaptain thought had lain at least three years in the sea. It was stuckall over with a little shell-fish or reptile, called a barnacle, andwhich probably are the prey of the rockfish, as our captain calls it, asserting that it is the finest fish in the world; for which we areobliged to confide entirely to his taste; for, though he struck the fishwith a kind of harping-iron, and wounded him, I am convinced, to death, yet he could not possess himself of his body; but the poor wretchescaped to linger out a few hours with probably great torments. 

In the evening our wind returned, and so briskly, that we ran upwardsof twenty leagues before the next day's [Tuesday's] observation, whichbrought us to lat. 47 degrees 42'. The captain promised us a very speedypassage through the bay; but he deceived us, or the wind deceived him, for it so slackened at sunset, that it scarce carried us a mile in anhour during the whole succeeding night. 

Wednesday. --A gale struck up a little after sunrising, which carried usbetween three and four knots or miles an hour. We were this day at noonabout the middle of the bay of Biscay, when the wind once more desertedus, and we were so entirely becalmed, that we did not advance a mile inmany hours. My fresh-water reader will perhaps conceive no unpleasantidea from this calm; but it affected us much more than a storm couldhave done; for, as the irascible passions of men are apt to swell withindignation long after the injury which first raised them is over, sofared it with the sea. It rose mountains high, and lifted our poor shipup and down, backwards and forwards, with so violent an emotion, thatthere was scarce a man in the ship better able to stand than myself. Every utensil in our cabin rolled up and down, as we should have rolledourselves, had not our chairs been fast lashed to the floor. In thissituation, with our tables likewise fastened by ropes, the captain andmyself took our meal with some difficulty, and swallowed a little of ourbroth, for we spilt much the greater part. The remainder of our dinnerbeing an old, lean, tame duck roasted, I regretted but little the lossof, my teeth not being good enough to have chewed it. 

Our women, who began to creep out of their holes in the morning, retiredagain within the cabin to their beds, and were no more heard of thisday, in which my whole comfort was to find by the captain's relationthat the swelling was sometimes much worse; he did, indeed, take thisoccasion to be more communicative than ever, and informed me of suchmisadventures that had befallen him within forty-six years at sea asmight frighten a very bold spirit from undertaking even the shortestvoyage. Were these, indeed, but universally known, our matrons ofquality would possibly be deterred from venturing their tender offspringat sea; by which means our navy would lose the honor of many a youngcommodore, who at twenty-two is better versed in maritime affairs thanreal seamen are made by experience at sixty. And this may, perhaps, appear the more extraordinary, as the education of both seems to bepretty much the same; neither of them having had their courage tried byVirgil's description of a storm, in which, inspired as he was, I doubtwhether our captain doth not exceed him. In the evening the wind, whichcontinued in the N. W. , again freshened, and that so briskly that CapeFinisterre appeared by this day's observation to bear a few miles to thesouthward. We now indeed sailed, or rather flew, near ten knots an hour;and the captain, in the redundancy of his good-humor, declared he wouldgo to church at Lisbon on Sunday next, for that he was sure of awind; and, indeed, we all firmly believed him. But the event againcontradicted him; for we were again visited by a calm in the evening. 

But here, though our voyage was retarded, we were entertained with ascene, which as no one can behold without going to sea, so no one canform an idea of anything equal to it on shore. We were seated on thedeck, women and all, in the serenest evening that can be imagined. Nota single cloud presented itself to our view, and the sun himself was theonly object which engrossed our whole attention. He did indeed setwith a majesty which is incapable of description, with which, whilethe horizon was yet blazing with glory, our eyes were called off to theopposite part to survey the moon, which was then at full, and which inrising presented us with the second object that this world hath offeredto our vision. Compared to these the pageantry of theaters, or splendorof courts, are sights almost below the regard of children. We didnot return from the deck till late in the evening; the weather beinginexpressibly pleasant, and so warm that even my old distemper perceivedthe alteration of the climate. There was indeed a swell, but nothingcomparable to what we had felt before, and it affected us on the deckmuch less than in the cabin. 

Friday. --The calm continued till sun-rising, when the wind likewisearose, but unluckily for us it came from a wrong quarter; it was S. S. E. , which is that very wind which Juno would have solicited of Aeolus, hadGneas been in our latitude bound for Lisbon. 

The captain now put on his most melancholy aspect, and resumed hisformer opinion that he was bewitched. He declared with great solemnitythat this was worse and worse, for that a wind directly in his teethwas worse than no wind at all. Had we pursued the course which the windpersuaded us to take we had gone directly for Newfoundland, if we hadnot fallen in with Ireland in our way. Two ways remained to avoidthis; one was to put into a port of Galicia; the other, to beat to thewestward with as little sail as possible: and this was our captain'selection. 

As for us, poor passengers, any port would have been welcome to us;especially, as not only our fresh provisions, except a great number ofold ducks and fowls, but even our bread was come to an end, and nothingbut sea-biscuit remained, which I could not chew. So that now for thefirst time in my life I saw what it was to want a bit of bread. 

The wind however was not so unkind as we had apprehended; but, havingdeclined with the sun, it changed at the approach of the moon, andbecame again favorable to us, though so gentle that the next day'sobservation carried us very little to the southward of Cape Finisterre. This evening at six the wind, which had been very quiet all day, rosevery high, and continuing in our favor drove us seven knots an hour. 

This day we saw a sail, the only one, as I heard of, we had seen inour whole passage through the bay. I mention this on account of whatappeared to me somewhat extraordinary. Though she was at such a distancethat I could only perceive she was a ship, the sailors discovered thatshe was a snow, bound to a port in Galicia. 

Sunday. --After prayers, which our good captain read on the deck withan audible voice, and with but one mistake, of a lion for Elias, inthe second lesson for this day, we found ourselves far advanced in 42degrees, and the captain declared we should sup off Porte. We had notmuch wind this day; but, as this was directly in our favor, we made itup with sail, of which we crowded all we had. We went only at the rateof four miles an hour, but with so uneasy a motion, continuing rollingfrom side to side, that I suffered more than I had done in our wholevoyage; my bowels being almost twisted out of my belly. However, the daywas very serene and bright, and the captain, who was in high spirits, affirmed he had never passed a pleasanter at sea. 

The wind continued so brisk that we ran upward of six knots an hour thewhole night. 

Monday. --In the morning our captain concluded that he was got intolat. 40 degrees, and was very little short of the Burlings, as they arecalled in the charts. We came up with them at five in the afternoon, being the first land we had distinctly seen since we left Devonshire. They consist of abundance of little rocky islands, a little distant fromthe shore, three of them only showing themselves above the water. 

Here the Portuguese maintain a kind of garrison, if we may allow it thatname. It consists of malefactors, who are banished hither for a term, for divers small offenses--a policy which they may have copied fromthe Egyptians, as we may read in Diodorus Siculus. That wise people, toprevent the corruption of good manners by evil communication, built atown on the Red Sea, whither they transported a great number of theircriminals, having first set an indelible mark on them, to prevent theirreturning and mixing with the sober part of their citizens. Theserocks lie about fifteen leagues northwest of Cape Roxent, or, as itis commonly called, the Rock of Lisbon, which we passed early the nextmorning. The wind, indeed, would have carried us thither sooner; but thecaptain was not in a hurry, as he was to lose nothing by his delay. 

Tuesday. --This is a very high mountain, situated on the northern side ofthe mouth of the river Tajo, which, rising about Madrid, in Spain, andsoon becoming navigable for small craft, empties itself, after a longcourse, into the sea, about four leagues below Lisbon. 

On the summit of the rock stands a hermitage, which is now in thepossession of an Englishman, who was formerly master of a vessel tradingto Lisbon; and, having changed his religion and his manners, the latterof which, at least, were none of the best, betook himself to thisplace, in order to do penance for his sins. He is now very old, and hathinhabited this hermitage for a great number of years, during which hehath received some countenance from the royal family, and particularlyfrom the present queen dowager, whose piety refuses no trouble orexpense by which she may make a proselyte, being used to say that thesaving one soul would repay all the endeavors of her life. Here wewaited for the tide, and had the pleasure of surveying the face of thecountry, the soil of which, at this season, exactly resembles anold brick-kiln, or a field where the green sward is pared up and seta-burning, or rather a smoking, in little heaps to manure the land. Thissight will, perhaps, of all others, make an Englishman proud of, andpleased with, his own country, which in verdure excels, I believe, every other country. Another deficiency here is the want of large trees, nothing above a shrub being here to be discovered in the circumferenceof many miles. 

At this place we took a pilot on board, who, being the first Portuguesewe spoke to, gave us an instance of that religious observance which ispaid by all nations to their laws; for, whereas it is here a capitaloffense to assist any person in going on shore from a foreign vesselbefore it hath been examined, and every person in it viewed by themagistrates of health, as they are called, this worthy pilot, for a verysmall reward, rowed the Portuguese priest to shore at this place, beyondwhich he did not dare to advance, and in venturing whither he had givensufficient testimony of love for his native country. 

We did not enter the Tajo till noon, when, after passing several oldcastles and other buildings which had greatly the aspect of ruins, wecame to the castle of Bellisle, where we had a full prospect of Lisbon, and were, indeed, within three miles of it. 

Here we were saluted with a gun, which was a signal to pass no farthertill we had complied with certain ceremonies which the laws of thiscountry require to be observed by all ships which arrive in this port. We were obliged then to cast anchor, and expect the arrival of theofficers of the customs, without whose passport no ship must proceedfarther than this place. 

Here likewise we received a visit from one of those magistrates ofhealth before mentioned. He refused to come on board the ship till everyperson in her had been drawn up on deck and personally viewed by him. This occasioned some delay on my part, as it was not the work of aminute to lift me from the cabin to the deck. The captain thought myparticular case might have been excused from this ceremony, and thatit would be abundantly sufficient if the magistrate, who was obligedafterwards to visit the cabin, surveyed me there. But this did notsatisfy the magistrate's strict regard to his duty. When he was toldof my lameness, he called out, with a voice of authority, "Let himbe brought up, " and his orders were presently complied with. He was, indeed, a person of great dignity, as well as of the most exact fidelityin the discharge of his trust. Both which are the more admirable as hissalary is less than thirty pounds English per annum. 

Before a ship hath been visited by one of those magistrates no personcan lawfully go on board her, nor can any on board depart from her. ThisI saw exemplified in a remarkable instance. The young lad whom I havementioned as one of our passengers was here met by his father, who, onthe first news of the captain's arrival, came from Lisbon to Bellislein a boat, being eager to embrace a son whom he had not seen for manyyears. But when he came alongside our ship neither did the father dareascend nor the son descend, as the magistrate of health had not yet beenon board. Some of our readers will, perhaps, admire the great caution ofthis policy, so nicely calculated for the preservation of this countryfrom all pestilential distempers. Others will as probably regard it astoo exact and formal to be constantly persisted in, in seasons of theutmost safety, as well as in times of danger. I will not decide eitherway, but will content myself with observing that I never yet saw orheard of a place where a traveler had so much trouble given him at hislanding as here. The only use of which, as all such matters begin andend in form only, is to put it into the power of low and mean fellowsto be either rudely officious or grossly corrupt, as they shall seeoccasion to prefer the gratification of their pride or of their avarice. 

Of this kind, likewise, is that power which is lodged with otherofficers here, of taking away every grain of snuff and every leafof tobacco brought hither from other countries, though only for thetemporary use of the person during his residence here. This is executedwith great insolence, and, as it is in the hands of the dregs of thepeople, very scandalously; for, under pretense of searching for tobaccoand snuff, they are sure to steal whatever they can find, insomuch thatwhen they came on board our sailors addressed us in the Covent-gardenlanguage: "Pray, gentlemen and ladies, take care of your swords andwatches. " Indeed, I never yet saw anything equal to the contempt andhatred which our honest tars every moment expressed for these Portugueseofficers. 

At Bellisle lies buried Catharine of Arragon, widow of prince Arthur, eldest son of our Henry VII, afterwards married to, and divorced fromHenry VIII. Close by the church where her remains are deposited isa large convent of Geronymites, one of the most beautiful piles ofbuilding in all Portugal. 

In the evening, at twelve, our ship, having received previous visitsfrom all the necessary parties, took the advantage of the tide, andhaving sailed up to Lisbon cast anchor there, in a calm and moonshinynight, which made the passage incredibly pleasant to the women, whoremained three hours enjoying it, whilst I was left to the coolertransports of enjoying their pleasures at second-hand; and yet, cooleras they may be, whoever is totally ignorant of such sensation is, at thesame time, void of all ideas of friendship. 

Wednesday. --Lisbon, before which we now lay at anchor, is said to bebuilt on the same number of hills with old Rome; but these do not allappear to the water; on the contrary, one sees from thence one vast highhill and rock, with buildings arising above one another, and that in sosteep and almost perpendicular a manner, that they all seem to have butone foundation. 

As the houses, convents, churches, &c. , are large, and all built withwhite stone, they look very beautiful at a distance; but as you approachnearer, and find them to want every kind of ornament, all idea of beautyvanishes at once. While I was surveying the prospect of this city, which bears so little resemblance to any other that I have ever seen, areflection occurred to me that, if a man was suddenly to be removed fromPalmyra hither, and should take a view of no other city, in howglorious a light would the ancient architecture appear to him! and whatdesolation and destruction of arts and sciences would he conclude hadhappened between the several eras of these cities!

I had now waited full three hours upon deck for the return of my man, whom I had sent to bespeak a good dinner (a thing which had been longunknown to me) on shore, and then to bring a Lisbon chaise with him tothe seashore; but it seems the impertinence of the providore was not yetbrought to a conclusion. At three o'clock, when I was from emptiness, rather faint than hungry, my man returned, and told me there was a newlaw lately made that no passenger should set his foot on shore withouta special order from the providore, and that he himself would havebeen sent to prison for disobeying it, had he not been protected as theservant of the captain. He informed me likewise that the captain hadbeen very industrious to get this order, but that it was then theprovidore's hour of sleep, a time when no man, except the king himself, durst disturb him. 

To avoid prolixity, though in a part of my narrative which may be moreagreeable to my reader than it was to me, the providore, having at lastfinished his nap, dispatched this absurd matter of form, and gave meleave to come, or rather to be carried, on shore. 

What it was that gave the first hint of this strange law is not easyto guess. Possibly, in the infancy of their defection, and before theirgovernment could be well established, they were willing to guardagainst the bare possibility of surprise, of the success of which barepossibility the Trojan horse will remain for ever on record, as a greatand memorable example. Now the Portuguese have no walls to secure them, and a vessel of two or three hundred tons will contain a much largerbody of troops than could be concealed in that famous machine, thoughVirgil tells us (somewhat hyperbolically, I believe) that it was as bigas a mountain. 

About seven in the evening I got into a chaise on shore, and was driventhrough the nastiest city in the world, though at the same time one ofthe most populous, to a kind of coffee-house, which is very pleasantlysituated on the brow of a hill, about a mile from the city, and hatha very fine prospect of the river Tajo from Lisbon to the sea. Here weregaled ourselves with a good supper, for which we were as well chargedas if the bill had been made on the Bath-road, between Newbury andLondon. 

And now we could joyfully say, Egressi optata Troes potiuntur arena. 

Therefore, in the words of Horace, --hie Finis chartaeque viaeque.