e main land, with a
regal authority to administer the oaths of allegiance and fidelity, and
have an instrument signed under their hands, though I never asked
whether they had pen, ink, or paper; when giving each of them a musket,
eight charges of powder and ball, and provisions enough for eight days,
they sailed away with a fair gale on a day when the moon was at full.

Scarce a fortnight had passed over my head, but impatient for their
return, I laid me down to sleep one morning, when a strange accident
happened, which was ushered in by Friday's coming running to me, and
calling aloud, _Master, Master, they are come, they are come._ Upon
which, not dreaming of any danger, out I jumped from my bed, put on my
clothes and hurried through my little grove; when looking towards the
sea, I perceived a boat about a league and a half distant, standing in
for the shore with the wind fair. I beheld they did not come from the
side where the land lay on, but from the southerhmost end of the island:
So these being none of the people we wanted, I ordered Friday to lie
still, till such time as I came down from the mountain, which, with my
ladder, I now ascended in order to discover more fully what they were;
and now, with the help of my perspective glass, I plainly perceived an
English ship, which I concluded it to be; by the fashion of its long
boat; and which filled me with such uncommon transports of joy, that I
cannot tell how to describe; and yet some secret doubts hang about me,
proceeding from I know not what cause, as though I had reason to be upon
my guard. And, indeed, I would have no man contemn the secret hints and
intimations of danger, which very often are given, when he may imagine
there is no possibility of its being real; for had I not been warned by
this silent admonition, I had been in a worse situation than before, and
perhaps inevitably ruined.

Not long it was, before I perceived the boat to approach the shore, as
though they looked for a place where they might conveniently land; and
at last they ran their boat on shore upon the beach, about half a mile
distance; which proved so much the happier for me, since, had they come
into the creek, they had landed just at my door, and might not only have
forced me out of my castle, but plundered me of all I had in the world.
Now I was fully convinced they were all Englishmen, three of which were
unarmed and bound; when immediately the first four or five leaped on
shore,