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lately flattered myself. And why, after all, may I not die a natural death here as well as anywhere? All mankind die, and then there is an end of all----An end of all! did I say? No, there is something within that gives me the lie when I say so. Let me see; Death, my master used to say, is not an end, but a beginning of real life: and may it not be so? May I not as well undergo a change from this to a different state of life when I leave this world, as be born into it I know not from whence? Who sent me into this world? Who framed me of two natures so unlike, that death cannot destroy but one of them? It must be the Almighty God. But all God's works tend to some end; and if He has given me an immortal nature, it must be His intention that I should live somewhere and somehow for ever. May not this stage of being then be only an introduction to a preparative for another? There is nothing in this supposition repugnant to reason. Upon the whole, if God is the author of my being, He only has a right to dispose of it, and I may not put an end thereto without His leave. It is no less true that my continuing therein during His pleasure, and because it is so, may turn vastly to my advantage in His good time; it may be the means of my becoming happy for even when it is His will that I go hence. It is no less probable that, dismal as my present circumstances appear, I may be even now the object of a kind Providence: God may be leading me by affliction to repentance of former crimes; destroying those sensual affections that have all my days kept me from loving and serving Him. I will therefore submit myself to His will, and hope for His mercy. These thoughts, and many others I then had, composed me very much, and by degrees reconciled me to my destined solitude. I walked my ship, of which I was now both master and owner, and employed myself in searching how it was fastened to the rock, and where it rested; but all to no purpose as to that particular. I then struck a light and went into the hold, to see what I could find useful, for we had never searched the ship since we took her. In the hold I found abundance of long iron bars, which I suppose were brought out to be trafficked with the blacks. I observed they lay all with one end close to the head of the ship, which I presumed was occasioned by the violent shock they received when she struck against the rock; but seeing one short bar lying out beyond the rest, though touching
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