think of the promise I had made to fetch them away, that they might see
their country again before they died.

But I was gone a wildgoose chase indeed, and they that will have any more
of me must be content to follow me into a new variety of follies,
hardships, and wild adventures, wherein the justice of Providence may be
duly observed; and we may see how easily Heaven can gorge us with our own
desires, make the strongest of our wishes be our affliction, and punish
us most severely with those very things which we think it would be our
utmost happiness to be allowed to possess. Whether I had business or no
business, away I went: it is no time now to enlarge upon the reason or
absurdity of my own conduct, but to come to the history--I was embarked
for the voyage, and the voyage I went.

I shall only add a word or two concerning my honest Popish clergyman, for
let their opinion of us, and all other heretics in general, as they call
us, be as uncharitable as it may, I verily believe this man was very
sincere, and wished the good of all men: yet I believe he used reserve in
many of his expressions, to prevent giving me offence; for I scarce heard
him once call on the Blessed Virgin, or mention St. Jago, or his guardian
angel, though so common with the rest of them. However, I say I had not
the least doubt of his sincerity and pious intentions; and I am firmly of
opinion, if the rest of the Popish missionaries were like him, they would
strive to visit even the poor Tartars and Laplanders, where they have
nothing to give them, as well as covet to flock to India, Persia, China,
&c., the most wealthy of the heathen countries; for if they expected to
bring no gains to their Church by it, it may well be admired how they
came to admit the Chinese Confucius into the calendar of the Christian
saints.

A ship being ready to sail for Lisbon, my pious priest asked me leave to
go thither; being still, as he observed, bound never to finish any voyage
he began. How happy it had been for me if I had gone with him. But it
was too late now; all things Heaven appoints for the best: had I gone
with him I had never had so many things to be thankful for, and the
reader had never heard of the second part of the travels and adventures
of Robinson Crusoe: so I must here leave exclaiming at myself, and go on
with my voyage. From the Brazils we made directly over the Atlantic Sea
to the Cape of Good Hope, and had a tolerably good voyage, our cou