I now began to consider seriously my condition, and the circumstance I was reduced to; and I drew up the state of my affairs in writing, not so much to leave them to any that were to come after me (for I was like to have but few heirs,) as to deliver my thoughts from daily poring upon them, and afflicting my mind:  and as my reason began now to master my despondency, I began to comfort myself as well as I could, and to set the good against the evil, that I might have something to distinguish my case from worse; and I stated very impartially, like debtor and creditor, the comforts I enjoyed against the miseries I suffered, thus: 

     EVIL.

     I am cast upon a horrible,
     desolate island, void of all
     hope of recovery.

     I am singled out and separated,
     as it were, from all the
     world, to be miserable.

     I am divided from mankind,
     a solitaire; one banished
     from human society.

     I have no clothes to cover
     me.

     I am without any defence,
     or means to resist any violence
     of man or beast.

     I have no soul to speak to,
     or relieve me.

     GOOD.

     But I am alive; and not
     drowned, as all my ship’s company
     were.

But I am singled out too from all the ship’s crew, to be spared from death; and he that miraculously save me from death, can deliver me from this condition.

     But I am not starved, and
     perishing in a barren place,
     affording no sustenance.

     But I am in a hot climate,
     where, if I had clothes, I could
     hardly wear them.

But I am cast on an island where I see no wild beast to hurt me, as I saw on the coast of Africa:  and what if I had been shipwrecked there?

But God wonderfully sent the ship in near enough to the shore, that I have got out so many necessary things as will either supply my wants, or enable me to supply myself, even as long as I live.

Upon the whole, here was an undoubted testimony, that there was scarce any condition in the world so miserable, but there was something negative, or something positive, to be thankful for in it:  and let this stand as a direction, from the experience of the most miserable of all conditions in this world, that we may always find in it something to comfort ourselves from, and to set, in the description of good and evil, on the credit side of the account.

Having now, brought my mind a little to relish my condition, and given over looking out to sea, to see if I could spy a ship; I say, giving over these things, I began to apply myself to accommodate my way of living, and to make things as easy to me as I could.

I have already described my habitation, which was a tent under the side of a rock,—­surrounded with a strong pale of posts and cables; but I might now rather call it a wall, for I raised a kind of wall against it of turfs, about two feet thick on the outside:  and after some time (I think it was a year and a half) I raised rafters from it, leaning to the rock, and thatched or covered it with boughs of trees, and such things as I could get, to keep out the rain; which I found, at some times of the year, very violent.