reason that the weather was so very foggy out at sea.  However, keeping my eyes directly fixed upon it, and perceiving it did not stir, I presently concluded it must be a ship at anchor, and so very hasty I was to be satisfied, that taking the gun, I went to the S.E. part of the island, to the same rocks where I had been formerly drove away by the current, in which time the weather being perfectly cleared up, to my great sorrow, I perceived the wreck of a ship cast away upon those hidden rocks I found when I was out with my boat; and which, by making a kind of an eddy, were the occasion of my preservation.

Thus, what is one man’s safety is another’s ruin; for undoubtedly this ship had been driven on them in the night, the wind blowing strong at E.N.E.  Had they perceived the island, as I now guessed they had not, certainly, instead of firing there guns for help, they would rather have ventured in their boat and saved themselves that way.  I then thought, that perhaps they had done so, upon seeing my fire, and were cast away in the attempt:  for I perceived no boat in the ship.  But then I again imagined, that, perhaps, they had another vessel in company, which, upon signal, saved their lives, and took the boat up:  or that the boat might be driven into the main ocean, where these poor creatures might be in the most miserable condition.  But as all these conjectures were very uncertain, I could do no more than commiserate there distress, and thank God for delivering me, in particular, when so many perished in the raging ocean.

When I considered seriously every thing concerning this wreck, and could perceive no room to suppose any of them saved, I cannot explain, by any possible force of words, what longings my soul felt on this occasion, often breaking out in this manner:  O that there had been but two or three, nay even one person saved, that we might have lived together, conversed with, and comforted one another! and so much were my desires moved, that when I repeated these words, Oh! that there had been but one! my hands would clench together, and my fingers press the palms of my hands to close, that, had any soft thing been between, it would have crushed it involuntarily, while my teeth would strike together, and set against each other so strong that it required some time for me to part them.

Till the last year of my being on this island, I never knew whether or not any had been saved out of this ship.  I had the affliction, some time after, to see the corpse of a drowned boy come on shore, at the end of the island which was next the shipwreck; there was nothing on him but a seaman’s waistcoat, a pair of opened kneed linen drawers, and a blue linen shirt, but no particular mark to guess what nation he was of.  In his pocket were two pieces of eight, and a tobacco-pipe, the last of which I preferred much more than I did the first.  And now the calmness of the sea tempted me to venture out in my boat to