I would not wrong them either; there might be many that were thankful afterwards; but the passion was too strong for them at first, and they were not able to master it:  then were thrown into ecstasies, and a kind of frenzy, and it was but a very few that were composed and serious in their joy.  Perhaps also, the case may have some addition to it from the particular circumstance of that nation they belonged to:  I mean the French, whose temper is allowed to be more volatile, more passionate, and more sprightly, and their spirits more fluid than in other nations.  I am not philosopher enough to determine the cause; but nothing I had ever seen before came up to it.  The ecstasies poor Friday, my trusty savage, was in when he found his father in the boat came the nearest to it; and the surprise of the master and his two companions, whom I delivered from the villains that set them on shore in the island, came a little way towards it; but nothing was to compare to this, either that I saw in Friday, or anywhere else in my life.

It is further observable, that these extravagances did not show themselves in that different manner I have mentioned, in different persons only; but all the variety would appear, in a short succession of moments, in one and the same person.  A man that we saw this minute dumb, and, as it were, stupid and confounded, would the next minute be dancing and hallooing like an antic; and the next moment be tearing his hair, or pulling his clothes to pieces, and stamping them under his feet like a madman; in a few moments after that we would have him all in tears, then sick, swooning, and, had not immediate help been had, he would in a few moments have been dead.  Thus it was, not with one or two, or ten or twenty, but with the greatest part of them; and, if I remember right, our surgeon was obliged to let blood of about thirty persons.

There were two priests among them:  one an old man, and the other a young man; and that which was strangest was, the oldest man was the worst.  As soon as he set his foot on board our ship, and saw himself safe, he dropped down stone dead to all appearance.  Not the least sign of life could be perceived in him; our surgeon immediately applied proper remedies to recover him, and was the only man in the ship that believed he was not dead.  At length he opened a vein in his arm, having first chafed and rubbed the part, so as to warm it as much as possible.  Upon this the blood, which only dropped at first, flowing freely, in three minutes after the man opened his eyes; a quarter of an hour after that he spoke, grew better, and after the blood was stopped, he walked about, told us he was perfectly well, and took a dram of cordial which the surgeon gave him.  About a quarter of an hour after this they came running into the cabin to the surgeon, who was bleeding a Frenchwoman that had fainted, and told him the priest was gone stark mad.  It seems he had begun to revolve