book casually, the first words that occurred to me were these, “Call on

Me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt

glorify Me.” These words were very apt to my case, and made some

impression upon my thoughts at the time of reading them, though not so

much as they did afterwards; for, as for being _delivered_, the word

had no sound, as I may say, to me; the thing was so remote, so

impossible in my apprehension of things, that I began to say, as the

children of Israel did when they were promised flesh to eat, “Can God

spread a table in the wilderness?” so I began to say, “Can God Himself

deliver me from this place?” And as it was not for many years that any

hopes appeared, this prevailed very often upon my thoughts; but,

however, the words made a great impression upon me, and I mused upon

them very often. It grew now late, and the tobacco had, as I said,

dozed my head so much that I inclined to sleep; so I left my lamp

burning in the cave, lest I should want anything in the night, and went

to bed. But before I lay down, I did what I never had done in all my

life—I kneeled down, and prayed to God to fulfil the promise to me,

that if I called upon Him in the day of trouble, He would deliver me.

After my broken and imperfect prayer was over, I drank the rum in which

I had steeped the tobacco, which was so strong and rank of the tobacco

that I could scarcely get it down; immediately upon this I went to bed.

I found presently it flew up into my head violently; but I fell into a

sound sleep, and waked no more till, by the sun, it must necessarily be

near three o’clock in the afternoon the next day—nay, to this hour I am

partly of opinion that I slept all the next day and night, and till

almost three the day after; for otherwise I know not how I should lose

a day out of my reckoning in the days of the week, as it appeared some

years after I had done; for if I had lost it by crossing and recrossing

the line, I should have lost more than one day; but certainly I lost a

day in my account, and never knew which way. Be that, however, one way

or the other, when I awaked I found myself exceedingly refreshed, and

my spirits lively and cheerful; when I got up I was stronger than I was

the day before, and my stomach better, for I was hungry; and, in short,

I had no fit the next day, but continued much altered for the better.

This was the 29th.

The 30th was my well day, of course, and I went abroad with my gun, but

did not care to travel too far. I killed a sea-fowl or two, something

like a brandgoose, and brought them home, but was not very forward to

eat them; so I ate some more of the turtle’s eggs, which were very

good. This evening I renewed the medicine, which I had supposed did me

good the day before—the tobacco steeped in rum; only I did not take so

much as before, nor did I chew any of the leaf, or hold my head over

the smoke; however, I was not so well the next day, which was the first

of July, as I hoped I should have been; for I had a little spice of the

cold fit, but it was not much.

_July_ 2.—I renewed the medicine all the three ways; and dosed myself

with it as at first, and doubled the quantity which I drank.

_July_ 3.—I missed the fit for good and all, though I did not recover

my full strength for some weeks after. While I was thus gathering

strength, my thoughts ran exceedingly upon this Scripture, “I will

deliver thee”; and the impossibility of my deliverance lay much upon my

mind, in bar of my ever expecting it; but as I was discouraging myself

with such thoughts, it occurred to my mind that I pored so much upon my

deliverance from the main affliction, that I disregarded the

deliverance I had received, and I was as it were made to ask myself

such questions as these—viz. Have I not been delivered, and wonderfully

too, from sickness—from the most distressed condition that could be,

and that was so frightful to me? and what notice had I taken of it? Had

I done my part? God had delivered me, but I had not glorified Him—that

is to say, I had not owned and been thankful for that as a deliverance;

and how could I expect greater deliverance? This touched my heart very

much; and immediately I knelt down and gave God thanks aloud for my

recovery from my sickness.

_July_ 4.—In the morning I took the Bible; and beginning at the New

Testament, I began seriously to read it, and imposed upon myself to

read a while every morning and every night; not tying myself to the

number of chapters, but long as my thoughts should engage me. It was

not long after I set seriously to this work till I found my heart more

deeply and sincerely affected with the wickedness of my past life. The

impression of my dream revived; and the words, “All these things have

not brought thee to repentance,” ran seriously through my thoughts. I

was earnestly begging of God to give me repentance, when it happened

providentially, the very day, that, reading the Scripture, I came to

these words: “He is exalted a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance

and to give remission.” I threw down the book; and with my heart as

well as my hands lifted up to heaven, in a kind of ecstasy of joy, I

cried out aloud, “Jesus, thou son of David! Jesus, thou exalted Prince

and Saviour! give me repentance!” This was the first time I could say,

in the true sense of the words, that I prayed in all my life; for now I

prayed with a sense of my condition, and a true Scripture view of hope,

founded on the encouragement of the Word of God; and from this time, I

may say, I began to hope that God would hear me.

Now I began to construe the words mentioned above, “Call on Me, and I

will deliver thee,” in a different sense from what I had ever done

before; for then I had no notion of anything being called

_deliverance_, but my being delivered from the captivity I was in; for

though I was indeed at large in the place, yet the island was certainly

a prison to me, and that in the worse sense in the world. But now I

learned to take it in another sense: now I looked back upon my past

life with such horror, and my sins appeared so dreadful, that my soul

sought nothing of God but deliverance from the load of guilt that bore

down all my comfort. As for my solitary life, it was nothing. I did not

so much as pray to be delivered from it or think of it; it was all of

no consideration in comparison to this. And I add this part here, to

hint to whoever shall read it, that whenever they come to a true sense

of things, they will find deliverance from sin a much greater blessing

than deliverance from affliction.

But, leaving this part, I return to my Journal.

My condition began now to be, though not less miserable as to my way of

living, yet much easier to my mind: and my thoughts being directed, by

a constant reading the Scripture and praying to God, to things of a

higher nature, I had a great deal of comfort within, which till now I

knew nothing of; also, my health and strength returned, I bestirred

myself to furnish myself with everything that I wanted, and make my way

of living as regular as I could.

From the 4th of July to the 14th I was chiefly employed in walking

about with my gun in my hand, a little and a little at a time, as a man

that was gathering up his strength after a fit of sickness; for it is

hardly to be imagined how low I was, and to what weakness I was

reduced. The application which I made use of was perfectly new, and

perhaps which had never cured an ague before; neither can I recommend

it to any to practise, by this experiment: and though it did carry off

the fit, yet it rather contributed to weakening me; for I had frequent

convulsions in my nerves and limbs for some time. I learned from it

also this, in particular, that being abroad in the rainy season was the

most pernicious thing to my health that could be, especially in those

rains which came attended with storms and hurricanes of wind; for as

the rain which came in the dry season was almost always accompanied

with such storms, so I found that rain was much more dangerous than the

rain which fell in September and October.