had neither casks sufficient; nor could I make any to preserve it in; neither had I hops to make it keep, yest to make it work, nor a copper or kettle to make it boil.  Perhaps, indeed, after some years, I might bring this to bear, as I had done other things.  But now my inventions were placed another way; and day and night I could think of nothing but how I might destroy some of these cannibals, when proceeding to their bloody entertainments; and so saving a victim from being sacrificed, that he might after become my servant.  Many were my contrivances after this purpose, and as many more objections occurred after I hatched them.  I once contrived to dig a hole under the place where they made their fire, and put therein five or six pounds of gunpowder, which would consequently blow up all those that were near it:  but then I was loth to spend so much upon them, lest it should not do that certain execution I could desire, & but only affright & not kill them.  Having laid this design aside, I again proposed to myself to lie privately in ambush, in some convenient place, with my three guns double loaded, and let fly at them in the midst of their dreadful ceremony:  and having killed two or three of them at every shot, fall upon the rest suddenly with my three pistols, & not let one mother’s son escape.  Thus imagination pleased my fancy so much that I used to dream of it in the night time.  To put my design in execution, I was not long in seeking for a place convenient for my purpose, where unseen I might behold every action of the savages.  Here I placed my two muskets, each of which was loaded with a brace of slugs, and four or five smaller bullets about the size of pistol bullets; the fowling-piece was charged with near a handful of the largest swan-shot, and in every pistol were about four bullets.  And thus all things being prepared, no sooner would the welcome light spread over the element, but, like a giant refreshed with wine, as the Scripture has it, would I issue forth from my castle, and from a lofty hill, three miles distant, view if I could see any invaders approach unlawfully to my kingdom.  But having waited in vain two or three months, it not only grew very tiresome to me, but brought me to some consideration, and made me examine myself, what right I had to kill these creatures in this manner.

If (argued I to myself) this unnatural custom of theirs be a sin offensive to Heaven, it belongs to the Divine Being, who alone has the vindictive power in his hands, to shower down his vengeance upon them.  And perhaps he does so, in making them become one another’s executioners.  Or, if not, if God thinks these doings just, according to the knowledge they conceive, what authority have I to pretend to thwart the decrees of Providence, which has permitted these actions for so many ages, perhaps from almost the beginning of the creation?  They never offended me, what right have I then to concern myself in their shedding one another’s blood:  And, indeed, I have since