wonder. I had no remedy, but to go on: I had got into an employment
quite remote to my genius, and directly contrary to the life I delighted
in, and for which I forsook my father's house, and broke through all his
good advice: nay, I was coining into the very middle station, or upper
degree of low life, which my father advised me to before; and which, if
I resolved to go on with, I might as well have staid at home, and never
have fatigued myself in the world, as I had done: and I used often to
say to myself, I could have done this as well in England, among my
friends, as have gone five thousand miles off to do it among strangers
and savages, in a wilderness, and at such a distance as never to hear
from any part of the world that had the least knowledge of me.

In this manner, I used to look upon my condition with the utmost regret.
I had nobody to converse with, but now and then this neighbour; no work
to be done, but by the labour of my hands: and I used to say, I lived
just like a man cast away upon some desolate island, that had nobody
there but himself. But how just has it been! and how should all men
reflect, that when they compare their present conditions with others
that are worse, Heaven may oblige them to make the exchange, and be
convinced of their former felicity by their experience: I say, how just
has it been, that the truly solitary life I reflected on, in an island
of mere desolation, should be my lot, who had so often unjustly compared
it with the life which I then led, in which, had I continued, I had, in
all probability, been exceeding prosperous and rich.

I was, in some degree, settled in my measures for carrying on the
plantation, before my kind friend, the captain of the ship that took me
up at sea, went back; for the ship remained there, in providing his
lading, and preparing for his voyage, near three months; when, telling
him what little stock I had left behind me in London, he gave me this