f the water, I put about a quarter of a pint of rum into it,
and mixed them together. Then I got me a piece of the goat's flesh and
broiled it on the coals, but could eat very little. I walked about, but
was very weak, and withal very sad and heavy-hearted under a sense of my
miserable condition, dreading, the return of my distemper the next day.
At night I made my supper of three of the turtle's eggs, which I roasted
in the ashes, and ate, as we call it, in the shell, and this was the
first bit of meat I had ever asked God's blessing to, that I could
remember, in my whole life. After I had eaten I tried to walk, but found
myself so weak that I could hardly carry a gun, for I never went out
without that; so I went but a little way, and sat down upon the ground,
looking out upon the sea, which was just before me, and very calm and
smooth. As I sat here some such thoughts as these occurred to me: What
is this earth and sea, of which I have seen so much? Whence is it
produced? And what am I, and all the other creatures wild and tame,
human and brutal? Whence are we? Sure we are all made by some secret
Power, who formed the earth and sea, the air and sky. And who is that?
Then it followed most naturally, it is God that has made all. Well, but
then it came on strangely, if God has made all these things, He guides
and governs them all, and all things that concern them; for the Power
that could make all things must certainly have power to guide and direct
them. If so, nothing can happen in the great circuit of His works,
either without His knowledge or appointment.

And if nothing happens without His knowledge, He knows that I am here,
and am in this dreadful condition; and if nothing happens without His
appointment, He has appointed all this to befall me. Nothing occurred to
my thought to contradict any of these conclusions, and therefore it
rested upon me with the greater force, that it must needs be that God had
appointed all this to befall me; that I was brought into this miserable
circumstance by His direction, He having the sole power, not of me only,
but of everything that happened in the world. Immediately it followed:
Why has God done this to me? What have I done to be thus used? My
conscience presently checked me in that inquiry, as if I had blasphemed,
and methought it spoke to me like a voice: "Wretch! dost _thou_ ask what
thou hast done? Look back upon a dreadful misspent life, and ask thyself
what