And thus I left the island the nineteenth of December, as I found by the ship’s account, in the year 1686, after I had been upon it eight-and-twenty years, two months, and nineteen days: being delivered from the second captivity the same day of the month that I first made my escape in the barco-longo, from among the Moors of Sallee.
In this vessel, after a long voyage, I arrived in England the eleventh of June, in the year 1687; having been thirty and five years absent.
When I came to England, I was a perfect stranger to all the world, as if I had never been known there: my benefactor, and faithful steward, whom I had left in trust with my money, was alive, but had had great misfortunes in the world, was become a widow the second time, and very low in the world: I made her easy as to what she owed me, assuring her I would give her no trouble; but on the contrary, in gratitude to her former care and faithfulness to me, I relieved her as my little stock would afford, which at that time would indeed allow me to do but little for her: but I assured her, I would never forget her former kindness to me; nor did I forget her, when I had sufficient to help her; as shall be observed in its place.
I went down afterwards into Yorkshire; but my father was dead, and my mother and all the family extinct; except that I found two sisters, and two of the children of one of my brothers: and as I had been long ago given over for dead, there had been no provision made for me, so that, in a word, I found nothing to relieve or assist me; and that little money I had, would not do much for me as to settling in the world.
I met with one piece of gratitude indeed, which I did not expect; and this was, that the master of the ship, whom I had so happily delivered, and by the same means saved the ship and cargo, having given a very handsome account to the owners, of the manner how I had saved the lives of the men, and the ship, they invited me to meet them and some other merchants concerned, and all together made me a very handsome compliment upon that subject, and a present of almost two hundred pounds sterling.
But after making several reflections upon the circumstances of my life, and how little way this would go towards settling me in the world, I resolved to go to Lisbon, and see if I might not come by some information of the state of my plantation in the Brasils, and what was become of my partner, who, I had reason to suppose, had some years now given me over for dead.
With this view I took shipping for Lisbon, where I arrived in April following; my man Friday accompanying me very honestly in all these ramblings, and proving a most faithful servant upon all occasions.
When I came to Lisbon, I found out, by inquiry, and to my particular satisfaction, my old friend the captain of the ship, who first took me up at sea, off the shore of Africa: he was now grown old, and had left off the sea, having put his son, who was far from a young man, into his ship; and who still used the Brasil trade. The old man did not know me, and, indeed, I hardly knew him; but I soon brought myself to his remembrance, when I told him who I was.
After some passionate expressions of our old acquaintance, I inquired, you may be sure, after my plantation and my partner; the old man told me, he had not been in the Brasils for about nine years; but that he could assure me, that when he came away, my partner was living; but the trustees, whom I had joined with him, to take cognizance of my part, were both dead; that, however, he believed that I would have a very good account of the improvement of the plantation; for that, upon the general belief of my being cast away and drowned, my trustees had given in the account of the produce of my part of the plantation, to the procurator fiscal; who had appropriated it, in case I never came to claim it, one third to the king, and two thirds to the monastery of St. Augustine, to be expended for the benefit of the poor, and for the conversion of the Indians to the Catholic faith; but that if I appeared, or any one for me, to claim the inheritance, it would be restored; only that the improvement, or annual production, being distributed to charitable uses, could not be restored; but he assured me, that the steward of the king’s revenue, (from lands) and the provedore, or steward of the monastery, had taken great care all along, that the incumbent, that is to say, my partner, gave every year a faithful account of the produce, of which they received duly my moiety.
I asked him, if he knew to what height of improvement he had brought the plantation; and whether he thought it might be worth looking after; or whether, on my going thither, I should meet with no obstruction to my possessing my just right in the moiety.