Accidents > Life and most surprising adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, mariner, who lived eight and twenty years in an uninhabited island on the coast of America, near the mouth of the great river Oroonoque

ROBINSON CRUSOE. 5-
fear, when immediately all hands were called to the
pump ; and the men forced me alfo in that extremi¬
ty to (hare with them in their labour. While thus
employed, the mailer efpying fome light colliers,
fired a gun as a fignal of diftrefs; which I not im-
derflanuing what it meant, and thinking that ekher
the fhip broke, or fome dreadful thing happened, fell
into a 1'woon; but in that common condition of woe,
nobody minded me, excepting to thruft me alide
with their feet, thinking me dead, and it was a great
while before I recovered.
Happy it was for us, when upon the fignal given,
they ventured out their boats to fave our lives. All
our pumping had been in vain, and vain had their
attempts been, had they not come to our fhip’» fide,,
when our men cal't them a rope over a-ilern with a
buoy to it, which after great labour they got hold
of, and we hawling them to us, got into their boat.
So leaving our Ihip, we perceived it fink in lefs than
a quarter of an hour, by which I knew what was
foundering at fea. And now the men incefiantly la¬
boured to recover their own fhip, but the fea ran fo
high, and the wind blowing hard, they thought it
convenient to hawl within fhore; which with great
difficulty and danger at latl we happily effedled,
landing at a place called Gromef, not far from Win-
ter ton light-houfe: From whence we all walked to
Yarmouth) where, as objects of pity, many good
people furnifhed us with neceflaries for our fuhfiil-
ence either to Hull or London.
’ Fis ilrange, that after all this, like the Prodigal
Son, I did not return to my father; who hearing of
the fhip’s calamity, for a long time thought me en¬
tombed in the deep. No doubt but 1 fhould have
Jhared in his fatted calf as the feripture expreffeth it j
.But my ill fate llill puffied me on, in fpite of the
powerful conviction of reafon and confidence.
A 3 Whea.