ovements I had made in that
little time I lived there, and the increase I should probably have made
if I had remained, I might have been worth a hundred thousand
moidores--and what business had I to leave a settled fortune, a
well-stocked plantation, improving and increasing, to turn supercargo to
Guinea to fetch negroes, when patience and time would have so increased
our stock at home, that we could have bought them at our own door from
those whose business it was to fetch them? and though it had cost us
something more, yet the difference of that price was by no means worth
saving at so great a hazard. But as this is usually the fate of young
heads, so reflection upon the folly of it is as commonly the exercise of
more years, or of the dear-bought experience of time--so it was with me
now; and yet so deep had the mistake taken root in my temper, that I
could not satisfy myself in my station, but was continually poring upon
the means and possibility of my escape from this place; and that I may,
with greater pleasure to the reader, bring on the remaining part of my
story, it may not be improper to give some account of my first
conceptions on the subject of this foolish scheme for my escape, and how,
and upon what foundation, I acted.

I am now to be supposed retired into my castle, after my late voyage to
the wreck, my frigate laid up and secured under water, as usual, and my
condition restored to what it was before: I had more wealth, indeed, than
I had before, but was not at all the richer; for I had no more use for it
than the Indians of Peru had before the Spaniards came there.

It was one of the nights in the rainy season in March, the
four-and-twentieth year of my first setting foot in this island of
solitude, I was lying in my bed or hammock, awake, very well in health,
had no pain, no distemper, no uneasiness of body, nor any uneasiness of
mind more than ordinary, but could by no means close my eyes, that is, so
as to sleep; no, not a wink all night long, otherwise than as follows: It
is impossible to set down the innumerable crowd of thoughts that whirled
through that great thoroughfare of the brain, the memory, in this night's
time. I ran over the whole history of my life in miniature, or by
abridgment, as I may call it, to my coming to this island, and also of
that part of my life since I came to this island. In my reflections upon
the state of my case since I came on shore on this island, I was
comparing