I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good
family, though not of that country, my father being a foreigner of
Bremen, who settled first at Hull. He got a good estate by
merchandise, and leaving off his trade, lived afterwards at York,
from whence he had married my mother, whose relations were named
Robinson, a very good family in that country, and from whom I was
called Robinson Kreutznaer; but, by the usual corruption of words
in England, we are now called—nay we call ourselves and write our
name—Crusoe; and so my companions always called me.
I had two elder brothers, one of whom was lieutenant-colonel
to an English regiment of foot in Flanders, formerly commanded by
the famous Colonel Lockhart, and was killed at the battle near
Dunkirk against the Spaniards. What became of my second
brother I never knew, any more than my father or mother knew what
became of me.
Being the third son of the family and not bred to any trade,
my head began to be filled very early with rambling thoughts.
My father, who was very ancient, had given me a competent share of
learning, as far as house-education and a country free school
generally go, and designed me for the law; but I would be satisfied
with nothing but going to sea; and my inclination to this led me so
strongly against the will, nay, the commands of my father, and
against all the entreaties and persuasions of my mother and other
friends, that there seemed to be something fatal in that propensity
of nature, tending directly to the life of misery which was to
befall me.
My father, a wise and grave man, gave me serious and
excellent counsel against what he foresaw was my design. He
called me one morning into his chamber, where he was confined by
the gout, and expostulated very warmly with me upon this
subject. He asked me what reasons, more than a mere wandering
inclination, I had for leaving father’s house and my native
country, where I might be well introduced, and had a prospect of
raising my fortune by application and industry, with a life of ease
and pleasure. He told me it was men of desperate fortunes on
one hand, or of aspiring, superior fortunes on the other, who went
abroad upon adventures, to rise by enterprise, and make themselves
famous in undertakings of a nature out of the common road; that
these things were all either too far above me or too far below me;
that mine was the middle state, or what might be called the upper
station of low life, which he had found, by long experience, was
the best state in the world, the most suited to human happiness,
not exposed to the miseries and hardships, the labour and
sufferings of the mechanic part of mankind, and not embarrassed
with the pride, luxury, ambition, and envy of the upper part of
mankind. He told me I might judge of the happiness of this
state by this one thing—viz. that this was the state of life which
all other people envied; that kings have frequently lamented the
miserable consequence of being born to great things, and wished
they had been placed in the middle of the two extremes, between the
mean and the great; that the wise man gave his testimony to this,
as the standard of felicity, when he prayed to have neither poverty
nor riches.
He bade me observe it, and I should always find that the
calamities of life were shared among the upper and lower part of
mankind, but that the middle station had the fewest disasters, and
was not exposed to so many vicissitudes as the higher or lower part
of mankind; nay, they were not subjected to so many distempers and
uneasinesses, either of body or mind, as those were who, by vicious
living, luxury, and extravagances on the one hand, or by hard
labour, want of necessaries, and mean or insufficient diet on the
other hand, bring distemper upon themselves by the natural
consequences of their way of living; that the middle station of
life was calculated for all kind of virtue and all kind of
enjoyments; that peace and plenty were the handmaids of a middle
fortune; that temperance, moderation, quietness, health, society,
all agreeable diversions, and all desirable pleasures, were the
blessings attending the middle station of life; that this way men
went silently and smoothly through the world, and comfortably out
of it, not embarrassed with the labours of the hands or of the
head, not sold to a life of slavery for daily bread, nor harassed
with perplexed circumstances, which rob the soul of peace and the
body of rest, nor enraged with the passion of envy, or the secret
burning lust of ambition for great things; but, in easy
circumstances, sliding gently through the world, and sensibly
tasting the sweets of living, without the bitter; feeling that they
are happy, and learning by every day’s experience to know it more
sensibly.
After this he pressed me earnestly, and in the most
affectionate manner, not to play the young man, nor to precipitate
myself into miseries which nature, and the station of life I was
born in, seemed to have provided against; that I was under no
necessity of seeking my bread; that he would do well for me, and
endeavour to enter me fairly into the station of life which he had
just been recommending to me; and that if I was not very easy and
happy in the world, it must be my mere fate or fault that must
hinder it; and that he should have nothing to answer for, having
thus discharged his duty in warning me against measures which he
knew would be to my hurt; in a word, that as he would do very kind
things for me if I would stay and settle at home as he directed, so
he would not have so much hand in my misfortunes as to give me any
encouragement to go away; and to close all, he told me I had my
elder brother for an example, to whom he had used the same earnest
persuasions to keep him from going into the Low Country wars, but
could not prevail, his young desires prompting him to run into the
army, where he was killed; and though he said he would not cease to
pray for me, yet he would venture to say to me, that if I did take
this foolish step, God would not bless me, and I should have
leisure hereafter to reflect upon having neglected his counsel when
there might be none to assist in my recovery.
I observed in this last part of his discourse, which was
truly prophetic, though I suppose my father did not know it to be
so himself—I say, I observed the tears run down his face very
plentifully, especially when he spoke of my brother who was killed:
and that when he spoke of my having leisure to repent, and none to
assist me, he was so moved that he broke off the discourse, and
told me his heart was so full he could say no more to
me.
I was sincerely affected with this discourse, and, indeed,
who could be otherwise? and I resolved not to think of going abroad
any more, but to settle at home according to my father’s
desire. But alas! a few days wore it all off; and, in short,
to prevent any of my father’s further importunities, in a few weeks
after I resolved to run quite away from him. However, I did
not act quite so hastily as the first heat of my resolution
prompted; but I took my mother at a time when I thought her a
little more pleasant than ordinary, and told her that my thoughts
were so entirely bent upon seeing the world that I should never
settle to anything with resolution enough to go through with it,
and my father had better give me his consent than force me to go
without it; that I was now eighteen years old, which was too late
to go apprentice to a trade or clerk to an attorney; that I was
sure if I did I should never serve out my time, but I should
certainly run away from my master before my time was out, and go to
sea; and if she would speak to my father to let me go one voyage
abroad, if I came home again, and did not like it, I would go no
more; and I would promise, by a double diligence, to recover the
time that I had lost.
This put my mother into a great passion; she told me she knew
it would be to no purpose to speak to my father upon any such
subject; that he knew too well what was my interest to give his
consent to anything so much for my hurt; and that she wondered how
I could think of any such thing after the discourse I had had with
my father, and such kind and tender expressions as she knew my
father had used to me; and that, in short, if I would ruin myself,
there was no help for me; but I might depend I should never have
their consent to it; that for her part she would not have so much
hand in my destruction; and I should never have it to say that my
mother was willing when my father was not.
Though my mother refused to move it to my father, yet I heard
afterwards that she reported all the discourse to him, and that my
father, after showing a great concern at it, said to her, with a
sigh, “That boy might be happy if he would stay at home; but if he
goes abroad, he will be the most miserable wretch that ever was
born: I can give no consent to it.”
It was not till almost a year after this that I broke loose,
though, in the meantime, I continued obstinately deaf to all
proposals of settling to business, and frequently expostulated with
my father and mother about their being so positively determined
against what they knew my inclinations prompted me to. But
being one day at Hull, where I went casually, and without any
purpose of making an elopement at that time; but, I say, being
there, and one of my companions being about to sail to London in
his father’s ship, and prompting me to go with them with the common
allurement of seafaring men, that it should cost me nothing for my
passage, I consulted neither father nor mother any more, nor so
much as sent them word of it; but leaving them to hear of it as
they might, without asking God’s blessing or my father’s, without
any consideration of circumstances or consequences, and in an ill
hour, God knows, on the 1st of September 1651, I went on board a
ship bound for London. Never any young adventurer’s
misfortunes, I believe, began sooner, or continued longer than
mine. The ship was no sooner out of the Humber than the wind
began to blow and the sea to rise in a most frightful manner; and,
as I had never been at sea before, I was most inexpressibly sick in
body and terrified in mind. I began now seriously to reflect
upon what I had done, and how justly I was overtaken by the
judgment of Heaven for my wicked leaving my father’s house, and
abandoning my duty. All the good counsels of my parents, my
father’s tears and my mother’s entreaties, came now fresh into my
mind; and my conscience, which was not yet come to the pitch of
hardness to which it has since, reproached me with the contempt of
advice, and the breach of my duty to God and my
father.
All this while the storm increased, and the sea went very
high, though nothing like what I have seen many times since; no,
nor what I saw a few days after; but it was enough to affect me
then, who was but a young sailor, and had never known anything of
the matter. I expected every wave would have swallowed us up,
and that every time the ship fell down, as I thought it did, in the
trough or hollow of the sea, we should never rise more; in this
agony of mind, I made many vows and resolutions that if it would
please God to spare my life in this one voyage, if ever I got once
my foot upon dry land again, I would go directly home to my father,
and never set it into a ship again while I lived; that I would take
his advice, and never run myself into such miseries as these any
more. Now I saw plainly the goodness of his observations
about the middle station of life, how easy, how comfortably he had
lived all his days, and never had been exposed to tempests at sea
or troubles on shore; and I resolved that I would, like a true
repenting prodigal, go home to my father.
These wise and sober thoughts continued all the while the
storm lasted, and indeed some time after; but the next day the wind
was abated, and the sea calmer, and I began to be a little inured
to it; however, I was very grave for all that day, being also a
little sea-sick still; but towards night the weather cleared up,
the wind was quite over, and a charming fine evening followed; the
sun went down perfectly clear, and rose so the next morning; and
having little or no wind, and a smooth sea, the sun shining upon
it, the sight was, as I thought, the most delightful that ever I
saw.
I had slept well in the night, and was now no more sea-sick,
but very cheerful, looking with wonder upon the sea that was so
rough and terrible the day before, and could be so calm and so
pleasant in so little a time after. And now, lest my good
resolutions should continue, my companion, who had enticed me away,
comes to me; “Well, Bob,” says he, clapping me upon the shoulder,
“how do you do after it? I warrant you were frighted, wer’n’t
you, last night, when it blew but a capful of wind?” “A
capful d’you call it?” said I; “’twas a terrible storm.” “A
storm, you fool you,” replies he; “do you call that a storm? why,
it was nothing at all; give us but a good ship and sea-room, and we
think nothing of such a squall of wind as that; but you’re but a
fresh-water sailor, Bob. Come, let us make a bowl of punch,
and we’ll forget all that; d’ye see what charming weather ’tis
now?” To make short this sad part of my story, we went the
way of all sailors; the punch was made and I was made half drunk
with it: and in that one night’s wickedness I drowned all my
repentance, all my reflections upon my past conduct, all my
resolutions for the future. In a word, as the sea was
returned to its smoothness of surface and settled calmness by the
abatement of that storm, so the hurry of my thoughts being over, my
fears and apprehensions of being swallowed up by the sea being
forgotten, and the current of my former desires returned, I
entirely forgot the vows and promises that I made in my
distress. I found, indeed, some intervals of reflection; and
the serious thoughts did, as it were, endeavour to return again
sometimes; but I shook them off, and roused myself from them as it
were from a distemper, and applying myself to drinking and company,
soon mastered the return of those fits—for so I called them; and I
had in five or six days got as complete a victory over conscience
as any young fellow that resolved not to be troubled with it could
desire. But I was to have another trial for it still; and
Providence, as in such cases generally it does, resolved to leave
me entirely without excuse; for if I would not take this for a
deliverance, the next was to be such a one as the worst and most
hardened wretch among us would confess both the danger and the
mercy of.
The sixth day of our being at sea we came into Yarmouth
Roads; the wind having been contrary and the weather calm, we had
made but little way since the storm. Here we were obliged to
come to an anchor, and here we lay, the wind continuing
contrary—viz. at south-west—for seven or eight days, during which
time a great many ships from Newcastle came into the same Roads, as
the common harbour where the ships might wait for a wind for the
river.
We had not, however, rid here so long but we should have
tided it up the river, but that the wind blew too fresh, and after
we had lain four or five days, blew very hard. However, the
Roads being reckoned as good as a harbour, the anchorage good, and
our ground-tackle very strong, our men were unconcerned, and not in
the least apprehensive of danger, but spent the time in rest and
mirth, after the manner of the sea; but the eighth day, in the
morning, the wind increased, and we had all hands at work to strike
our topmasts, and make everything snug and close, that the ship
might ride as easy as possible. By noon the sea went very
high indeed, and our ship rode forecastle in, shipped several seas,
and we thought once or twice our anchor had come home; upon which
our master ordered out the sheet-anchor, so that we rode with two
anchors ahead, and the cables veered out to the bitter
end.
By this time it blew a terrible storm indeed; and now I began
to see terror and amazement in the faces even of the seamen
themselves. The master, though vigilant in the business of
preserving the ship, yet as he went in and out of his cabin by me,
I could hear him softly to himself say, several times, “Lord be
merciful to us! we shall be all lost! we shall be all undone!” and
the like. During these first hurries I was stupid, lying
still in my cabin, which was in the steerage, and cannot describe
my temper: I could ill resume the first penitence which I had so
apparently trampled upon and hardened myself against: I thought the
bitterness of death had been past, and that this would be nothing
like the first; but when the master himself came by me, as I said
just now, and said we should be all lost, I was dreadfully
frighted. I got up out of my cabin and looked out; but such a
dismal sight I never saw: the sea ran mountains high, and broke
upon us every three or four minutes; when I could look about, I
could see nothing but distress round us; two ships that rode near
us, we found, had cut their masts by the board, being deep laden;
and our men cried out that a ship which rode about a mile ahead of
us was foundered. Two more ships, being driven from their
anchors, were run out of the Roads to sea, at all adventures, and
that with not a mast standing. The light ships fared the
best, as not so much labouring in the sea; but two or three of them
drove, and came close by us, running away with only their spritsail
out before the wind.
Towards evening the mate and boatswain begged the master of
our ship to let them cut away the fore-mast, which he was very
unwilling to do; but the boatswain protesting to him that if he did
not the ship would founder, he consented; and when they had cut
away the fore-mast, the main-mast stood so loose, and shook the
ship so much, they were obliged to cut that away also, and make a
clear deck.
Any one may judge what a condition I must be in at all this,
who was but a young sailor, and who had been in such a fright
before at but a little. But if I can express at this distance
the thoughts I had about me at that time, I was in tenfold more
horror of mind upon account of my former convictions, and the
having returned from them to the resolutions I had wickedly taken
at first, than I was at death itself; and these, added to the
terror of the storm, put me into such a condition that I can by no
words describe it. But the worst was not come yet; the storm
continued with such fury that the seamen themselves acknowledged
they had never seen a worse. We had a good ship, but she was
deep laden, and wallowed in the sea, so that the seamen every now
and then cried out she would founder. It was my advantage in
one respect, that I did not know what they meant by
founder till I inquired. However,
the storm was so violent that I saw, what is not often seen, the
master, the boatswain, and some others more sensible than the rest,
at their prayers, and expecting every moment when the ship would go
to the bottom. In the middle of the night, and under all the
rest of our distresses, one of the men that had been down to see
cried out we had sprung a leak; another said there was four feet
water in the hold. Then all hands were called to the
pump. At that word, my heart, as I thought, died within me:
and I fell backwards upon the side of my bed where I sat, into the
cabin. However, the men roused me, and told me that I, that
was able to do nothing before, was as well able to pump as another;
at which I stirred up and went to the pump, and worked very
heartily. While this was doing the master, seeing some light
colliers, who, not able to ride out the storm were obliged to slip
and run away to sea, and would come near us, ordered to fire a gun
as a signal of distress. I, who knew nothing what they meant,
thought the ship had broken, or some dreadful thing happened.
In a word, I was so surprised that I fell down in a swoon. As
this was a time when everybody had his own life to think of, nobody
minded me, or what was become of me; but another man stepped up to
the pump, and thrusting me aside with his foot, let me lie,
thinking I had been dead; and it was a great while before I came to
myself.
We worked on; but the water increasing in the hold, it was
apparent that the ship would founder; and though the storm began to
abate a little, yet it was not possible she could swim till we
might run into any port; so the master continued firing guns for
help; and a light ship, who had rid it out just ahead of us,
ventured a boat out to help us. It was with the utmost hazard
the boat came near us; but it was impossible for us to get on
board, or for the boat to lie near the ship’s side, till at last
the men rowing very heartily, and venturing their lives to save
ours, our men cast them a rope over the stern with a buoy to it,
and then veered it out a great length, which they, after much
labour and hazard, took hold of, and we hauled them close under our
stern, and got all into their boat. It was to no purpose for
them or us, after we were in the boat, to think of reaching their
own ship; so all agreed to let her drive, and only to pull her in
towards shore as much as we could; and our master promised them,
that if the boat was staved upon shore, he would make it good to
their master: so partly rowing and partly driving, our boat went
away to the northward, sloping towards the shore almost as far as
Winterton Ness.
We were not much more than a quarter of an hour out of our
ship till we saw her sink, and then I understood for the first time
what was meant by a ship foundering in the sea. I must
acknowledge I had hardly eyes to look up when the seamen told me
she was sinking; for from the moment that they rather put me into
the boat than that I might be said to go in, my heart was, as it
were, dead within me, partly with fright, partly with horror of
mind, and the thoughts of what was yet before me.
While we were in this condition—the men yet labouring at the
oar to bring the boat near the shore—we could see (when, our boat
mounting the waves, we were able to see the shore) a great many
people running along the strand to assist us when we should come
near; but we made but slow way towards the shore; nor were we able
to reach the shore till, being past the lighthouse at Winterton,
the shore falls off to the westward towards Cromer, and so the land
broke off a little the violence of the wind. Here we got in,
and though not without much difficulty, got all safe on shore, and
walked afterwards on foot to Yarmouth, where, as unfortunate men,
we were used with great humanity, as well by the magistrates of the
town, who assigned us good quarters, as by particular merchants and
owners of ships, and had money given us sufficient to carry us
either to London or back to Hull as we thought fit.
Had I now had the sense to have gone back to Hull, and have
gone home, I had been happy, and my father, as in our blessed
Saviour’s parable, had even killed the fatted calf for me; for
hearing the ship I went away in was cast away in Yarmouth Roads, it
was a great while before he had any assurances that I was not
drowned.
But my ill fate pushed me on now with an obstinacy that
nothing could resist; and though I had several times loud calls
from my reason and my more composed judgment to go home, yet I had
no power to do it. I know not what to call this, nor will I
urge that it is a secret overruling decree, that hurries us on to
be the instruments of our own destruction, even though it be before
us, and that we rush upon it with our eyes open. Certainly,
nothing but some such decreed unavoidable misery, which it was
impossible for me to escape, could have pushed me forward against
the calm reasonings and persuasions of my most retired thoughts,
and against two such visible instructions as I had met with in my
first attempt.
My comrade, who had helped to harden me before, and who was
the master’s son, was now less forward than I. The first time
he spoke to me after we were at Yarmouth, which was not till two or
three days, for we were separated in the town to several quarters;
I say, the first time he saw me, it appeared his tone was altered;
and, looking very melancholy, and shaking his head, he asked me how
I did, and telling his father who I was, and how I had come this
voyage only for a trial, in order to go further abroad, his father,
turning to me with a very grave and concerned tone “Young man,”
says he, “you ought never to go to sea any more; you ought to take
this for a plain and visible token that you are not to be a
seafaring man.” “Why, sir,” said I, “will you go to sea no
more?” “That is another case,” said he; “it is my calling,
and therefore my duty; but as you made this voyage on trial, you
see what a taste Heaven has given you of what you are to expect if
you persist. Perhaps this has all befallen us on your
account, like Jonah in the ship of Tarshish. Pray,” continues
he, “what are you; and on what account did you go to sea?”
Upon that I told him some of my story; at the end of which he burst
out into a strange kind of passion: “What had I done,” says he,
“that such an unhappy wretch should come into my ship? I
would not set my foot in the same ship with thee again for a
thousand pounds.” This indeed was, as I said, an excursion of
his spirits, which were yet agitated by the sense of his loss, and
was farther than he could have authority to go. However, he
afterwards talked very gravely to me, exhorting me to go back to my
father, and not tempt Providence to my ruin, telling me I might see
a visible hand of Heaven against me. “And, young man,” said
he, “depend upon it, if you do not go back, wherever you go, you
will meet with nothing but disasters and disappointments, till your
father’s words are fulfilled upon you.”
We parted soon after; for I made him little answer, and I saw
him no more; which way he went I knew not. As for me, having
some money in my pocket, I travelled to London by land; and there,
as well as on the road, had many struggles with myself what course
of life I should take, and whether I should go home or to
sea.
As to going home, shame opposed the best motions that offered
to my thoughts, and it immediately occurred to me how I should be
laughed at among the neighbours, and should be ashamed to see, not
my father and mother only, but even everybody else; from whence I
have since often observed, how incongruous and irrational the
common temper of mankind is, especially of youth, to that reason
which ought to guide them in such cases—viz. that they are not
ashamed to sin, and yet are ashamed to repent; not ashamed of the
action for which they ought justly to be esteemed fools, but are
ashamed of the returning, which only can make them be esteemed wise
men.
In this state of life, however, I remained some time,
uncertain what measures to take, and what course of life to
lead. An irresistible reluctance continued to going home; and
as I stayed away a while, the remembrance of the distress I had
been in wore off, and as that abated, the little motion I had in my
desires to return wore off with it, till at last I quite laid aside
the thoughts of it, and looked out for a voyage.
