being severely whipt and pickled, they proved more honest for the future, and so I bid farewell to this island, carrying along with me my money, my parrot, umbrella, and goat-skin cap; setting sail December 12, 1686, after twenty-eight years, two months, and nineteen days residence, that same day and month that I escaped from Sallee; landing in England, June 11, 1687, after five and thirty years absence from my own country; which rendered me altogether a stranger there.

Here I found my first Captain’s widow alive, who had buried a second husband, but in very mean circumstances, and whom I made easy upon his account.  Soon after I went down to Yorkshire, where all my family were expired, except two sisters, and as many of one of my brother’s children.  I found no provision had been made for me, they concluding I had been long since dead; so that I was but in a very slender station.  Indeed the Captain did me a great kindness, by his report to the owners, how I had delivered their ship on the Desolate Island, upon which they made me a present of 200L. sterling.  I next went to Lisbon, taking my man Friday with me, and there arriving in April, I met the Portuguese Captain who had taken me on board on the African coast; but, being ancient, he had left off the sea, and resigned all his business to his son, who followed the Brazil trade.  So altered both of us were, that we did not know each other at first, till I discovered myself more fully to him.  After a few embraces, I began to enquire of my concerns; and then the old gentleman told me that it was nine years since he had been at Brazil, where my partner was then living, but my trustees were both dead; that he believed I should have a good account of the product of my plantation; that the imagination of my being lost, had obliged my trustees to give an estimate of my share to the procurator fiscal, who, in case of my not returning, had given one third to the king & the rest to the monastery of St. Augustine:  but if I put in my claim, or any one for me, it would be returned, except the yearly product which was given to the poor.  I then desired him to tell me what improvement he thought had been made of my plantation, and whether he imagined it was worth my while to look after it? he answered, he did not know how much it was improved; but this he was certain of, that my partner was grown vastly rich upon his half of it; and, that he had been informed, that the kind had 200 moidores per annum of his third part.  He added, that the survivors of my trustees were nervous of an ingenuous character; that my partner could witness my title, my name being registered in the country, by which means I should indefensibly recover considerable sums of money, but, answered, I, how could my trustees dispose of my effects, when I made you only my heir?  This, said he, was true but, there being no affidavit made of my death he could not act as my executor.  However, he had ordered his don,(then at Brazil), to act by procuration upon my account, and he had taken possession of my sugar-house, having accounted himself for eight years with my partner and trustees for the profits, of which he would give me a very good account.