The History and Remarkable Life of the Truly Honourable Colonel Jacque, Commonly Called Colonel Jack

by Daniel Defoe

And here let me hint, that having now, as it were, received my life at the hands of King George, and in a manner so satisfying as it was to me, it made a generous convert of me, and I became sincerely given in to the interest of King George; and this from a principle of gratitude and a sense of my obligation to his Majesty for my life; and it has continued ever since, and will certainly remain with me as long as any sense of honour and of the debt of gratitude remains with me. I mention this to hint how far in such cases justice and duty to ourselves commands us; namely, that to those who graciously give us our lives when it is in their power to take them away, those lives are a debt ever after, and ought to be set apart for their service and interest as long as any of the powers of life remain, for gratitude is a debt that never ceases while the benefit received remains; and if my prince has given me my life, I can never pay the debt fully, unless such a circumstance as this should happen, that the prince’s life should be in my power, and I as generously preserved it. And yet neither would the obligation be paid then, because the cases would differ; thus, that my preserving the life of my prince was my natural duty, whereas the prince on his side, my life being forfeited to him, had no motive but mere clemency and beneficence.

Perhaps this principle may not please all that read it; but as I have resolved to guide my actions in things of such a nature by the rules of strict virtue and principles of honour, so I must lay it down as a rule of honour, that a man having once forfeited his life to the justice of his prince and to the laws of his country, and receiving it back as a bounty from the grace of his sovereign, such a man can never lift up his hand again against that prince without a forfeiture of his virtue and an irreparable breach of his honour and duty, and deserves no pardon after it either from God or man. But all this is a digression: I leave it as a sketch of the laws of honour, printed by the laws of nature in the breast of a soldier or a man of honour, and which, I believe, all impartial persons who understand what honour means will subscribe to.

But I return now to my present circumstances. My wife was gone, and with her all my good fortune and success in business seemed to have forsaken me; and I had another scene of misery to go through, after I had thought that all my misfortunes were over and at an end.

My sloop, as I have told you, arrived, but having met with a pirate rogue in the Gulf of Florida, they took her first; then finding her cargo to be all eatables, which they always want, they gutted her of all her loading, except, as I have said, about a hundred sacks of malt, which they really knew not what to do with; and, which was still worse, they took away all the men except the master and two boys, who they left on board just to run the vessel into Antigua, where they said they were bound.

But the most valuable part of my cargo, viz., a packet of letters from England, those they left, to my inexpressible comfort and satisfaction; and, particularly, that by those I saw my way home to return to my wife and to my plantations, from which I promised myself never to wander any more.

In order to this, I now embarked myself and all my effects on board the sloop, resolving to sail directly to the Capes of Virginia. My captain beating it up to reach the Bahama channel, had not been two days at sea but we were overtaken by a violent storm, which drove us so far upon the coast of Florida as that we twice struck upon the shore, and had we struck a third time we had been inevitably lost. A day or two after that, the storm abating a little, we kept the sea, but found the wind blowing so strong against our passing the gulf, and the sea going so high, we could not hold it any longer. So we were forced to bear away and make what shift we could; in which distress, the fifth day after, we made land, but found it to be Cape ——, the north-west part of the isle of Cuba. Here we found ourselves under a necessity to run in under the land for shelter, though we had not come to an anchor, so we had not touched the king of Spain’s territories at all. However, in the morning we were surrounded with five Spanish barks, or boats, such as they call barco longos, full of men, who instantly boarded us, took us and carried us into the Havannah, the most considerable port belonging to the Spaniards in that part of the world.

Here the sloop was immediately seized, and in consequence plundered, as any one that knows the Spaniards, especially in that country, will easily guess. Our men were made prisoners and sent to the common gaol; and as for myself and the captain, we were carried before the Alcade Major, or intendant of the place, as criminals.

I spoke Spanish very well, having served under the king of Spain in Italy, and it stood me in good stead at this time; for I so effectually argued the injustice of their treatment of me that the governor, or what I ought to call him, frankly owned they ought not to have stopped me, seeing I was in the open sea pursuing my voyage, and offered no offence to anybody, and had not landed or offered to land upon any part of his Catholic Majesty’s dominions till I was brought as a prisoner.

It was a great favour that I could obtain thus much; but I found it easier to obtain an acknowledgment that I had received wrong than to get any satisfaction for that wrong, and much less was there any hope or prospect of restitution; and I was let know that I was to wait till an account could be sent to the viceroy of Mexico, and orders could be received back from him how to act in the affair.

I could easily foresee what all this tended to, namely, to a confiscation of the ship and goods by the ordinary process at the place; and that my being left to the decision of the viceroy of Mexico was but a pretended representation of things to him from the corregidore or judge of the place.