The stranger called out to him in English, and Ashton replied that he might safely land, for that he was the only inhabitant of the island, and as good as dead.
The whole incident is most curious, but the strangest fact of all is the unenthusiastic terms in which our hero describes the matter. It is clear he must have been almost at death's door. This stranger proved to be a native of North Britain; Scotchmen were then so called. "He was well advanced in years, and of a spare and venerable aspect, and of a reserved temper.... He informed me he had lived two-and-twenty years with the Spaniards, who now threatened to burn him, for what crime I did not know. He had fled to the 'key' as an asylum, bringing with him his dog, gun, ammunition, and also a small quantity of pork." Ashton goes on to say that the stranger showed him much kindness, and gave him "some of his pork."
On the third day after his arrival, the new-comer prepared to make an excursion in his canoe to some of the neighboring islands for the purpose of killing deer. Our hero, though much cheered by his society, and especially by the fire, the means of kindling which the other had brought with him, and by eating cooked food, was too weak and sore-footed to accompany him. The sky was cloudless, and the man had already come six-and-thirty miles in safety, so that their parting seemed only a "good-day."
But it was final. A storm arose within the hour, in which his visitor doubtless perished.
What is very singular, Ashton never had the curiosity to ask him his name; and though our hero found himself so suddenly deprived of his companion, and reduced to his former lonely state, he consoled himself with the reflection that he was in far better circumstances than before. He had "pork, a knife, a bottle of gunpowder, tobacco, tongs, and a flint." He could now cut up a turtle and boil it.
Three months afterward another canoe came on shore, but without a tenant. The possession of this vessel was a somewhat doubtful boon to him. He rowed in it to another "key" miles away, where, having landed, he lay down to sleep, with his face to the sea, as usual, and his back to a tree.
"I was awakened by a noise of firing, and starting up beheld nine piraguas [large canoes] full of men, all firing at me. I ran among the bushes as fast as my sore feet would allow, while they called after me, 'Surrender yourself, O Englishman, and we will give you good quarter.'" By their firing at an inoffensive man Ashton knew that they were Spaniards, and guessed what was their idea of "good quarter." After hiding in the woods for that night he returned to his little island the next day, and to the hut of boughs, "which now seemed a royal palace to me."
After nineteen months' residence alone on this spot, save for that three days' visit from the stranger, Ashton was joined by seventeen Englishmen, fugitives from Spanish cruelty. They were accustomed to hardships and miseries, but "they started back in horror at the sight of so wild, ragged, and wretched an object."
A spoonful of rum which they administered to him almost took away his life, owing to his long disuse of strong liquors. They clothed and fed him, and were very good to him, though "in their common conversation," as he naïvely remarks, "there was very little difference between them and pirates."
Considering what he had gone through, one is inclined to wonder how Mr. Philip Ashton could have been so very particular. He seems to have been an honest, good man, and did not forget to express his earnest gratitude to Providence when rescued at last by a British sloop driven near his "key" by stress of weather. He arrived home at Salem in March, 1725, having spent eight months on board a pirate ship, and nineteen on the "key." "That same evening," he says, "I went to my father's house, where I was received as one risen from the dead."