substantiate the narrative. For example, in the description, on page 263,
of the savages who lined the perilous channel in a half-moon, where the
European ship lay, we find the afterthoughts are added so naturally, that
they would carry conviction to any judge or jury:--

"They little thought what service they had done us, and how
unwittingly, and by the greatest ignorance, they had made
themselves pilots to us, while we, having not sounded the place,
might have been lost before we were aware. _It is true we might
have sounded our new harbour, before we had ventured out; but I
cannot say for certain, whether we should or not; for I, for my
part, had not the least suspicion of what our real case was;
however, I say, perhaps, before we had weighed, we should have
looked about us a little._"

Turning to the other literary qualities that make Defoe's novels great,
if little read, classics, how delightful are the little satiric touches
that add grave weight to the story. Consider the following: "My good
gipsy mother, for some of her worthy actions, no doubt, happened in
process of time to be hanged, and as this fell out something too soon
for me to be perfected in the strolling trade," &c.(p. 3). Every other
word here is dryly satiric, and the large free callousness and careless
brutality of Defoe's days with regard to the life of criminals is
conveyed in half a sentence. And what an amount of shrewd observation is
summed up in this one saying: "Upon these foundations, William said he
was satisfied we might trust them; for, says William, I would as soon
trust a man whose interest binds him to be just to me, as a man whose
principle binds himself" (p. 227). Extremely subtle is also this remark:
"_Why, says I, did you ever know a pirate repent?_ At this he
started a little and returned, _At the gallows_ I have known