The Novels of Daniel Defoe, Part I Vol 2

W R Owens, P N Furbank, G A Starr, N H Keeble

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138111585
• eBook ISBN: 9781351220729
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Daniel Defoe is known as the father of the English novel. This is the modern critical edition of Defoe's novels. It brings together all three parts of "Robinson Crusoe" and examines their relationship. The editorial material includes an introduction to each novel, explanatory endnotes, textual notes, and a consolidated index in volume 10.

The FATHER
ADVENTURES
OF
ROBINSON CRUSOE, &c.

THAT homely Proverb used on so many Occasions in England, viz. That what is bred in the Bone will not go out of the Flesh,⁹ was never more verify’d, than in the Story of my Life. Any one would think, that after thirty-five Years Affliction, and a Variety of unhappy Circumstances, which few Men, if any ever, went thro’ before, and after near seven Years of Peace and Enjoyment in the Fulness of all Things; grown old, and when, if ever, it might be allowed me to have had Experience of every State of middle Life, and to know which was most adapted to make a Man compleatly happy: I say, after all this, any one would have thought that the native Propensity to rambling, which I gave an Account of in my first Setting out into the World, to have been so predominate in my Thoughts, should be worn out, the volatile Part be fully evacuated, or at least condens’d, and I might at 61 Years of Age¹⁰ have been a little enclin’d to stay at Home, and have done venturing Life and Fortune any more.

Nay farther, the common Motive of foreign Adventures was taken away in me; for I had no Fortune to make, I had nothing to seek: If I had gain’d ten thousand Pound, I had been no richer; for I had already sufficient for me, and for those I had to leave it to; and that I had was visibly encreasing; for having no great Family, I could not spend the Income of what I had, unless I would set up for an expensive Way of Living, such as a great Family, Servants, Equipage,¹¹ Gayety,¹² and the like, which were Things I had no Notion of, or Inclination to; so that I had nothing indeed to do, but to sit still, and fully enjoy what I had got, and see it encrease daily upon my Hands.

Yet all these Things had no Effect upon me, or at least, not enough to resist the strong inclination I had to go Abroad again, which hung about me like a chronical Distemper;¹³ particularly the Desire of seeing my new Plantation in the Island, and the Colony I left there, run in my Head continually. I dream’d of it all Night, and my Imagination run upon it all Day; it was uppermost in all my Thoughts, and my Fancy work’d so steadily and strongly upon it, that I talk’d of it in my Sleep; in short, nothing could remove it out of my Mind; it even broke so violently into all my Discourses, that it made my Conversation tiresome; for I could talk of nothing else, all my Discourse run into it, even to Impertinence, and I saw it my self.

I have often heard Persons of good Judgment say, That all the Stirr People make in the World about Ghosts and Apparitions, is owing to the Strength of Imagination, and the powerful Operation of Fancy in their Minds; that there is no such Thing as a Spirit appearing, or a Ghost walking, and the like: That Peoples poreing affectionately upon the past Conversation of their deceas’d Friends, so realizes it to them, that they are capable of fancying upon some extraordinary Circumstances, that they see them; talk to them, and are answered by them, when, in Truth, there is nothing but Shadow and Vapour in the Thing; and they really know nothing of the Matter.

For my Part, I know not to this Hour, whether there are any such Things as real Apparitions, Spectres, or walking of People after they are dead, or whether there is any Thing in the Stories they tell us of that Kind, more than the Product of Vapours,¹⁴ sick Minds, and wandring Fancies; But this I know, that my Imagination work’d up to such a Height, and brought me into such Extasies of Vapours, or what else I may call it, that I actually suppos’d my self, often-times upon the Spot, at my old Castle behind the Trees; saw my old Spaniard, Friday’s Father, and the reprobate Sailors I left upon the Island; nay, I fancy’d I talk’d with them, and look’d at them so steadily, tho’ I was broad awake, as at Persons just before me; and this I did till I often frighted my self with the Images my Fancy represented to me: One Time in my Sleep I had the Villany of the 3 Pyrate Sailors so lively related to me by the first Spaniard and Friday’s Father, that it was surprizing; they told me how they barbarously attempted to murder all the Spaniards, and that they set Fire to the Provisions they had laid up, on Purpose to distress and starve them, Things that I had never heard of, and that indeed were never all of them true in Fact: But it was so warm in my Imagination, and so realiz’d to me, that to the Hour I saw them, I could not be perswaded, but that it was or would be true; also how I resented it, when the Spaniard complain’d to me, and how I brought them to Justice, try’d them before me, and order’d them all three to be hang’d: What there was really in this, shall be seen in its Place: For however I^a came to form such Things in my Dream, and what secret Converse of Spirits injected it, yet there was very much of it true. I say, I own, that this Dream had nothing in it literally and specifically true: But the general Part was so true, the base villanious Behaviour of these three harden’d Rogues was such, and had been so much worse than all I can describe, that the Dream had too much Similitude of the Fact, and as I would afterwards have punished them severely; so if I had hang’d them all, I had been much in the Right, and should ha’ been justifiable both by the Laws of God and Man.

But to return to my Story; in this Kind of Temper I had liv’d some Years, I had no Enjoyment of my Life, no pleasant Hours, no agreeable Diversion, but what had some Thing or other of this in it; so that my Wife, who saw my Mind so wholly bent upon it, told me very seriously one Night, That she believ’d there was some secret powerful Impulse of Providence upon me, which had determin’d me to go thither again; and that she found nothing hindred my going, but my being engag’d to a Wife and Children. She told me that it was true she could not think of parting with me; but as she was assur’d, that if she was dead, it would be the first Thing I would do: So as it seem’d to her, that the Thing was determin’d above, she would not be the only Obstruction; for if I thought fit, and resolv’d to go — here she found me very intent upon her Words, and that I look’d very earnestly at her; so that it a little disorder’d her, and she stopp’d. I ask’d her, Why she did not go on, and say out what she was going to say? But I perceiv’d her Heart was too full, and some Tears stood in her Eyes: Speak out my Dear, said I, Are you willing I should go? No, says she very affectionately, I am far from willing: But if you are resolv’d to go, says she, and rather than I will be the only Hinderance, I will go with you; for tho’ I think it a most preposterous Thing for one of your Years, and in your Condition, yet if it must be, said she again weeping, I won’t leave you; for if it be of Heaven, you must do it. There is no resisting it; and if Heaven makes it your Duty to go, he will also make it mine to go with you, or otherwise dispose of me, that I may not obstruct it.

This affectionate Behaviour of my Wife’s brought me a little out of the Vapours, and I began to consider what I was a doing; I corrected my wandring Fancy, and began to argue with my self sedately, what Business I had after threescore Years, and after such a Life of tedious Sufferings and Disasters, and closed in so happy and easy a Manner, I say, what Business I had to rush into new Hazards, and put my self upon Adventures, fit only for Youth and Poverty to run into.

With those Thoughts, I considered my new Engagement, that I had a Wife, one Child born, and my Wife then great with Child of another; that I had all the World could give me, and had no Need to seek Hazards for Gain; that I was declining in Years, and ought to think rather of leaving what I had gain’d, than of seeking to encrease it; that as to what my Wife had said, of its being an Impulse from Heaven, and that it should be my Duty to go, I had no Notion of that; so after many of these Cogitations, I struggled with the Power of my Imagination, reason’d my self out of it, as I believe People may always do in like Cases, if they will; and, in a Word, I conquer’d it; compos’d my self with such Arguments as occurr’d to my Thought, and which my present Condition furnish’d me plentifully with, and particularly, as the most effectual Method, I resolv’d to divert my self with other Things, and to engage in some Business that might effectually tye me up from any more Excursions of this Kind; for I found that Thing return upon me chiefly when I was idle, had nothing to do, or any Thing of Moment immediately before me.

To this Purpose I bought a little Farm in the County of Bedford, and resolv’d to remove my self thither. I had a little convenient House upon it, and the Land about it I found was capable of great Improvement, and that it was many Ways suited to my Inclination, which delighted in Cultivating, Managing, Planting, and Improving of Land; and particularly, being an Inland County, I was remov’d from conversing among Ships, Sailors, and Things relating to the remote Part of the World.

In a Word, I went down to my Farm, settled my Family, bought me Ploughs, Harrows, a Cart, Wagon, Horses, Cows, Sheep; and setting seriously to Work, became in one half Year, a meer¹⁵ Country Gentleman; my Thoughts were entirely taken up in managing my Servants, cultivating the Ground, Enclosing, Planting, &c. and I liv’d, as I thought, the most agreeable Life that Nature was capable of directing, or that a Man always bred to Misfortunes was capable of being retreated to.

I farm’d upon my own Land, I had no Rent to pay, was limited by no Articles;¹⁶ I could pull up or cut down as I pleased: What I planted, was for my self, and what I improved, was for my Family; and having thus left off the Thoughts of Wandring, I had not the least Discomfort in any Part of Life, as to this World. Now I thought indeed, that I enjoy’d the middle State of Life, that my Father so early recommended to me,¹⁷ and liv’d a kind of heavenly Life, something like what is described by the Poet upon the Subject of a Country Life.

Free from Vices, free from Care,

Age has no Pain, and Youth no Snare.¹⁸

But in the Middle of all this Felicity, one Blow from unforeseen Providence unhing’d me at once; and not only made a Breach upon me inevitable and incurable, but drove me, by its Consequences, into a deep Relapse into the wandring Disposition, which, as I may say, being born in my very Blood, soon recover’d its hold of me, and like the Returns of a violent Distemper, came on with an irresistible Force upon me; so that nothing could make any more Impression upon me. This Blow was the Loss of my Wife.

It is not my Business here to write an Elegy upon my Wife, give a Character of her particular Virtues, and make my Court to the Sex by the Flattery of a Funeral Sermon. She was, in a few Words, the Stay of all my Affairs, the Centre of all my Enterprizes, the Engine,¹⁹ that by her Prudence reduc’d me to that happy Compass I was in, from the most extravagant and ruinous Project that flutter’d in my Head, as above; and did more to guide my rambling Genius, than a Mother’s Tears, a Father’s Instructions, a Friend’s Counsel, or all my own reasoning Powers could do. I was happy in listening to her Tears, and in being mov’d by her Entreaties, and to the last Degree desolate and dislocated in the World by the Loss of her.

When she was gone, the World look’d aukwardly round me; I was as much a Stranger in it, in my Thoughts, as I was in the Brasils, when I went first on Shore there; and as much alone, except as to the Assistance of Servants, as I was in my Island. I knew neither what to do, or what not to do. I saw the World busy round me, one Part labouring for Bread, and the other Part squandring in vile Excesses or empty Pleasures, equally miserable, because the End they propos’d still fled from them; for the Man of Pleasure every Day surfeited of his Vice, and heap’d up Work for Sorrow and Repentance; and the Men of Labour spent their Strength in daily Struggles for Bread to maintain the vital Strength they labour’d with, so living in a daily Circulation of Sorrow, living but to work, and working but to live, as if daily Bread were the only End of wearisome Life, and a wearisome Life the only Occasion of daily Bread.

This put me in Mind of the Life I liv’d in my Kingdom, the Island; where I suffer’d no more Corn to grow, because I did not want it; and bred no more Goats, because I had no more Use for them: Where the Money lay in the Drawer ’till it grew mouldy, and had scarce the Favour to be look’d upon in 20 Years.

All these Things, had I improv’d them as I ought to have done, and as Reason and Religion had dictated to me, would have taught me to search farther than human Enjoyments for a full Felicity, and that there was something which certainly was the Reason and End of Life, superiour to all these Things, and which was either to be possess’d, or at least hop’d for on this Side the Grave.

But my Sage Counsellor was gone, I was like a Ship without a Pilot, that could only run afore the Wind: My Thoughts run all away again into the old Affair, my Head quite was turn’d with the Whimsies of foreign Adventures, and all the pleasant innocent Amusements of my Farm, and my Garden, my Cattel, and my Family, which before entirely possest me, were nothing to me, had no Relish, and were like Musick to one that has no Ear, or Food to one that has no Taste: In a Word, I resolv’d to leave off Housekeeping, lett my Farm, and return to London; and in a few Months after, I did so.

When I came to London, I was still as uneasy as I was before, I had no Relish to the Place, no Employment in it, nothing to do but to saunter about like an idle Person, of whom it may be said, he is perfectly useless in God’s Creation; and it is not one Farthing Matter to the rest of his Kind, whether he be dead or alive. This also was the Life, which of all Circumstances of Life was the most my Aversion, who had been all my Days used to an active Life; and I would often say to my self, A State of Idleness is the very Dregs of Life; and indeed I thought I was much more suitably employ’d, when I was 26 Days a making me a Deal Board.²⁰

It was now the Beginning of the Year 1693,²¹ when my Nephew, who as I had observ’d before I had brought up to the Sea, and had made him Commander of a Ship, was come Home from a short Voyage to Bilboa, being the first he had made; and he came to me, and told me, that some Merchants of his Acquaintance had been proposing to him to go a Voyage for them to the East Indies and to China, as private Traders:²² And now Uncle, says he, if you will go to Sea with me, I’ll engage to land you upon your old Habitation in the Island, for we are to touch at the Brasils.

Nothing can be a greater Demonstration of a future State, and of the Existence of an invisible World, than the Concurrence of second Causes,²³ with the Ideas of Things, which we form in our Minds, perfectly reserv’d, and not communicated to any in the World.

My Nephew knew nothing how far my Distemper of Wandring was return’d upon me, and I knew nothing of what he had in his Thoughts to say, when that very Morning before he came to me, I had in a great deal of Confusion of Thought, and revolving every Part of my Circumstances in my Mind, come to this Resolution, viz. That I would go to Lisbon, and consult with my old Sea-Captain; and so if it was rational and practicable, I would go and see the Island again, and see what was...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719)
• Explanatory notes
• Textual notes