The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808)

by Daniel Defoe

We were now bound to the Gulf of Persia, and from thence to the coast of Coromandel, only to touch at Surat; but the chief of the supercargo’s design lay at the Bay of Bengal, where if he missed of the business outward-bound he was to go up to China, and return to the coast as he came home.

The first disaster that befel us was in the Gulf of Persia, where five of our men venturing on shore on the Arabian side of the Gulf were surrounded by the Arabs, and either all killed or carried away into slavery; the rest of the boat’s crew were not able to rescue them, and had but just time to get off their boat. I began to upbraid them with the just retribution of Heaven in this case; but the boatswain very warmly told me, he thought I went farther in my censures than I could show any warrant for in Scripture, and referred to the thirteenth of St. Luke, ver. 4, where our Saviour intimates that those men on whom the tower of Siloam fell, were not sinners above all the Galileans; but that which indeed put me to silence in this case was, that none of these five men who were now lost were of the number of those who went on shore to the massacre of Madagascar (so I always called it, though our men could not bear the word massacre with any patience:) and indeed this last circumstance, as I have said, put me to silence for the present.

But my frequent preaching to them on this subject had worse consequences than I expected; and the boatswain, who had been the head of the attempt, came up boldly to me one time, and told me he found that I continually brought that affair upon the stage, that I made unjust reflections upon it, and had used the men very ill on that account, and himself in particular; that as I was but a passenger, and had no command in the ship, or concern in the voyage, they were not obliged to bear it; that they did not know but I might have some ill design in my head, and perhaps call them to an account for it when they came to England; and that therefore, unless I would resolve to have done with it, and also not to concern myself farther with him, or any of his affairs, he would leave the ship; for he did not think it was safe to sail with me among them.

I heard him patiently enough till he had done, and then told him that I did confess I had all along opposed the massacre of Madagascar, for such I would always call it; and that I had on all occasions spoken my mind freely about it, though not more upon him than any of the rest; that as to my having no command in the ship, that was true, nor did I exercise any authority, only took the liberty of speaking my mind in things which publicly concerned us all: as to what concern I had in the voyage, that was none of his business; I was a considerable owner of the ship, and in that claim I conceived I had a right to speak, even farther than I had yet done, and would not be accountable to him or any one else; and began to be a little warm with him: he made but little reply to me at that time, and I thought that affair had been over. We were at this time in the road to Bengal; and being willing to see the place, I went on shore with the supercargo, in the ship’s boat, to divert myself; and towards evening was preparing to go on board, when one of the men came to me, and told me he would not have me trouble myself to come down to the boat, for they had orders not to carry me on board. Any one may guess what a surprise I was in at so insolent a message; and I asked the man who bade him deliver that errand to me? He told me, the coxswain. I said no more to the fellow, but bid him let them know he had delivered his message, and that I had given him no answer to it.

I immediately went and round out the supercargo, and told him the story, adding, what I presently foresaw, viz. that there would certainly be a mutiny in the ship; and entreated him to go immediately on board the ship in an Indian boat, and acquaint the captain of it: but I might have spared this intelligence, for before I had spoken to him on shore the matter was effected on board: the boatswain, the gunner, the carpenter, and, in a word, all the inferior officers, as soon as I was gone off in the boat, came up to the quarter-deck, and desired to speak with the captain; and there the boatswain making a long harangue, (for the fellow talked very well) and repeating all he had said to me, told the captain in a few words, that as I was now gone peaceably on shore, they were loath to use any violence with me; which if I had not gone on shore, they would otherwise have done, to oblige me to have gone. They therefore thought fit to tell him, that as they shipped themselves to serve in the ship under his command, they would perform it faithfully; but if I would not quit the ship, or the captain oblige me to quit it, they would all leave the ship, and sail no farther with him; and at that word All, he turned his face about towards the main-mast, which was, it seems, the signal agreed on between them, at which all the seamen being got together, they cried out, “One and All, One and All!”

My nephew, the captain, was a man of spirit, and of great presence of mind; and though he was surprised, you may be sure, at the thing, yet he told them calmly he would consider of the matter, but that he could do nothing in it till he had spoken to me about it: he used some arguments with them, to shew them the unreasonableness and injustice of the thing, but it was all in vain; they swore, and shook hands round, before his face, that they would go all on shore unless he would engage to them not to suffer me to come on board the ship.

This was a hard article upon him, who knew his obligation to me, and did not know how I might take it; so he began to talk cavalierly to them; told them that I was a very considerable owner of the ship, and that in justice he could not put me out of my own house; that this was next door to serving me as the famous pirate Kid had done, who made the mutiny in the ship, set the captain on shore in an uninhabited island, and ran away with the ship; that let them go into what ship they would, if ever they came to England again it would cost them dear; that the ship was mine, and that he would not put me out of it; and that he would rather lose the ship, and the voyage too, than disoblige me so much; so they might do as they pleased. However, he would go on shore, and talk with me there, and invited the boatswain to go with him, and perhaps they might accommodate the matter with me.

But they all rejected the proposal; and said, they would have nothing to do with me any more, neither on board nor on shore; and if I came on board, they would go on shore. “Well,” said the captain, “if you are all of this mind, let me go on shore, and talk with him:” so away he came to me with this account, a little after the message had been brought to me from the coxswain.

I was very glad to see my nephew I must confess, for I was not without apprehensions that they would confine him by violence, set sail, and run away with the ship; and then I had been stripped naked, in a remote country, and nothing to help myself: in short, I had been in a worse case than when I was all alone in the island.

But they had not come to that length, it seems, to my great satisfaction; and when my nephew told me what they had said to him, and how they had sworn, and shook hands, that they would one and all leave the ship, if I was suffered to come on board, I told him he should not be concerned at it at all, for I would stay onshore; I only desired he would take care and send me all my necessary things on shore, and leave me a sufficient sum of money, and I would find my way to England as well as I could.