n the distinguished goodness of the hand which
had preserved me, and had singled me out to be preserved when all the
rest were destroyed, or an inquiry why Providence had been thus merciful
unto me. Even just the same common sort of joy which seamen generally
have, after they are got safe ashore from a shipwreck, which they drown
all in the next bowl of punch, and forget almost as soon as it is over;
and all the rest of my life was like it. Even when I was afterwards, on
due consideration, made sensible of my condition, how I was cast on this
dreadful place, out of the reach of human kind, out of all hope of
relief, or prospect of redemption, as soon as I saw but a prospect of
living and that I should not starve and perish for hunger, all the sense
of my affliction wore off; and I began to be very easy, applied myself to
the works proper for my preservation and supply, and was far enough from
being afflicted at my condition, as a judgment from heaven, or as the
hand of God against me: these were thoughts which very seldom entered my
head.

The growing up of the corn, as is hinted in my Journal, had at first some
little influence upon me, and began to affect me with seriousness, as
long as I thought it had something miraculous in it; but as soon as ever
that part of the thought was removed, all the impression that was raised
from it wore off also, as I have noted already. Even the earthquake,
though nothing could be more terrible in its nature, or more immediately
directing to the invisible Power which alone directs such things, yet no
sooner was the first fright over, but the impression it had made went off
also. I had no more sense of God or His judgments--much less of the
present affliction of my circumstances being from His hand--than if I had
been in the most prosperous condition of life. But now, when I began to
be sick, and a leisurely view of the miseries of death came to place
itself before me; when my spirits began to sink under the burden of a
strong distemper, and nature was exhausted with the violence of the
fever; conscience, that had slept so long, began to awake, and I began to
reproach myself with my past life, in which I had so evidently, by
uncommon wickedness, provoked the justice of God to lay me under uncommon
strokes, and to deal with me in so vindictive a manner. These
reflections oppressed me for the second or third day of my distemper; and
in the violence, as well of the fever as of the dre