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

288 ROBINSON CRUSOE.
belonged to the (hip, and had much ado to efcaps
the hve boats that puriued them, but they have all
given fuch an exadt defcription of the {hip, that
wherever they find her, they will*be fure to know
her, and they have folemnly {wore to give no quarter
to the captain or the feamen, but hang them every
one up at the yard arm, without any formal bufinefs
of bringing them to a court of judicature.”
' Being fenlible, that, having the old man on board,
he was incapable of doing me any mifchief, Well,
Signor, faid I, it is for this very reafon I would
have you carry us up to Nanquin, where neither
Englilh nor Dutch Ihips come : And I muff tell you
their captains are a parcel of rafh, proud, infolent
rafcals, that neither know what belongs to juftice,
nor how to behave themfelves as the laws of God
or nature diredh Fellows that would prove mur¬
derers to punilh robbers, and take upon them to
adjudge innocent men to death, without any proof
to prove them guilty ; but perhaps I may live to call
them to an account for it, in a place w'here they may
be taught how jultice is to be executed. And fio I |
told him all the ftory of buying the fhip, and how
we were laved by the means of two men : That the 1
murder of the captain by the MaJayans, as alfo the «
running away with the {hip, I believed to be true ; but ;
that we, who bought it, were turned pirates, wfas a 1
mere fiction, to cover their cowardice and fooltfh |
behaviour, when they attacked us, and the blood .j
of thofe men we killed in our own juft defence lay to
their door, who lent to attack us by liirprife.
“ Sir, (laid the old man amazed), you have taken l
the right courfe to fteer to the north, and, if I might ,
•advife you, I would have you fell your fhip in China, ;
and buy or build another in that country ; and I’ll ’
procure people to buy the one and fell the other.” !
Well, but Signor, faid I, if I fell the fhip in this
manner, I may bring fome innocent perfons into the '■
fame danger as I have gone through, perhaps worfe,
even j