I was now in the twenty-third year of my residence in this island, and was so naturalised to the place and the manner of living, that, could I but have enjoyed the certainty that no savages would come

it: How frequently, in the course of our lives, the evil which in itself we seek most to shun, and which, when we are fallen into, is the most dreadful to us, is oftentimes the very means or door of o

Then I prepared myself within, putting myself in a posture of defence. I loaded all my cannon, as I called them - that is to say, my muskets, which were mounted upon my new fortification - and all my