Then I begged I might have my clothes on shore with me. He told me he was
afraid I should have little need of clothes, for he did not see how we
could long subsist on the island, and that he had been told that the
inhabitants were cannibals or men-eaters (though he had no reason for that
suggestion), and we should not be able to live among them. I told him I was
not so afraid of that as I was of starving for want of victuals; and as for
the inhabitants being cannibals, I believed we should be more likely to eat
them than they us, if we could but get at them. But I was mightily
concerned, I said, we should have no weapons with us to defend ourselves,
and I begged nothing now, but that he would give me a gun and a sword, with
a little powder and shot.

He smiled, and said they would signify nothing to us, for it was impossible
for us to pretend to preserve our lives among such a populous and desperate
nation as the people of this island were. I told him that, however, it
would do us this good, for we should not be devoured or destroyed
immediately; so I begged hard for the gun. At last he told me he did not
know whether the captain would give him leave to give me a gun, and if not,
he durst not do it; but he promised to use his interest to obtain it for
me, which he did, and the next day he sent me a gun, with some ammunition,
but told me the captain would not suffer the ammunition to be given us till
we were set all on shore, and till he was just going to set sail. He also
sent me the few clothes I had in the ship, which indeed were not many.

Two days after this, we were all carried on shore together; the rest of my
fellow-criminals hearing I had a gun, and some powder and shot, solicited
for liberty to carry the like with them, which was also granted them; and
thus we were set on shore to shift for ourselves.

At our first coming into the island we were terrified exceedingly with the