Here conscience flew in my face, reprehending me as a blasphemer; crying with a loud and piercing voice, Unworthy wretch! how dare you ask what you have done?  Look on your past life, and see what you have left undone?  Ask thyself, why thou wert not long ago in the merciless hands of death?  Why not drowned in Yarmouth roads, or killed in the fight, when the ship was taken by the Sallee man of war?  Why not entombed in the bowels of wild beasts on the African coast, or drowned here when all thy companions suffered shipwreck in the ocean.

Struck dumb with these reflections, I rose up in a pensive manner, being so thoughtful that I could not go to sleep; and fearing the dreadful return of my distemper, it caused me to remember, that the Brazilians use tobacco for almost all diseases.  I then went to my chest in older to find some, where Heaven, no doubt, directed me to find a cure for both soul and body; for there I found one of the Bibles, which, till this time, I had neither leisure nor inclination to look into, I took both the tobacco and that out of the chest, and laid them on the table.  Several experiments did I try with the tobacco:  First, I took a piece or leaf, and chewed it; but it being very green and strong, almost stupified me.  Next I steeped it in some rum an hour or two, resolving when I went to bed to take a dole of it:  and, in the third place, I burnt some over a pan of fire, holding my nose over it as long as I could endure it without suffocation.

In the intervals of this operation, though my head was giddy and disturbed by the tobacco, I took up the Bible to read.  No sooner did I open it, but there appeared to me these words Call on me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee, and thou shall glorify me.

At first this sentence made a very deep impression on my heart, but it soon wore off again, when I considered the word deliver was foreign to me.  And as the children of Israel said, when they were promised flesh to eat, Can God spread a table in the wilderness? in like manner I began to say, Can God himself deliver me from this desolate island? However, the words would still return to my mind, and afterwards made a greater impression upon me.  As it was now very late, and the tobacco had dazed my head, I was inclined to sleep:  but before I would lie down I fell on my knees, and implored the promise that God had made to me in the Holy Scriptures, that if I called upon him in the day of trouble he would deliver me. With much difficulty I afterwards drank the rum wherein I had steeped the tobacco, which flying into my head, threw me into such a profound sleep, that it was three o’clock the next day before I awaked; or rather, I believe, I slept two days, having certainly lost a day in my account, and I could never tell any other way.  When I got up, my spirits were lively and cheerful; my stomach much better, being very hungry; and, in short, no fit returned the next day, which was the 29th, but I found myself much altered for the better.