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 NEW 
 ROBINSON 
 CRUSOE 
 
 GJLSON GARDNER 
 
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 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
A NEW 
 ROBINSON CRUSOE 
 
 A New Version of His Life 
 
 and Adventures 
 With an Explanatory Note 
 
 by 
 
 GILSON GARDNER 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HARCOURT, BRACE AND HOWE 
 
 1920 
 
COPYRIGHT, I920, BY 
 HARCOURT, BRACE AND HOWE, Inc. 
 
 ©CIA571878 
 
 Mft -4 A* 
 
A NEW ROBINSON CRUSOE 
 
 EXPLANATORY NOTE 
 
 The real Robinson Crusoe, as everybody knows, 
 was a pious buccaneer named Alexander Selkirk, 
 who, while cruising the South Seas in the armed 
 frigate Cinque Ports, had difficulties with his supe- 
 rior officer, Captain Thomas Stradling, and was by 
 him marooned on the Island of Juan Fernandez, a 
 small body of land in the Pacific Ocean in latitude 
 33 40' and longitude 78 52' west, about no leagues 
 from the coast of Chili and 440 to the north of Cape 
 Horn. On this island Selkirk lived, deprived of all 
 human society, for a period of four years and four 
 months, at the end of which time he was rescued 
 by another buccaneer, Captain Woodes Rogers, in 
 His Majesty's privateer, the Duke of Bristol, Eng. } 
 with whom Selkirk joined as mate and resumed his 
 trade of buccaneer. 
 
 The solitary life on his island, by all accounts, 
 had done Selkirk good; for aside from his own 
 protestations of religion, it is related by Captain 
 
2 A New Robinson Crusoe 
 
 Rogers that the treatment accorded by Selkirk and 
 his men to certain Spanish ladies who were deprived 
 of their personal jewelry as an incident in the raid 
 on Guyaquil was of a character so unusual at the 
 hands of pirates as to elicit wonder as well as 
 pleasure among the gentle victims, so much so that 
 on the return of Selkirk's party from looting oper- 
 ations further up the stream, they were received 
 by the ladies without fear, who "even prepared food 
 for them and a cask of very acceptable wine." 
 
 "This excellent trait," says Howell in his life of 
 Selkirk, "can only be attributed to the command 
 religion had obtained over all his actions." 
 
 The observances of religion were by no means un- 
 common among the buccaneers, as appears from the 
 account of Rogers' capture of his most important 
 prize, the Manila ship Nostra Senora de la Incar- 
 nacion Disengani, rechristened by him the Bach- 
 elor. 
 
 "Before the action began," says Howell, "as there 
 were no spirits on board, a large kettle of chocolate 
 was made and given to the crew in its place, and 
 then they went to prayers. Before they had con- 
 cluded the enemy commenced their fire." 
 
 This was a good fight, "the ships lying yard arm 
 and yard arm, pouring in their broadsides as fast as 
 
A New Robinson Crusoe 3 
 
 they could fire." And when she was taken it was 
 found "she had twenty guns, twenty pateraroes, all 
 of brass, and ninety-three men, whereof nine were 
 killed, ten wounded and a good many blown up and 
 burned with powder." 
 
 The pious pirates circumnavigated the globe and 
 finally brought their loot, including the Bachelor 
 frigate, valued at 170,000 pounds, safely back to 
 England, where Alexander Selkirk received his 
 share. He was thus able to live the life of a gen- 
 tleman and after a short visit to his old home in 
 Largo, Fife County, Scotland, he married and went 
 to London, where he lived some ten years. 
 
 Selkirk's long residence on the uninhabited island 
 made him, on his arrival in London, an object of in- 
 terest to the alert news gatherers of that day. Dick 
 Steele interviewed him and wrote a seven-column 
 article, published in the Englishman of December 3, 
 1 713. He spells the name Selcraig, which was as 
 it appears in the church records at Largo. Captain 
 Edward Cook also wrote an account of Selkirk's 
 unusual experience in his two-volume, "Voyage to 
 the South Sea and Around the World," published 
 in 1 71 2, as did Captain Woodes Rogers, whose ship 
 was Selkirk's means of rescue. It was not until 
 1 7 19, four years after Selkirk's return to England, 
 
4 A New Robinson Crusoe 
 
 that Daniel Defoe published his celebrated novel, 
 "The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe." 
 
 It is commonly supposed that Defoe never saw 
 Selkirk, but took the hint for this exploit in im- 
 aginative writing from current accounts in Cook's 
 and Rogers' voyages and Sir Richard Steele's ar- 
 ticle in the Englishman. 
 
 That the contrary is the fact would appear from 
 a manuscript which has recently turned up among 
 the personal effects of the great nephew of Selkirk, 
 the impecunious teacher in the village school at Ca- 
 nonmills, Scotland, mentioned by Howell, who in- 
 herited Selkirk's personal belongings, including his 
 staff and his battered flip-can, which accompanied 
 Selkirk on his voyage and during the lonesome 
 years on the uninhabited island. This manuscript 
 purports to be the joint work of Selkirk and Defoe. 
 It is in some respects a very different product from 
 the Crusoe novel. In fact, the difference is so 
 marked that those who first examined it were dis- 
 posed to set it down as a posthumous product, if not 
 an arrant fraud. The proprietor of the book-stall 
 in Edinburgh, where it was found, says there is no 
 question that it was among papers turned out of an 
 old chest which had reposed many years in the loft 
 of the cottage in Canonmills, where John Selkirk, 
 
A New Robinson Crusoe 5 
 
 the great grand nephew, lived and died. That is as 
 far as authentication goes. 
 
 Why the joint manuscript should have been dis- 
 carded is easy to conjecture. There is in the orig- 
 inal (if it be so) a distinct absence of the religious 
 homily which, mingled with the adventure, did much 
 to make the published Crusoe story so acceptable 
 to the public. In this early collaboration the stress 
 is laid on the economic problem of an individual in 
 Selkirk's situation. To him his island world be- 
 came an economic microcosm wherein he found, re- 
 duced to simplest terms, all the elements of the prob- 
 lems which make up the economics of the most elab- 
 orate civilization. Every new experience on his 
 island contributed something to his analysis and 
 conclusions, and it is these analyses and conclusions, 
 instead of the religious homiletics, which make up 
 the background of this earlier work. 
 
 In 1 7 19 Defoe needed money. His activities as 
 a political pamphleteer had landed him in Newgate. 
 The Tory members of the House of Parliament had 
 caused his works to be burned at the hands of the 
 common hangman, and he, poor man, had been 
 made to stand in the pillory. The publication of 
 Selkirk's economic heresies — for they no doubt 
 would have been so regarded in that more ignor- 
 
6 A New Robinson Crusoe 
 
 ant age — certainly would have added to troubles 
 which were already quite sufficient. So Defoe ap- 
 parently decided to discard what he may have looked 
 upon as Selkirk's rather tiresome economic views, 
 and by adding adventure and flavor of that brand 
 of piety most likely to be approved, to secure for 
 his literary product a more ready market. 
 
 The sale of "Crusoe" justifies Defoe's business 
 judgment, for the proceeds met all immediate needs 
 and furnished a comfortable settlement for the re- 
 mainder of his life. 
 
 Gilson Gardner. 
 
LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 ROBINSON CRUSOE 
 
 By Daniel Defoe and Alexander Selkirk 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 EXTRACTS FROM CRUSOE'S JOURNAL 
 
 Note: In some respects this MSS. is identical with 
 the novel as first published. The editor has thought 
 best, therefore, to avoid tedious duplication, giving the 
 story only in briefest outline and setting out at large 
 those comments and conclusions in which this work 
 differs from the one so well known to all. 
 
 September 30, i6jp. 
 I, poor, miserable Robinson Crusoe, being ship- 
 wrecked during a terrible storm in the offing, 
 came on shore on this dismal, unfortunate island, 
 which I called the Island of Despair; all the rest of 
 the ship's company being drowned, and myself al- 
 most dead. 
 
 All the rest of that day I spent in afflicting my- 
 self at the dismal circumstances I was brought to, 
 namely, I had neither food, house, clothes, weapon 
 
8 A New Robinson Crusoe 
 
 nor place to fly to, and in despair of any relief, saw 
 nothing but death before me, either that I should 
 be devoured by wild beasts, murdered by savages 
 or starved to death for want of food. At the ap- 
 proach of night I slept in a tree for fear of wild 
 creatures, but slept soundly, although it rained all 
 night. 
 
 October i. — In the morning I saw to my great 
 surprise the ship had floated with the high tide and 
 was driven on shore again much nearer the island. 
 I hoped if the wind abated I might get on board and 
 get some food and necessaries out of her for my 
 relief. At length the weather permitting I went 
 upon the sand as far as I could and swam on board. 
 As it turned out the quarter was free and all that 
 was in that part was dry ; for you may be sure my 
 first work was to search and see what was spoiled 
 and what was free; and first I found that all the 
 ship's provisions were dry and untouched by the 
 water: and being very well disposed to eat I went 
 to the bread room and filled my pockets with bis- 
 cuits, and ate them as I went about other things. 
 
 From ist of October to the 24th. — All these days 
 spent in making several voyages with the raft I had 
 constructed to get all I could out of the ship, which 
 I brought on shore every tide of flood. Much rain 
 
A New Robinson Crusoe 9 
 
 also these days, though with some intervals of fair 
 weather, for it seems this is the rainy season. 
 
 In my labors at plundering the ship I first got 
 three seamen's chests which I opened and emptied 
 and lowered on my raft. The first I filled with pro- 
 visions, namely bread, rice, three Dutch cheeses, five 
 pieces of dried goat's flesh, which we lived much 
 upon, and a little remainder of European corn 
 which had been laid by for some fowls which we 
 brought to sea with us; but the fowls were killed. 
 There had been some barley and wheat together but 
 to my great disappointment I found that the rats 
 had eaten or spoiled it all. 
 
 Next I started rummaging for clothes, of which 
 I found enough, but took no more than I wanted 
 for present use, for I had other things which my 
 eye was more upon, as first, tools to work with on 
 shore, and it was after long searching that I found 
 out the carpenter's chest which, indeed, was a very 
 useful prize to me and much more valuable than a 
 shipload of gold would have been at that time. I 
 got it down to my raft, even whole as it was, with- 
 out losing time to look into it, for I knew in general 
 what it contained. 
 
 My next care was for ammunition and arms. 
 There were two very good fowling pieces in the 
 
io A New Robinson Crusoe 
 
 great cabin and two pistols; these I secured first, 
 with some powder horns and a small bag of shot 
 and two old rusty swords. I knew there were bar- 
 rels of powder in the ship but knew not where our 
 gunmen had stored them; but with much search I 
 found them, two of them dry and good, the third 
 had taken water; those two I got to the raft with 
 the arms. 
 
 With many pains and to my utmost delight this 
 cargo was at last got safely to shore and unloaded 
 on the beach, where with sails and stakes I made 
 all safe and dry. 
 
 On subsequent voyages to the ship with my raft 
 I succeeded in bringing away many things which 
 later proved of great use. Among these were a 
 grindstone, three bags full of nails and spikes, a 
 great screw jack, a dozen or two of hatchets. From 
 the gunner's stores I got two iron crows, two bar- 
 rels of musket balls, a large bag full of small shot 
 and a great roll of sheet lead. Besides these things 
 I took all the men's clothes I could find, a spare 
 fore topsail, hammock and some bedding. 
 
 By now I had discovered that the land on which 
 I was cast away was indeed an island, for on the 
 second day, taking the fowling piece and pistols, I 
 traveled for discovery to the top of a hill I had 
 
A New Robinson Crusoe n 
 
 observed not above a mile from where I was. 
 There I saw my fate, to my great affliction, namely, 
 that I was in an island environed every way with 
 the sea, no land to be seen except some rocks which 
 lay a great way off, and two small islands less than 
 this which lay about three leagues to the west. 
 
 I found also that the island was barren and as I 
 saw reason to believe uninhabited, except by wild 
 beasts, of which however I saw none. I saw an 
 abundance of fowls but knowing not their kinds 
 still concluded, and rightly, that many of them were 
 good for food. Also on going ashore, on landing 
 my first raft-load, I saw sitting on a seaman's chest 
 a creature which was like a cat, which sat and 
 looked me full in the face. And when I threw her a 
 biscuit she ate it and made as if she would have 
 had more; but not caring to spare from my store 
 for such a purpose, she presently trotted off. 
 
 What to do with myself at night I knew not, nor 
 indeed where to rest, for I was afraid to lie down 
 on the ground, not knowing but some wild beast 
 might devour me, though, as I afterward found, 
 there was no need for such fears. 
 
 However, as well as I could I spread one of the 
 sails for a tent and barricaded myself round with 
 the chests and boards that I had brought on shore 
 
12 A New Robinson Crusoe 
 
 and made a kind of hut for those nights' lodging. 
 As for water I had already discovered that there 
 were streams of fresh water in abundance and I 
 had no difficulty in bringing down a fowl, which 
 was all that could be desired. 
 
 Still laboring at plundering the ship, for I knew 
 I must avail of the calm and auspicious weather, 
 after I had gathered up all I could move of cables, 
 hawsers, with the sprit sail-yard, the mizen yard 
 and all the iron work I could move, I came upon a 
 locker with drawers in it in which I found two 
 razors, a pair of scissors, with some ten or a dozen 
 of good knives and forks; in another I found about 
 thirty-six pounds value in money, some European 
 coin, some Brazil, some pieces of eight, some gold 
 and some silver. 
 
 I smiled to myself at the sight of the money* 
 "Oh, drug!" said I aloud, "What art thou good 
 for? Thou art not worth to me — no, not the tak- 
 ing off the ground. One of those knives is worth 
 all this heap; I have no manner of use for thee; 
 ever remain where thou art and go to the bottom 
 as a creature whose life is not worth saving!" 
 
 However, upon second thought I took it away and 
 wrapping all this in a piece of canvas, I began to 
 think of making another raft. 
 
A New Robinson Crusoe 13 
 
 That night I lay in the little tent I had erected 
 on the shore, very secure with all my wealth about 
 me. It blew very hard all night and in the morning 
 when I looked out, behold, no more ship was to be 
 seen! 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 My thoughts now were wholly employed about 
 securing myself against either savages, if they 
 should appear, or wild beasts, if any were in the 
 island ; and I had many thoughts of the method how 
 to do this and what kind of a*dwelling to make — ■ 
 whether I should make a cave in the earth, or a tent 
 upon the earth, and, in short, I resolved upon both, 
 the manner and description of which it may not be 
 improper to give an account of. 
 
 I consulted several things in my situation which 
 I found would be proper for me : — First, health 
 and fresh water; secondly, shelter from the heat 
 of the sun; thirdly, security from ravenous crea- 
 tures, whether man or beast ; fourthly, a view to the 
 sea, that if God sent any ship in sight I might not 
 lose any advantage for my deliverance, of which 
 I was not willing to banish all my expectations yet. 
 
 In search for a proper place for this, I found a 
 little plain on the side of a rising hill, whose front 
 toward this plain was steep as a house-side, so that 
 nothing could come down upon me from the top; 
 
 14 
 
r A New Robinson Crusoe 15 
 
 on the side of this rock there was a hollow place 
 worn a little way in, like the entrance or door of a 
 cave, but there was not really any cave or way into 
 the rock at all. 
 
 On the flat of the green just before this hollow 
 place, I resolved to pitch my tent; this plain was 
 not above a hundred yards broad, and about twice 
 as long and lay like a green before my door and 
 at the end of it descended irregularly every way 
 down into the lo\* grounds by the sea. It was on 
 the northwest side of the hill, so that I was sheltered 
 from the heat every day until it came to a west and 
 by south sun, or thereabouts, which in those coun- 
 tries is near setting. 
 
 Before I set up my tent I drew half a circle be- 
 fore the hollow place, which took in about ten yards 
 in its diameter from its beginning and ending. In 
 this half circle I pitched two rows of strong stakes, 
 driving them into the ground till they stood very 
 firm, like piles, the biggest end being out of the 
 ground about five feet and a half, and sharpened 
 on the top. The two rows did not stand above six 
 inches from one another. These I laced with cables 
 taken from the ship and braced inside until it was 
 so strong that neither man nor beast could get into 
 or over it. This cost me a great deal of time and 
 
1 6 A New Robinson Crusoe 
 
 labor, especially to cut the poles in the woods, 
 bring them to the place and drive them into the 
 earth. 
 
 And it was while engaged in this work that I 
 began to ponder and to ask myself certain ques- 
 tions, such as Why does man work? Is work a 
 blessing or a curse? And could there be a world 
 in which man might not work? And the only an- 
 swers which I found at hand were these: That 
 man works to secure his food, or to shelter him- 
 self against the elements or against ravenous beasts 
 or other men, as even I now was doing; that the 
 vigor of exercise and the increased circulation of 
 the blood bring about an uplifted physical sense 
 which in a manner resembled the pleasures of intox- 
 ication, though it differed from that produced by 
 wine in that there are no ill effects following, but 
 on the contrary a restful relaxation which is quite 
 unknown to those who lead a sedentary life. But 
 as to why all men are not engaged throughout the 
 world in constructing shelters from the elements, as 
 I was doing here, I did not at once perceive. 
 
 The entrance to my shelter yard I made to be not 
 by a door but by a short ladder to go over the 
 top, which ladder when I was in I lifted over after 
 me. And so I was completely fenced in and forti- 
 
A New Robinson Crusoe 17 
 
 fled as I thought from all the world and conse- 
 quently slept secure at night; though it afterward 
 appeared there was no need for all this caution from 
 the enemies that I apprehended danger from. 
 
 Into this stockade I brought, with infinite labor, 
 all my riches, my provisions, ammunitions, stores 
 and plunder from the ship and I spread a sail so as 
 to make a tent, which with a tarpaulin I made 
 double and hung a hammock for a bed, and so was 
 in all ways very comfortable. 
 
 When I had done this I began to work my way 
 into the rock, and bringing all the earth and stones 
 I dug down, piled them about my fence in the na- 
 ture of a terrace. And the rock proved to be of 
 a soft texture most easily dug into, so that with the 
 labor of many days I dug out an excellent cave, 
 which served me like a cellar to my house. And 
 here I stowed my most precious things, but not my 
 powder, for the thought came to me during a fright- 
 ful thunderclap: What if my powder should be, 
 ignited! For it was the means for my defense and 
 my food. So thereupon I divided it into almost a 
 hundred small parcels, which I placed in holes in 
 rocks and places which I carefully marked. 
 
 And while thus engaged I was busied with the 
 thought of the helplessness of man without some in- 
 
1 8 A New Robinson Crusoe 
 
 strument of invention and precision in his hand. 
 Without a gun what would I do? Or having fire- 
 arms and no powder, how equally helpless! Fowl 
 there might be all about me, but how could I bring 
 them to hand? Stones I could not hurl with suffi- 
 cient accuracy to bring them down. For the little 
 store of meat, the dried goat's flesh, I was indebted 
 to other men who had bred or killed the goats. And 
 I set about conjecturing what would happen to me 
 when my ship stores of food were exhausted. Of 
 which I had much of interest later to relate. 
 
 In the interval of time when building my forti- 
 fication and digging the cave I went out once every, 
 day with my gun, as well to divert myself as to see 
 if I could kill anything for food and to acquaint 
 myself with what the island produced. The first 
 time I went out I presently discovered that there 
 were goats in the island, which was a great satis- 
 faction to me, and though I found them shy, sub- 
 tle and swift of foot, I was able in time to get near 
 enough to shoot them. Though I did not know it at 
 the time, I found in later years that the presence 
 of these goats was a happening of pure chance, they 
 being the descendants of a herd brought to the is- 
 land about an hundred years before by a Spanish 
 pilot who was the discoverer of the island and who 
 
A New Robinson Crusoe 19 
 
 tried to colonize it, but being unable to secure title 
 or the protection of his government, was compelled 
 to leave the place with those he had brought with 
 him. 
 
 The first time I came within shooting distance 
 of the goats I brought down a she goat which had 
 a little kid by her which she gave suck to, which 
 grieved me heartily; but when the old one fell the 
 kid stood stock still by her till I came and took her 
 up, and not only so but when I carried the old one 
 with me on my shoulders, the kid followed me quite 
 to my enclosure ; so I took it into my enclosure and 
 hoped to bring it up tame, but I had no milk and 
 it could not eat, so I was forced to kill it. These 
 furnished me with food for some time and the 
 happening furnished me with an idea which I later 
 carried out, namely, to lame a young she goat and, 
 having captured her, to tame and breed her. But it 
 was only after I had thought to dig a pit-fall and 
 trap the goats in a place I knew they were soon to 
 go that my plan was carried to success. 
 
 Of which I will have more to say at the proper 
 time. For the present there were other things which 
 more pressingly demanded thought and labor. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 I have spoken of my habitation as the Island of 
 Despair, and so it seemed those melancholy days 
 when I looked about me and finding all my com- 
 panions drowned and myself likely to be destroyed 
 by beasts or savages or to die for want of food, 
 saw in the land a place for my imprisonment and 
 in the sea a barrier from all a man most cherishes 
 in this world. But every day as it passed had 
 served in part to allay my fears, and in part to dis- 
 close to me some aspects of my surroundings which 
 in my violence of grief I had overlooked. Being 
 on the southerly side of the equator the fall months 
 of October were here spring and soon after my ar- 
 rival I found nature taking on her most gracious 
 forms. And this matter of the season was favor- 
 able to me also because here in the months of July 
 and August the nights are cold so that one wants 
 fire and shelter and occasionally it happens that 
 there are slight touches of the frost and a flurry 
 now and then of snow. But in the spring and sum- 
 mer months my tent was ample shelter and I had 
 
 20 
 
A New Robinson Crusoe 21 
 
 time to prepare and to lay up a few stores for the 
 more stormy days. 
 
 And as my mind became more composed and I 
 had eyes to see the beauties which were spread be- 
 fore me I apprehended that the place was filled 
 with graceful charms. So impressed was I with 
 them that I took the trouble to write down in the 
 diary which I had maintained while ink and paper 
 lasted, the following description: 
 
 'The woods which cover most of the steepest 
 hills are free from all bushes and underwood and 
 offer an easy passage through every part of them, 
 and the irregularities of the hills and precipices in 
 the northern part of the island necessarily trace by 
 their various combinations a great number of ro- 
 mantic valleys, most of which have a stream of the 
 clearest water running through them, that tumbles 
 into cascades from rock to rock as the bottom of the 
 valleys by the course of the neighboring hills is at 
 any time broken into a sudden sharp descent. Some 
 particular spots occur in these valleys, where the 
 shade and fragrance of the contiguous woods, the 
 loftiness of the overhanging rocks, and the trans- 
 parency and frequent falls of the neighboring 
 streams present scenes of such elegance and dig- 
 nity as are but rarely paralleled in any other part 
 
22 *A 'New 'Robinson Crusoe 
 
 of the globe. It is on this place, perhaps, that the 
 simple productions of unarrested nature may be said 
 to excel all the fictitious descriptions of the most an- 
 imated imagination." 
 
 The above was written some eighteen months af- 
 ter my landing on the island. By that time having 
 food in abundance, a climate healthy and pleasant, 
 producing also by reason of the labor I was con- 
 strained to perform a bodily vigor I had before not 
 known, I found under the serene sky and temper- 
 ate air that my life was like, as it were, a continual 
 feast. I began to take delight in everything about 
 me, being as happy now as I had before been miser- 
 able. I ornamented my abode with fragrant 
 branches cut from the spacious wood near which 
 it was situated and in this delicious bower, resting 
 from labor or the chase, fanned with such soft 
 breezes as the poets tell of, I had repose which was 
 equal to the most exquisite sensual pleasures. 
 
 But before I arrived at a state of mind to enjoy 
 all these sendings of Providence I had many prob- 
 lems to solve. Notwithstanding all the things I 
 had gathered from the wreck there were a few 
 things whose lack I greatly felt. There was no 
 shovel to dig with or to remove the earth; I also 
 lacked a spade, a pick-axe and needles, pins and 
 
A New Robinson Crusoe 23 
 
 thread. As for linen I had in the beginning some, 
 but soon learned to want that without much diffi- 
 culty. A fire I produced in the primitive fashion by 
 rubbing together two pieces of wood of sufficient 
 hardness with vigor for a long time, but in the be- 
 ginning I lacked a place for my fire, a spit and some- 
 thing to pass for an oven in which I might bake 
 a substitute for the bread I had from the ship 
 stores, but which would not last forever. 
 
 Meantime to keep track of the days and the 
 months I had set up a large post on the shore where 
 I had landed and making it with another piece in 
 the form of a cross cut in it every day a notch with 
 my knife and every seventh notch was as long again 
 as the rest so that I might not forget the Sabbath 
 from the working days, and I inscribed upon it the 
 30th of September, 1659, the day I landed on this 
 island. And I divided the months with a still longer 
 notch and each year from the other. 
 
 And now I began to apply myself to make such 
 necessary things as I found I most wanted, particu- 
 larly a chair and a table, for without these things 
 I was not able to enjoy the few comforts I had in 
 this world. I could not write or eat or do several 
 things with so much pleasure without a table. 
 
 So I went to work; and here I must needs ob- 
 
24 A New Robinson Crusoe 
 
 serve that as reason is the substance and original 
 of the mathematics, so by stating and squaring 
 everything by reason and by making the most ra- 
 tional judgment of things, every man may be in 
 time master of every mechanical art. I had never 
 handled a tool in my life, and yet in time, by labor, 
 application and contrivance, I found at last that 
 I wanted nothing but I could have made it, after 
 a fashion, especially if I had had tools; however, 
 I made abundance of things without tools, or with 
 simple tools and some with no more tools than an 
 adze or a hatchet, which perhaps were never made 
 that way before, and that with infinite labor. For 
 example, if I wanted a board I had no other way 
 but to cut down a tree, set it on edge before me 
 and hew it flat on either side with my axe till I 
 had brought it to be as thin as a plank and then 
 dub it smooth with my adze. It is true by this 
 method I could make but one board out of a tree; 
 but this I had no remedy for but patience, any 
 more than I had for the prodigious deal of time and 
 labor which it took me to make a. plank or board; 
 but my time and labor were of little worth, and so 
 they were as well employed one way as another. 
 
 However, I made me a table and a chair, as I 
 observed above, out of short pieces of plank I had 
 
A New Robinson Crusoe 25 
 
 brought from the ship ; but when I had wrought out 
 some boards I made large shelves of the breadth of 
 a foot and a half one over the other all along one 
 side of the cave, to lay all my tools, nails and iron 
 work, and, in a word, to separate everything at large 
 in their places, that I might come easily at them. 
 I knocked pieces into the wall of rock to hang my 
 guns and all things that would hang up. So that 
 had my cave been to be seen, it looked like a general 
 magazine of necessary things. And I had every- 
 thing so ready at my hand that it was a great pleas- 
 ure to me to see all my goods in such order and 
 especially to see all my stock of necessaries so great. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 While exploring one day with my gun in the 
 
 southern end of the island I came upon a variety 
 
 of fruits such as I had seen none of in the part 
 
 wherein I dwelt and particularly I found melons on 
 
 the ground and grapes upon the trees; the vines 
 
 had spread indeed over the trees and the clusters 
 
 of grapes were just in their prime, very ripe and 
 
 rich. This was a surprising discovery and I was 
 
 glad of them, and later I found an excellent use for 
 
 these grapes and that was to cure or dry them in 
 
 the sun and keep them as dried grapes or raisins 
 
 are kept, which I thought would be, as indeed they 
 
 were, as wholesome and as agreeable to eat, when no 
 
 grapes might be had. And I found here also an 
 
 abundance of cocoa trees, oranges and lemons and 
 
 citron trees, all wild and few bearing any fruit. 
 
 However, the green limes were very wholesome and 
 
 mixed with water made a drink which was most 
 
 refreshing, and later I found trees with ripe lemons 
 
 on them. 
 
 I resolved to lay up a store but on trying to 
 26 
 
A New Robinson Crusoe 27 
 
 carry them the long distance to my cave or tent I 
 found when I arrived there that the grapes had 
 bruised and spoiled and of the limes I had but few. 
 And when I returned the next day those I had piled 
 up were spoiled and scattered by some animal, prob- 
 ably the goats, which roamed these parts. So I 
 gathered more of the grapes and this time hung 
 them on the branches of the trees where they would 
 cure in the sun and when I came again after a 
 number of days found them perfectly dried and in- 
 deed were excellent good raisins of the sun. So I 
 took them down from the trees and I was very 
 happy that I did so for the rains which followed 
 would have spoiled them and I had lost the best 
 part of my winter food; for I had above two hun- 
 dred bunches of them. 
 
 On the 26th of August of this year I found a 
 large tortoise and later I found there were many 
 on the opposite side of the island ; and I found their 
 egfes as well as their flesh a great addition to my 
 diet. The eggs like my meat I broiled as I had no 
 dish in which to stew or to make a broth. 
 
 When confined to my tent by the long and copious 
 rains I found employment in attempting if it were 
 possible to make myself a basket, and it proved of 
 advantage to me now that when I was a boy I used 
 
28 A New Robinson Crusoe 
 
 to take great delight in standing at a basket maker's 
 in the town where my father lived to see them make 
 their wickerware, and being as boys are very offi- 
 cious to help and a great observer of the manner 
 how they worked those things, I had by this means 
 so full knowledge of the method of it that I wanted 
 nothing but the materials, which on the island were 
 easily found, certain of the young branches proving 
 as tough as the sallows and willows and osiers of 
 England. And with these I contrived with time and 
 patience to make a great many baskets both to carry 
 earth, or to carry or lay up anything as I had occa- 
 sion, and though I did not finish them very hand- 
 somely yet I made them sufficiently serviceable for 
 my purpose and I had strong, deep baskets to place 
 my corn in instead of sacks when I should come to 
 have any quantity of it. 
 
 Now as to this matter of corn I had seen from 
 the start that there would in time be an end of the 
 biscuits taken from the wreck and what to do for 
 bread when they were gone gave me some concern. 
 J am a poor botanist and I had hunted among the 
 growing things of the island for some substitute 
 for bread such as the natives are said to use, but 
 with no success. And it was while deeply ponder- 
 ing what to do that the answer came to me as by the 
 
A New Robinson Crusoe 29 
 
 merest accident. For I have spoken of the little bag 
 of spoiled rice and barley which the rats had 
 gnawed. This, it appears, was the remnants I had 
 shaken out on a spot near my landing place, not 
 realizing that amid the chaff there were a few grains 
 still surviving whole. But one day after the rains 
 had come I came upon new and different blades of 
 green shooting from the ground which I recognized 
 as from my corn and at once I set about to harbor 
 it by all means in my power. I made a hedge about 
 the place to protect it from the goats which I had 
 tamed and were now accustomed to browse about 
 my dwelling, and later on I had a greater danger to 
 overcome, for as the young grain ripened I found 
 the birds gathered about in great numbers ready to 
 save me any trouble in the harvesting thereof. So 
 angered was I at seeing them that I let fly with my 
 gun and brought down three, which I treated after 
 the manner felons are served in England, for I hung 
 them in chains as a warning to their fellows; and 
 to my intense relief the birds were so alarmed that 
 they flew off and abandoned all that side of the 
 island and would not return while my scarecrows 
 so remained. And the first season I got but a peck 
 or so of rice and the same of barley, which I kept 
 and sowed on a larger space which I hedged and 
 
30 A New Robinson Crusoe 
 
 dug up with a wooden shovel which had to do for 
 an iron spade. And the next crop was a total of 
 perhaps five bushels, all of which I kept for seed 
 and the seasons favored for it is possible in this lat- 
 itude to get two crops the year by sowing in the 
 early part of the rainy months and allowing the 
 crop to ripen, as the dryness and the warmth in- 
 crease. So with the increase of my store of grain 
 I began to think of how I might prepare it when 
 I should have enough to spare for food. And I 
 was perplexed for I neither knew how to grind nor 
 to make meal of my corn, nor indeed how to clean 
 it and part it; nor, if made into meal how to make 
 bread of it, and if how to make it, I knew not how 
 to bake it. These things being added to my desire 
 of having a good quantity for store, I resolved 
 not to taste any of this crop but to preserve it all 
 for seed against the next season and to employ all 
 my study and hours of working to accomplish this 
 great work of providing myself with corn and 
 bread. 
 
 It might be truly said that I now worked for my 
 bread. It is a little wonderful, and what I believe 
 few people have thought much upon, namely the 
 Strange multitude of little things necessary in the 
 
r A New Robinson Crusoe 31 
 
 providing, procuring, curing, dressing, making and 
 furnishing this one article of bread. 
 
 I who was reduced to a mere state of nature 
 found this to be my daily discouragement, and was 
 made more and more sensible of it every hour, eveni 
 after I got the first handful of seed corn which, as 
 I have said, came up unexpectedly and indeed to my 
 surprise. 
 
 First, I had no plow to turn the earth, no spade 
 or shovel to dig it. But this I conquered by making 
 a wooden spade; but this did my work but in a 
 wooden manner, and made the work much harder. 
 
 When the seed was sowed I had no harrow but 
 was forced to go over it myself and drag a heavy 
 bough of a tree over it, to scratch the earth as it may 
 be called, rather than rake or harrow it. 
 
 When it was growing or grown I have observed 
 already how many things I wanted, to fence it, 
 secure it, mow or reap it, cure or carry it home, 
 thresh, part it from the chaff and save it. Then 
 I wanted a mill to grind it, sieves to dress it, yeast 
 and salt to make it into bread and an oven to bake 
 it in. And all these things I did without, as shall 
 be observed; and yet the corn was an inestimable 
 advantage to me, too. 
 
 It was quite by accident that I learned to make a 
 
32 A New Robinson Crusoe 
 
 vessel that would stand the fire — the need of which 
 I have spoken of. I had been fashioning crude ves- 
 sels and pipkins in clay, in the hope of coming at 
 something which when wrapped with basketry 
 would hold my grain, when I found in the ashes of 
 my fire a piece of the broken clay baked hard and 
 red. This set me to experiment and after various 
 trials in increasing and slackening the heat of a 
 great fire which I built up around my mud-pie ves- 
 sels, I found that they did not crack or run but came 
 out after many hours as hard burnt as could be de- 
 sired and one of them perfectly glazed with the run- 
 ning of the sand, my joy was like that of some great 
 artist who sees before him the creation of his gen- 
 ius. Hardly did I have patience to stay till they 
 were cold before I set one upon the fire again with 
 some water in it to boil me some meat which it did 
 admirably well, and with a piece of kid I made 
 some very good broth, even though I lacked the oat- 
 meal. 
 
 As for a mill to grind my corn I did not aspire to 
 that but sought out a great block of hard wood, as 
 big as I had strength to move, and this I rounded 
 and formed outside with my axe and hatchet and 
 then with the help of fire and infinite labor made a 
 hollow place in it, after which I made a great heavy 
 
r A New Robinson Crusoe 33 
 
 pestle or beater of iron-wood. And this was my 
 mill. And for a sieve I made several small ones 
 out of some calico neck-cloths which were among 
 the seamen's clothes. 
 
 And for an oven I made earthen vessels, burnt 
 in the fire two feet wide and nine inches deep and 
 when I wanted to bake I made a great fire upon 
 the hearth which I had paved with some square 
 tiles of my own making and burning also, and when 
 the firewood was burnt pretty much to embers or 
 live coals I drew them forward upon this hearth 
 so as to cover it all over and when the hearth was 
 very hot, sweeping away the embers I set down my 
 loaf and whelming down the earthen pot upon them 
 drew the embers all around the outside to keep in 
 and add to the heat ; and thus, as well as in the best 
 oven in the world, I baked my barley loaves, and 
 became in a little time a good pastry cook into the 
 bargain. As for yeast or salt I did not concern 
 myself with them and learned to do well without. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 For companionship I had these days the dog which 
 had leaped from the ship the first day I visited the 
 wreck, the several goats which I had caught and 
 tamed and which browsed about my tent-cave hab- 
 itation, and a parrot which also I had knocked down 
 and tamed and which in time learned to speak, 
 namely, to call me by name and to say, "Crusoe, 
 poor old Robinson Crusoe !" Nor should I omit 
 the cats, for the ship's cat came to me one day a 
 few months after I had landed and brought with 
 her a train of kittens which in time again began 
 to multiply to such numbers that they were a nui- 
 sance and some had to be killed and others driven 
 off. My dog, who lived to be very old, was always 
 at my side. He never lacked in sympathy or ap- 
 parent understanding of what I said to him and 
 did all but answer me with words. I talked often to 
 the dog, for in such solitude there is a comfort even 
 in the sound of one's own voice. 
 
 My days I arranged after a systematic manner. 
 In the morning generally I went abroad with my 
 
 34 
 
A New Robinson Crusoe 35 
 
 gun to shoot a fowl, a duck or a pigeon ; or I ran- 
 sacked the rocks where their nests were made to se- 
 cure the young or their eggs. Or I might shoot 
 a young goat or happen on a tortoise, or get fresh 
 grapes, melons or cress, of which there was abun- 
 dance in the stream. During the heated spell I 
 rested in the shade of my tent during the middle 
 of the day and went abroad again or to my work in 
 the cooler part. In one of the seamen's chests I 
 had found some books, three Bibles and some works 
 on navigation. These I studied and the Bible I be- 
 gan to read with a renewed interest. The bitterness 
 and despair which had filled my soul when first I 
 found myself alone and cast away forever cut off 
 from the companionship of other human beings — ■ 
 this bitterness I say had quite abated and I gave 
 humble thanks that God had been pleased to dis- 
 cover to me even that it was possible I might be 
 more happy in this solitary condition than I should 
 have been in a liberal society, and in all the pleas- 
 ures of the world. 
 
 So in time, in dividing the day for my employ- 
 ments, I began with the reading of the Scriptures, 
 and with this I permitted nothing to interfere. 
 Then coming in from the three hours spent in hunt- 
 ing, there were the labors attendant upon the order- 
 
36 A New Robinson Crusoe 
 
 ing, curing, preserving and cooking what I had 
 killed or caught for my supply. These took up 
 a considerable part of the day, so there was none 
 too much time remaining for the laborious tasks 
 which had to be performed. 
 
 About the fourth year of my sojourn on this 
 island my clothes began to decay mightily, so that 
 I began to consider about putting the few rags I 
 had which I called clothes into some order. For I 
 could not bear the thought of being naked, though 
 I was all alone. And there was another and excel- 
 lent reason for wishing to be covered, for I found 
 by experience that I could not bear the heat so well 
 naked as with some clothes on — nay, the very heat 
 frequently blistered my skin, whereas with a shirt 
 on, or some covering, even though thick, the air 
 itself made some motion and whistling under the 
 shirt, was twofold cooler than without it. No more 
 could I ever bring myself to go out in the heat of 
 the sun without a cap or hat, the heat of the sun 
 beating with such violence as it does in that place 
 would give me the headache presently by darting so 
 directly on my head. 
 
 So I fell to tailoring or rather indeed a-botching, 
 for I made most piteous work of it. Lacking need- 
 les and thread, I raveled my stockings, which I had 
 
f A New Robinson Crusoe 37 
 
 worn, and for needle used a nail which I had sharp- 
 ened. But soon I gave up trying to mend the rags 
 and turned attention to the skins of various animals 
 I had killed. For these I had preserved stretched 
 out with sticks in the sun, and some were soft and 
 useful. First I made a great cap for my head with 
 the hair on the outside to shut off the rain and this 
 I performed so well that I made a suit of clothes 
 wholly of these skins — that is to say a waistcoat 
 and breeches open at the knees, and both loose, for 
 they were wanted rather to keep me cool than to 
 keep me warm. I must not omit to acknowledge 
 that they were wretchedly made; for if I was a bad 
 carpenter I was a worse tailor; however, they were 
 such as I made a very good shift with, and when I 
 was abroad if it happened to rain, the hair of the 
 waistcoat and cap being outmost, I was kept very 
 dry. 
 
 And after this I spent a great deal of my time 
 and pains to make an umbrella. I was indeed in 
 great want of one what with rain and sun. There 
 were many spoiled before I had my way. It was 
 covered with skins, hair upwards, so that it cast off 
 the rain like a tenthouse and kept off the sun so ef- 
 fectively that I could walk out in the hottest of the 
 weather with greater advantage than I could before 
 
38 A New Robinson Crusoe 
 
 in the coolest. And when I had no need of it I 
 could close it and carry it under my arm. 
 
 Thus I lived mighty comfortably, my mind being 
 entirely composed by resigning to the will of God 
 and throwing myself wholly upon the disposal of 
 His providence. And when I began to regret the 
 want of conversation, I found a substitute in ask- 
 ing myself all manner of difficult and confusing 
 questions and thereupon setting about answering 
 them — formulating the answer clearly and in con- 
 formity with truth and reason. And many prob- 
 lems which before I had not had time to work out to 
 any conclusion I was able thus to solve quite to 
 my own satisfaction, of which I shall at the proper 
 time have more to say. 
 
 And my chief task in the fifth year of my resi- 
 dence in these parts, outside the yearly planting and 
 harvesting and the daily hunting, curing, preparing 
 and cooking, was the building of a canoe, which I 
 did after the manner of the natives who hew them 
 out of great logs of some light wood, easily worked 
 and hollowed out by tools and fire. This with much 
 labor was finally completed and by building a canal 
 up to the boat was set afloat. So I was ready to 
 explore the seas in the direction of those lands or 
 
A New Robinson Crusoe 39 
 
 islands which on clear days I had descried to the 
 South, but knew not what they were or if inhabited 
 by man or beasts or savages. But I was curious 
 to know. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 I had now brought my state of life to be much 
 easier in itself than it was at first, and much easier 
 to my mind as well as to my body. I frequently 
 sat down to my meat with thankfulness and admired 
 the hand of God's providence, which had thus spread 
 my table in the wilderness. 
 
 One reflection was of great use to me, namely, 
 to compare my present condition with what I at 
 first expected it to be — nay, with what it certainly 
 would have been — if the good providence of God 
 had not wonderfully ordered the ship to be cast up 
 near to the shore where I not only could come at 
 her, but could bring what I got out of her to the 
 shore for my relief and comfort; without which I 
 had wanted tools to work, weapons for defense or 
 gunpowder and shot for getting food. 
 
 I spent whole hours, I may say whole days, in 
 
 representing to myself in the most lively colors how 
 
 I must have acted, if I had gotten nothing out of the 
 
 ship ; how I could not have so much as got my food, 
 
 except fish and turtles, and that as it was long be- 
 
 40 
 
A New Robinson Crusoe 41 
 
 fore I found any of them I must have perished 
 first — that I should have lived if I had not perished, 
 like a savage — that if I had killed a goat or a fowl 
 by any contrivance, I had no way to flay or open 
 them, or part the flesh from the skin and the bowels 
 or cut it up; but must gnaw it with my teeth and 
 pull it with my claws, like a beast. 
 
 And I passed from these reflections to consider- 
 ing what man owes to his fellow-man and how de- 
 pendent, one upon the other, is every human being 
 in the world. For the tools which I took from the 
 ship, I now bethought me, did not come into being 
 of themselves, but were themselves worked out by 
 the labor of workmen like myself, only knowing 
 more of the arts and crafts. The axe which I used 
 to chop down a tree — to make it men must have dug 
 iron from the earth, others must have smelted the 
 metal from the dross, still others must have jarred it 
 through the tempering process to give it a hardened 
 edge, to say nothing of the fashioning it into shape 
 and fitting it to a suitable helve. And now every- 
 thing among my possessions from the ship began 
 to take on a new interest and a dignity which before 
 were unknown. An ordinary bit of sailcloth I found 
 to be a quite wonderful contrivance of threaded 
 hemp or cotton regularly interlaced in a way which 
 
42 A New Robinson Crusoe 
 
 I could never hope to imitate. My powder — of 
 what was it composed? Whence came the ingre- 
 dients? Were they dug, distilled or concocted by 
 some abstruse chemist's formula? How many per- 
 sons had labored with their hands and brains to pro- 
 duce the little store which I had harbored up for my 
 future needs? And the gun I always carried — 
 again the metal must be dug from the rock below 
 the surface of the earth, it must be smelted and 
 worked with tools which in turn were the creations 
 of still others' work. The levers, bolts and screws 
 which worked the lock and caused the flint to strike 
 the steel — all the contriving and creating were to me 
 reminders of my debt to other men. I had become 
 an artisan, and I hailed my fellow artisans and su- 
 periors in the world of artisanry and made them my 
 obeisance. Before I had thought of a knife or a 
 gun as articles one bought, getting money for the 
 purpose as one might; now I thought of them in 
 terms of labor, skill and creative thought — all per- 
 formed for me, and the which, by all rights, I 
 should return in kind. 
 
 Thus I came upon the answer to that question 
 which, at first, had puzzled me: Why does man 
 work? For I perceived that man works to acquire 
 the things he must have if he is to go on living — 
 
A New Robinson Crusoe 43 
 
 food, clothing to protect him from the weather and 
 shelter for his increased protection. 
 
 I perceived, moreover, that strictly speaking, man 
 produceth nothing; but God has ordained that the 
 earth shall bear trees and other growing things; 
 and that the verdure and the fruits shall afford sup- 
 port to animals, wild or tame, and to birds of the 
 air, and that all these things are for man for his 
 food. But I perceived that none of these things 
 are acquired by man except by labor, for the tree 
 must be hewn and cut into boards, firewood or other 
 shapes ; the fruit must be gathered and ofttimes pre- 
 served; grain must be sowed, reaped, ground and 
 made into loaves before it is fit for human food and 
 animals must be captured or killed if wild, or tend- 
 ed and bred if domesticated and, being killed, the 
 flesh must be saved and prepared with intricate care 
 before it becomes man's nourishment. And for the 
 doing of all these things there must be tools, and 
 for the making of the tools there must be labor at 
 mining, welding, moulding, grinding, tempering and 
 a hundred varied operations of which the average 
 person like myself knows nothing. And as tools 
 wear out or are broken there must be others to 
 take their place, so that there are always those en- 
 gaged in making tools. And as clothes wear out 
 
44 A New Robinson Crusoe 
 
 and are thus consumed there are always those who 
 are working to make clothes ; and as houses become 
 outworn, out of repair and antiquated, or become 
 too narrow for growing families, there must be new 
 houses built; so there are those working always at 
 erecting houses, whether of wood, stone or brick, 
 all of which materials must be ravished from the 
 forest, the quarry or the clay-pit. And I began to 
 see that the workers of the world were specialized. 
 For no one man can adequately do the many things 
 needful for the simplest mode of life. In my case 
 this was clearly manifest, for with all my industry 
 I was compelled to dress in skins, and despite my 
 utmost efforts I could not make a needle. If the 
 lightning had struck my small supply I would have 
 been sadly in need of a powder specialist, or if 
 the spring had snapped in the breech-lock of my 
 fowling piece, no thought or industry of mine would 
 have supplied the place of that specialist called a 
 gunsmith. 
 
 How helpless, I concluded, is man alone! Fa- 
 vored as I was by a mild and equable climate, 
 blessed in the absence of ravening beasts such as 
 tigers, bears or wolves; finding a veritable garden 
 of edible wild fruits, and a gracious soil and abun- 
 dant rain for the raising of agricultural products, 
 
 
A New Robinson Crusoe 45 
 
 not forgetting the goats, turtles, fish and fresh flow- 
 ing streams — I say that even amid an environment 
 like this, and leaning heavily on the tools which I 
 had from the labor of other men, I was still shel- 
 tered in a manner which civilization would regard 
 as almost savage, while my raiment would have 
 brought a crowd at my heels if I were back among 
 my fellow-creatures. Nor did I consider myself 
 remiss; for to have it otherwise I must have been 
 able to spin and weave, to mine and smelt ; to make 
 needles and gun-springs and powder ; to quarry and 
 perform the work of masons, to shape great beams 
 and transport all over long spaces, all of which I 
 perceived is impossible for man laboring by himself. 
 By collective labor are great things done, and by 
 those who have specialized are the intricate things 
 wrought out. 
 
 And in the adventures which happened to me 
 later I saw these things in even a clearer light. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 I have spoken of my efforts to make a boat by 
 digging out a log and shaping it in a way to float 
 well in the water. My first attempt had failed, for 
 that I had chosen a log so great that when I had 
 shaped and hollowed it I was unable to get it to the 
 water by reason of the distance and the weight. 
 My second attempt was made with better fore- 
 thought and while I found it necessary to dig a ca- 
 nal upward half a mile from the sea to my craft, 
 yet I diligently pursued the task for two years and 
 in the end had the satisfaction of viewing my handi- 
 work floating in my little inlet and ready to be out- 
 fitted. I was very anxious to explore about the 
 shores of my island and hoped with it to venture 
 to the mainland if indeed there should prove to be 
 a mainland at not too great a distance. In any 
 case it would, I thought, be the first step in my de- 
 liverance. So I fitted up a little mast to my boat 
 and made a sail to it out of one of the pieces of 
 the ship's sails, which lay in store and of which I 
 
 had a great store by me. Thus fitted I tried the 
 
 46 
 
A New Robinson Crusoe /\rj 
 
 boat and found she would sail very well. Then I 
 made little lockers and boxes at each end to put pro- 
 visions, necessaries and ammunition in, to be kept 
 dry, either from rain or the spray of the sea, and a 
 little long hollow space I cut in the inside where 
 I could lay the gun, making a flap to hang down 
 over it to keep it dry. I fixed my umbrella in a 
 step at the stern, like a mast to stand over my head 
 and to keep the beating of the sun off' me, tike an 
 awning, and thus I every now and then took a 
 little voyage upon the sea, but never went far out, 
 nor far from the little creek; but at last, being 
 eager to view the circumference of my little king- 
 dom, I resolved upon a tour, and accordingly I 
 victualed my ship for the voyage, putting in two 
 dozen of my loaves of barley bread, an earthen 
 pot full of parched rice (a food I ate a great deal 
 of), a good supply of fresh water, half a goat and 
 powder and shot for killing more, and two large 
 watch coats which I had saved from the seamen's 
 chests; these I took, one to lie on and the other to 
 put over me at night. 
 
 It was the sixth of November in the sixth year of 
 my reign, or my captivity, which you please, that I 
 set out upon this voyage, and I found it longer than 
 I expected, for while the island was not very large 
 
48 A New Robinson Crusoe 
 
 I found adverse winds the second day and was 
 obliged to make camp and wait for smoother seas. 
 On the following day, having resumed my voyage, 
 I came upon a great ledge of rocks running about 
 two leagues out to sea ; some above water and some 
 below it, and beyond this a shoal of sand lying 
 dry half a league or more, so I was obliged to go a 
 great way out to sea to double that point. 
 
 My course from there should stand as a warning 
 to all rash and ignorant pilots, for no sooner was 
 I a quarter of a league from the shore than I found 
 myself in a great depth of water and a current like 
 the sluice of a mill. It carried my boat along with 
 such violence that all my efforts could not keep her 
 so much as on the current's edge; but I found it 
 hurried me farther and farther out to sea. There 
 was no wind stirring to help me and all I could do 
 with my paddles signified nothing. So now I be- 
 gan to give myself over for lost. Every moment 
 was carrying me farther from the island, I knew 
 not whither. My craft would not live in anything 
 but most favorable weather and if I had the good 
 fortune to have smooth seas my provisions would 
 last but a brief space and then I must perish of 
 hunger and thirst. Now I looked back on my deso- 
 late, solitary island as the most pleasant place in the 
 
~A New Robinson Crusoe 49 
 
 world, and all the happiness my heart could wish for 
 was to be there again. 
 
 I worked hard till indeed my strength was almost 
 exhausted, and I kept my boat as much as possible 
 to the northward, where I hoped not only to get out 
 of the force of the current but to get into the back 
 fib 1 or eddy which such a current must somewhere 
 always have. By noon I thought I felt a little 
 breeze in my face springing from the southeast. 
 This cheered my heart a little and especially when 
 an hour later it blew a pretty small gentle gale. By 
 this time I had gotten a frightful distance from the 
 island, and had the least cloud or haze intervened 
 I had been undone, for I had no compass on board 
 and should never have known which way to steer 
 for the island. But the weather remaining clear, 
 I applied myself to getting up my mast again and 
 spread my sail, standing away to the north as much 
 as possible. And I had no sooner done so than I 
 saw by the clearness of the water that some altera- 
 tion of the current was near; for where the current 
 was so strong the water was foul; but perceiving 
 the water clear, I found the current abate and pres- 
 ently I found to the east, at about half a mile, a 
 breach of the sea upon some rocks. These I found 
 made a breach of the current's stream and while 
 
50 A New Robinson Crusoe 
 
 the main stress of it continued to run southerly the 
 other returned and made a strong eddy which ran 
 back again to the northwest with a very sharp 
 stream. 
 
 I was now as one who, having been condemned, 
 had a reprieve. With unspeakable joy I put my 
 boat into the stream of this eddy and the wind IfiJso 
 freshening I spread my sail to it, running cheerfully 
 before the wind and with a strong tide or eddy un- 
 der foot. After about a league the eddy failed and 
 I was left to my sail alone, but the water now was 
 neutral and I kept on steering for the island and by 
 five o'clock in the afternoon I came to shore. At 
 once I fell on my knees and gave God thanks for my 
 deliverance, resolving to lay aside all thought of 
 my deliverance by my boat; and refreshing myself 
 with such things as I had, I brought my boat close 
 to the shore in a little cove I had espied under 
 some trees, and laid me down to sleep, being quite 
 spent with the labor and fatigue of the voyage. 
 
 And presently I was aroused by something hav- 
 ing touched me and awoke to see before me a man — 
 the first I had beheld in more than six years. 
 
 At first I was convinced that this was a dream 
 and that I was still asleep or in a fever. My first 
 impression was one of fear alone, for the unexpect- 
 
A New Robinson Crusoe 51 
 
 edness of the apparition and the long habit of my 
 life alone had made the appearance of an ordinary 
 human being startling to the last extreme. I strug- 
 gled to my feet and would have fled, but the stran- 
 ger smiled and, laying hold of me urged me to be 
 calm. Such at least I judged to be the purport of 
 his words which, as I afterward learned, were spok- 
 en in Portuguese; but his gestures were reassuring 
 and from his clothing and general appearance I 
 placed him as a man of the sea, like myself. Pres- 
 ently I perceived that there were others and that 
 they had come in a small-sized sailing boat, which 
 now lay at anchor near the shore, and when I had 
 recovered from the fright and shock of this strange 
 awakening, you may imagine my eagerness and 
 joy at seeing again creatures of my kind and once 
 more hearing the human voice. Great was my joy 
 when a group had gathered quickly about me one 
 of them addressed me in English, with a touch of 
 the Yorkshire dialect. At the sound of my native 
 tongue my joy was too great for utterance and I 
 fell upon the Yorkshireman and embraced him, to 
 his great amazement; for they were all regarding 
 me and my strange attire with a curiosity and sur- 
 prise they made no effort to conceal. 
 
 And in reply to my earnest questionings the York- 
 
52 A New Robinson Crusoe 
 
 shireman informed me that they had come from 
 an island not unlike mine which was one of two 
 which lay to the west and south of me some eight 
 leagues and that this was the first time they had 
 ever landed on my island, which indeed to them 
 was a new discovery, for they were members of a 
 colony of political refugees who had taken part in 
 an uprising in Chili and had by the government 
 been exiled and set down on these islands, without 
 boats of sufficient size to make the voyage back to 
 the mainland and with orders never more to return 
 on pain of death. And the colony they told me now 
 numbered some fifty people and they had their 
 women among them and they had learned to live a 
 fairly comfortable life on the two islands — the 
 which were not far distant the one from the other — 
 and they had finally built this small sailing vessel 
 and gone exploring what might be farther to the 
 west. Thus they had come upon my domain and 
 me. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 There were eight in the party which had come in 
 the little sailing boat to my island and I perceived 
 that they carried no firearms, though of knives in 
 their belts they had a-plenty, and I later learned that 
 their captors had purposely left them neither pow- 
 der nor firearms when they were deposited on their 
 island; and these they had not as yet been able to 
 produce on their own account, though afterward 
 the formula for making powder, together with the 
 necessary nitrolis and free carbon, were discovered. 
 Meantime I figured that with my gun and store of 
 ammunition I had an advantage over them, even 
 though I might be but one to their score. But these 
 thoughts did my visitors great injustice, for never 
 at any time did any but friendly thoughts enter 
 their minds and in the end I was ashamed even to 
 myself that I had momentarily dwelt upon my supe- 
 rior equipment to do them harm. For I found them 
 most friendly in their disposition and very eager to 
 relieve me in what they naturally inferred was a 
 
 condition of great distress. Several of the boatmen 
 
 53 
 
54 "A New Robinson Crusoe 
 
 could speak little English and the Yorkshireman 
 became at once interpreter for the others, who spoke 
 both Portuguese and Spanish. It seems a British 
 ship had gone ashore on the islands and the York- 
 shireman was one of three who had been saved and 
 he had now been five years with the Chilean refu- 
 gees. 
 
 I bade the visitors welcome to my island and 
 made myself a guide to show its various features. 
 I brought them to my cave and showed them, not 
 without pride, all the things I had contrived, not 
 forgetting to kill a kid and set before them, and 
 from my store of sun-cured grapes, turtle eggs and 
 barley loaves. In the latter and in the raisins they 
 were greatly interested, for there were no grapes 
 on their islands, nor for some unknown reason, cit- 
 rons. But the lack of barley was due to the fact 
 that they had been given none for seed by their 
 jailors who, on the contrary, left them only a small 
 quantity of maize, and this they had cultivated for 
 their bread, not without difficulty, however, owing 
 to the character of the islands, for these two other 
 islands were quite different from the one on which 
 I dwelt. When I visited them — as I did shortly as 
 their guest — I concluded that the geologic history 
 of the islands was quite diverse; for while mine 
 
A New Robinson Crusoe 55 
 
 was obviously of volcanic origin, theirs was an older 
 sort of rock, carrying many of the features of the 
 continental rocks, with mineral beds of iron, coal 
 and a trace of the more precious metals. But their 
 islands were less arable. The rocks were bold and 
 hard and the level spaces narrow and difficult of 
 access. But withal I found their settlement quite 
 a picture of contentment. They had built some 
 thirty houses and there were several others scat- 
 tered at different points about the islands. Every 
 house had a garden belonging to it in which many 
 fruits and vegetables grew luxuriantly. The main 
 island, which they call Mas-a-fuera, is much broken 
 with ravines and gulches, but there is in the midst 
 one main valley sheltered and inviting, where there 
 grew many fruit trees, flowers and sweet herbs. 
 In the midst of the houses there was built a little 
 church, with an inscription, "La casa de Dias es la 
 jnerta del cielo y Se coloco!' 
 
 The dress of the women I found to be of a singu- 
 lar description, and was, they told me, the same 
 as that of the ladies of Chili and Peru. They wore 
 a petticoat reaching only a little below the knee, 
 spread out to a great distance by a hoop at the lower 
 part, leaving their legs entirely exposed, which, 
 however, were covered with drawers. They wore 
 
56 A New Robinson Crusoe 
 
 their hair long, hanging down the back and plaited 
 into forty and sometimes fifty braids. In every 
 house I entered I beheld great numbers of children, 
 and indeed other evidences of prosperity. 
 
 My visitors remained with me as my guests for 
 two days, and at the end of that time I sent them 
 away laden down with dried grapes, goat flesh, 
 barley loaves and flour. And they were very anx- 
 ious that I return with them at once to their 
 islands; but I made excuses to them promising to 
 visit them on their return voyage, as indeed I did 
 with observations which I have already set down. 
 
 And here I find it necessary to record a strange 
 thing — namely, my entire change of feeling toward 
 the island which had in the beginning been to me 
 a prison and my way of life which had been to my 
 thought a hardship. Now the island was my home, 
 and my way of life upon it had revealed to me 
 that even solitude hath its pleasures. I had found, 
 that there is no such thing as perfect freedom, for 
 man is what God intended him the servant of laws 
 which environment impose on him, requiring reg- 
 ularity of toil, physical and mental, for such laws 
 require of him foresight and thrift like that of the 
 bee to lay up stores against the season when they 
 ghall not be at hand, and diligence in devising ways 
 
A New Robinson Crusoe 57 
 
 to protect his life against the elements and those 
 things which are enemies to his life not forgetting 
 sloth and dullness which is a close relative as well 
 as a precursor of death and dissolution. But also 
 I had found that man alone is more nearly free than 
 when man is compassed about by other human be- 
 ings, for in his every day contact with his fellow 
 creatures man must yield something of his indi- 
 vidual whims and bend to those common notions 
 which in time come to be the conventions of society, 
 and later on its laws. So when I analyzed myself 
 I found myself averse to taking up a permanent 
 residence in the colony whence my visitors had 
 come, but I preferred to remain on my own domain 
 interchanging friendship with them and such com- 
 modities and service as would tend to make the 
 conditions of life more desirable for all. 
 
 And so it was. And from this period I entered 
 on a new experience the relating of which will prove 
 no less interesting, I trust, than the experiences 
 which had led up to this new and strange adventure. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 With the coming of these other human beings and 
 the setting up of contact with two more islands 
 my fiscal world was broadened. By fiscal world I 
 refer to the realm of those activities which have to 
 do with the satisfaction of man's needs and wants. 
 For I conceive that there is such a realm just as 
 there is an intellectual realm, or a physical. As in 
 the physical man exercises the faculties of his body, 
 and in the intellectual realm the faculties of his 
 mind, so in the fiscal realm he exercises the fiscal 
 faculties with which he chances to be endowed, pro- 
 ducing, owning, trading with his fellows and de- 
 veloping fiscal strength or weakness as the event 
 may determine. 
 
 To this conclusion I had come after much thought 
 during the many hours I had devoted to thinking 
 out the problems which my solitary life had imposed 
 on me. Of my solitary fiscal life — that in which 
 I was unaided by my fellow men (except what I 
 had gathered from the wreck) I have spoken. With 
 
 the coming of other human beings and the enlarging 
 
 58 
 
A New Robinson Crusoe 59 
 
 of these relations there came new problems. Of 
 them and of the answers I resolved I shall speak 
 as my narrative proceeds. 
 
 On their return to my island which was as soon 
 as the weather and the state of the sea would per- 
 mit, for they durst not adventure much in so small 
 a boat — my neighbor colonists brought with them 
 a suit of clothes for me made of home-spun wool 
 woven by hand on looms which certain of their 
 women operated with skill, together with stockings 
 knit likewise by the women — all of wool, sheared 
 from sheep which they had raised and spun on 
 distaffs operated in their homes. Likewise there 
 was linen underwear, the need of which I had 
 greatly felt after the shirts from the ship had worn 
 out. This, too, was made of flax raised and shred- 
 ded on their island; for they had for a long time 
 been cut off from any communication with the 
 mainland and had only that which their skill and 
 industry had enabled them to create. 
 
 And my first thought was one of shame that I 
 had not been able to make cloth, spinning it from 
 the hair of my goats. But in this I blamed myself 
 without cause, for on inquiry I learned that several 
 in the colony had been weaver artisans and knew 
 the trade of weaving before ever they were set 
 
60 A New Robinson Crusoe 
 
 down in this remote spot. So that when the neces- 
 sity was upon them, they had an experience to 
 draw upon and knew how to build a loom ; and the 
 women had known how to spin and to knit, and 
 did not have to invent the art as I should have 
 had to do. They, in short, were specialists, and 
 were useful in contributing of their specialty to 
 the community's needs, while others furnished them 
 with the products of the soil or the trophies of the 
 chase. 
 
 Gladly, therefore, did I accept cloth from the 
 weavers, in exchange for the flour and raisins I 
 had sent them, and I perceived that both had prof- 
 ited by the exchange for they were equally glad 
 to have my offerings. 
 
 This, then, I concluded, is the function of ex- 
 change that man may have a greater variety of 
 useful articles; for different localities of the earth 
 produce different things ; different men have diverse 
 skill and special knowledge, and when each follows 
 his specialty or adapts himself to the opportunities 
 held forth by nature, the total product is made more 
 diverse and of greater volume, and when exchange 
 has distributed to each his fair share there results 
 a larger measure of happiness and comfort than 
 there would have been had each attempted as I 
 
A New Robinson Crusoe 61 
 
 had previously, and of necessity, tried to do, that 
 is to do all things for himself. 
 
 This time I sent my visitors home laden with 
 quantities of ripe lemons, grapes, and some goat 
 meat, and they in turn promised to bring with 
 them on their next trip tools and a couple of their 
 best carpenters with enough helpers to build a cot- 
 tage with sides of dressed boards, a thatched roof 
 and windows and a door fitted to open or shut. 
 And this they did. And as I watched their labor 
 I reasoned thus: 
 
 I, working by myself, was not able to build a 
 house. The beams were too heavy for my single 
 strength. Two men cooperating can lift a weight 
 impossible to one and six men with poles and levers 
 can accomplish wonders. It is because the men 
 cooperate — because a number are working together 
 toward a common end — that important things are 
 done. 
 
 And further I observed that one man appeared 
 to know more about the way the structure should 
 be built than the others, and this one led. The 
 others did as he directed, and they called him mas- 
 ter builder. But it was his superiority in knowing 
 how that made the others follow and him to give 
 the orders. There are those who know and those 
 
62 A New Robinson Crusoe 
 
 who cooperate and are willing to take orders, and 
 this results in bringing the labor of many hands 
 and the thought of many minds to the accomplish- 
 ment of a common purpose. 
 
 Thus I had discovered in my fiscal world special- 
 ization, cooperation, and organization — three im- 
 portant methods employed by man to do man's 
 work, to do it better and in greater volume, where- 
 as by exchange the blessings are distributed most 
 widely. 
 
 My friends brought tools and sawed the logs into 
 boards, and thus two men in a saw-pit in a few 
 hours did the work and did it better than I had 
 taken days to do with my axe. And in a week 
 they worked out rafters and joists which would 
 have taken me a lifetime to hew. Indeed in ten 
 days they had builded me a house which would 
 have done credit to any village, the roof being 
 thatched with reed-grass — a simple thing I had not 
 had the wit to think about — and the windows hav- 
 ing shutters which in wind or storm could be closed, 
 and at one end a chimney with a walled-in space 
 at the side where hot cinders could be placed to 
 heat the space for baking. 
 
 And I paid them for their labor on my house 
 with one of my spare muskets and five pounds of 
 
A New Robinson Crusoe 63 
 
 powder with balls to match. And this more than 
 satisfied them, so that they were eager to be of 
 further service to me. 
 
 Now I perceived that in one respect I was at a 
 disadvantage as compared with my neighbors in the 
 other islands, namely, they had cattle and likewise 
 barnyard fowl while I had only goats and the wild 
 fowl which I must bring down with my gun. So 
 on the next occasion I proposed that they exchange 
 with me a bullock and a heifer with two hens and 
 a cockerel for another musket and an equal quantity 
 of ammunition as I had given for my house. To 
 this they readily assented — a trade which to me 
 was excellent since it gave me in time a herd of 
 cattle for the upland pastures which on my island 
 were rich and spacious with abundant milk for 
 butter and cheese and beeves for food. And my 
 dooryard soon swarmed with fowl, which kept 
 me in good supply of eggs while there was always 
 a bird ready for the stew pot or the skewer. 
 
 But to the other parties the exchange was not 
 so profitable, for the powder was soon expended 
 and until more could be secured the musket was 
 purely ornamental. 
 
 Such, however, is the nature of exchange. Judg- 
 ment as well as chance oft enters in, and the for- 
 
64 A New Robinson Crusoe 
 
 tunes of the trader rise or fall as he is favored 
 in the exercise of the one or the fortunate bestowal 
 of the other. 
 
 I soon felt that I was destined to become a person 
 of wealth; and how this worked out will subse- 
 quently appear. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 Perceiving the great desire of my neighbors to 
 have more of my rice and barley, I was not slow 
 to plant more land in these crops. 
 
 Here, said I, is the working of that fiscal law 
 about which I have heard, the law of supply and 
 demand. Demand is made up of people's wants; 
 supply is made up of the ability and willingness to 
 satisfy those wants. These colonists want rice and 
 barley; I have these commodities in larger measure 
 than I need; I am in a position therefore to secure 
 for myself things which I desire by supplying their 
 demands for rice and barley. I shall secure new 
 and better tools, help in breaking the soil for my 
 crop, with further wool and linen. 
 
 In all these respects my anticipations were ful- 
 filled. But one day I received a lesson in the con- 
 trary working of this self-same principle ; for I had 
 loaded my canoe for a trading voyage with the 
 other islands and had carried to the second island 
 some of the many hatchets which I have spoken of 
 
 as among the things rescued from the ship — these 
 
 65 
 
66 A New Robinson Crusoe 
 
 and a quantity of turtle eggs which I that day gath- 
 ered. Imagine then my shame and disappointment 
 when I found that the colonists on the second island 
 had opened a small iron mine in the mountains, and 
 set up a smelter and were themselves makers of 
 axes and hatchets and other tools much finer than 
 those I brought ; so that they laughed at these, while, 
 as for the turtle eggs, these abounded also on their 
 island to such a degree that the children were wont 
 to collect them for the barnyard fowls, but few 
 were eaten by the people. 
 
 Thus there was no demand for my cargo which 
 I was obliged to take back with me. True there 
 was a poor beggar among them who by physical 
 defects was unable to work who wanted a hatchet 
 and even the turtle eggs, but as he had nothing to 
 give in exchange his wants did not constitute a de- 
 mand in the sense which the world of business 
 knows that term; for demand is made up of both 
 a want and an ability to grant something of value 
 in exchange. 
 
 So by my failure to suit supply to demand I had 
 lost my labor and my time ; but the loss had profited 
 me in the way of knowledge, for I now perceived 
 that when men live as neighbors and trade with 
 one another it behooves them to study to make 
 
A New Robinson Crusoe 67 
 
 their service fit the needs and wants of their fellows 
 — in other words to suit supply to demand. 
 
 Moreover, if one man does not do this it is apt 
 to happen that another will; for the second man 
 will see the opportunity that the first has over- 
 looked. And likewise in the world of trade neither 
 party to the exchange is able to be overbearing in 
 his demands on the other, because a second or a 
 third will come along and by more reasonable offer 
 will take the exchange from the first man. 
 
 This I perceived when I went to the iron work- 
 ers' island to exchange barley-flour for a hammer. 
 I came upon three smiths all with hammers just 
 alike. The first demanded for his hammer a bushel 
 of barley-flour, the second offered his hammer for 
 half a bushel and the third said he would yield his 
 for a peck. From him I secured the hammer. 
 
 And I perceived here the working of the law of 
 competition. For the three competed one with an- 
 other and when the first was moved by greed to 
 demand an unfair amount for his hammer (for he 
 could make it in a day and it would take me a week 
 to even grind so much flour) the others interposed, 
 and one took the trade on a reasonable basis, show- 
 ing how competition is a check on greed. 
 
 I saw the working of this principle on their side 
 
68 A New Robinson Crusoe 
 
 of the exchange ; but, alas, for the blindness of man 
 to his own shortcomings, I had presently to see a 
 different out-working of the same principle; for I 
 perceived one workman to have a saw which was 
 of most excellent workmanship and which I at once 
 coveted. But perceiving their lack of barley meal 
 I insisted that he let me have the saw for half a 
 peck of flour. I was about to get the saw when 
 the man who had sold me the hammer stepped up 
 and offered a whole peck for the saw; which the 
 owner at once accepted and I was left disappointed 
 and humiliated. For at once I realized that in this 
 case it was my greed which competition had checked ; 
 for I had not offered a fair value for the saw. 
 
 And I thought much about the working of com- 
 petition, and I concluded that in general competition 
 tends to equalize the values of articles exchanged — 
 such values being measured in terms of the labor 
 necessary to produce the article and bring it to the 
 place where the exchange takes place. 
 
 But I perceived that there are times when there 
 can be no competition to be a check on greed, as 
 when I possessed the only musket to be had and 
 traded it for a fine new house. And at the begin- 
 ning of my intercourse with the colonists I pos- 
 sessed the only source of powder and therefore 
 
r A New Robinson Crusoe 69 
 
 # 
 
 might come very near to naming my own terms 
 for an exchange for this for their commodities. 
 But I could not quite do this for my powder was 
 a commodity they could live without. And I could 
 not refrain from some idle speculations as to how 
 great would have been my fiscal strength if this, 
 had been a commoditiy they must have to live, and 
 I with the only supply in the world. Then indeed 
 would I have been their king and they all my sub- 
 jects with their lives a forfeit except as I let them 
 live. 
 
 Even as things were the competition among them 
 as buyers of my barley meal soon placed me in a 
 position of great fiscal strength. For their maize 
 was not nourishing and was productive of a com- 
 mon skin disease which in some cases proved fatal, 
 so that they were all exceedingly anxious to get 
 some of my barley meal, so that I soon had them 
 bringing me stores of all the things they produced 
 and offering labor of any form in exchange for 
 small quantities of my flour. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 Thus I learned that competition is an influence 
 which generally works on the two sides of an ex- 
 change; and that the effect of competition, so at 
 work, is to prevent the demand of an unreasonable 
 amount of return for what is given — to make, in- 
 deed, the exchange more fair. 
 
 But what takes place where there is an absence 
 of competition on one side of an exchange is seen 
 in the undue amounts I was enabled to demand 
 because I alone possessed the rice and barley which 
 my neighbors needed. For had there been others 
 near at hand having rice or barley, or who could 
 be reached even at a distance, the colonists would 
 have gone to them rather than render me a bolt of 
 cloth for a peck of flour, and other articles in pro- 
 portion. But there was none to compete with me 
 in the sale of these two needed foods, my fiscal 
 strength was overweening. 
 
 And what takes place when there is present on 
 
 the other side of the exchange an excess amount 
 
 of competition I presently beheld also, for one day 
 
 70 
 
A New Robinson Crusoe 71 
 
 there came two men to buy rice. Neither had any 
 commodity to offer in exchange but both offered 
 to work for me at any employment I might put 
 them at in payment for a small quantity of grain. 
 And I bethought me of the weeds which were in 
 my rice field, which I had intended to pull out, and 
 I proposed to the first man that he work at weed- 
 ing for a day for a quart of rice. To this he readily 
 agreed, but when I informed the second man that 
 I did not need his labor, having weeds for but one 
 pair of hands, he showed much concern, and there- 
 upon informed me that he had eaten nothing since 
 the previous noonday meal and therefore would do 
 the same amount of weeding for half a quart of 
 rice. 
 
 To this I readily assented, though I perceived 
 that a hungry man competes unduly against one 
 who is, not so moved. 
 
 And on the next day came a woman and offered 
 to do the weeding for less than the man, and after 
 her a neighbor with five children all of whom she 
 offered to weed all day for a quart of rice which at 
 once did away with the possibility that any men 
 might be employed in this labor. 
 
 Here, said I, is an instance of undue competition 
 weakening one side of the exchange. My bar- 
 
72 A New Robinson Crusoe 
 
 gain with the first man was none too beneficial to 
 him; but he could not compete with the hungry- 
 man, nor the latter with the woman, nor the latter 
 with the children. What they might have secured 
 from me was reduced by their under bidding one 
 against the other; whereas what I was enabled to 
 extort from them was increased. In the absence of 
 competition on my side of the exchange, I was 
 blessed with an ever increasing fiscal strength, while 
 on their side the growing eagerness of competi- 
 tors reduced their fiscal strength to a point where 
 they would gladly toil all their time for enough 
 food to enable them to go on toiling. 
 
 These people, I reasoned, are weak in a fiscal 
 sense (for they were mostly all of sturdy bodies) 
 because they have not a store of the necessities 
 laid by. It is because of their immediate needs 
 that I am able to take an unfair quantity in ex- 
 change. It is because they are unable to do with- 
 out the thing I have that they lack fiscal strength. 
 
 And I concluded that one element in fiscal 
 strength is the ability to do without what is offered 
 in exchange. 
 
 I was able to do without practically all the things 
 possessed by my neighbors. I had managed to live 
 quite comfortably before they came, doing all things 
 
A New Robinson Crusoe 73 
 
 for myself, and I could do so again. Hence I was 
 not compelled to trade with them at all but might 
 keep all my grain for myself. 
 
 Thus I arrived at the conclusion that the fiscal 
 strength of one side or the other of a possible 
 exchange increases as competition decreases and 
 decreases as competition increases; also that it in- 
 creases in proportion to man's ability to do without 
 what is offered in exchange, and decreases in pro- 
 portion to his inability to do without what is so 
 offered. 
 
 Moreover, I observed that in an exchange be- 
 tween the person of fiscal strength and the person 
 of fiscal weakness there is no element of fairness 
 entering in, but the strong ever hath the better of 
 the bargain. 
 
 And in thus considering the matter of fiscal 
 strength I found I had come upon the answer to 
 a matter which had always puzzled me ; that is to 
 say, why it is that all the hard work of the world 
 is done for the least rewards; for those who dig 
 and delve are not those who live in great houses 
 and are served dainty food by retinues of servitors, 
 but on the contrary this is the reward of those whose 
 services are lightest while those who do those things 
 most necessary to the continued ongoing of the 
 
74 A New Robinson Crusoe 
 
 world — who mine our coal, dig our iron and till 
 the soil, as well as those who build houses and carry 
 merchandise and prepare our food and clothes for 
 us — these dwell most humbly and often have but 
 little of that which they produce. 
 
 And it now occurred to me that these do the 
 work more because they must than because they 
 will. There are present among them the elements 
 of fiscal weakness. They compete right eagerly 
 among themselves and they are unable to do with- 
 out the things offered in exchange, namely, food, 
 shelter, warmth and a place to be. They have no 
 store of these laid up, nor a store of money with 
 which to buy them even for a short period, while 
 holding out for better terms in the exchange; but 
 on the contrary they must hearken to their im- 
 mediate needs, and must exchange their labor or 
 the product of their labor on any terms the person 
 of superior fiscal strength shall say. So they are 
 forever losing a part of the fair share which should 
 be theirs by the exchange; whereas the few gather 
 to themselves an ever increasing store with an ever 
 increasing power to lord it over the weaklings of 
 the world. 
 
 Up to this time I had thought always of exchange 
 as fair and had heard always that all bargains, 
 
A New Robinson Crusoe 75 
 
 whether for barter or wages, were purely and fairly 
 made. But now I saw that exchanges are fair only 
 when made by persons of fairly equal strength, 
 which seldom is the case; for most exchanges are 
 between persons of greatly differing degrees of 
 fiscal strength. 
 
 But this is a discovery which one would not 
 herald generally to the world, for all the laws and 
 customs even in our most civilized parts are based 
 on a contrary theory, namely, that exchanges are 
 all free and fair and that each party to the ex- 
 change is free to accept or decline the terms — 
 which, as we have seen, is opposed to the facts. 
 
 Such a theory is highly beneficial to the few who 
 have fiscal strength, and it is not to their advantage 
 to have the laws overthrown, as they would be if 
 the many who do not benefit by this theory were to 
 come to understand why they are opposed. 
 
 But with matters of this sort I had no concern 
 except as it gave me satisfaction to learn the an- 
 swer to a puzzling question ; for I was profiting by 
 the opportunity which had come my way and be- 
 lieved I saw how I should in time place myself in 
 a position of great ease. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 Many changes were wrought during the first year 
 
 following the coming of my neighbors. I find set 
 
 down in my diary this entry: 
 
 I have to-day broken three acres of land for my 
 
 crops. This is an enormous increase over what 
 
 has been my custom to break for my own uses, but 
 
 I perceive that I shall need much grain for trading 
 
 with the other islanders; for their need is great. 
 
 I sell my barley only as flour, for I perceive that 
 
 the less they have for seed to grow crops on their 
 
 island the better will be my market. For if I sell 
 
 them seed grain and they cultivate this crop on their 
 
 lands — which at any rate are inferior to the lands 
 
 in this island — my own grain soon will begin to 
 
 compete in the market and my fiscal strength 
 
 will be made less. So I have said to those asking 
 
 for seed grain that I could spare a little flour, but 
 
 must husband my small store of seed, which is in 
 
 a measure true. The two acres will be for barley 
 
 and the one for rice, which I perceive they will 
 
 76 
 
A New Robinson Crusoe 77 
 
 raise in considerable amounts on their lands, and 
 nothing I can do will prevent. 
 
 The breaking of land was an easy task for I 
 now had the help of two strong men and a bullock 
 dragging a plow with an iron share. And it was 
 a joy to me to see it cut through the sods which 
 had so stubbornly resisted my poor wooden spade. 
 And I marveled also at the great advance man 
 achieves when he puts a harness on one of these 
 dumb beasts and by applying his intelligence to 
 guide their strength of neck and limb is able to 
 have the most of his labor performed for him. 
 
 Behold, said I, is not this the beginning of the 
 conquest of nature by nature's own forces? For 
 the ox and the ass and the horse aid man also in 
 carrying from place to place; and the water of a 
 falling stream may be used to turn one's mill stones 
 as may even the winds of the heavens; and in the 
 face of such marvels of human ingenuity who 
 knows what other forces may not some day be 
 made man's servants? 
 
 And I secured the labor of the two men to break 
 and harrow and sow my land for a small amount 
 of flour with a little rice and two goats from my 
 flock. And I had only to direct their labor. 
 
 Seeing that I might have others work for me at 
 
yS A New Robinson Crusoe 
 
 so little cost I procured from the other settlement 
 two good carpenters and a third who knew some- 
 thing of the shipwright's trade and in two months 
 they built for me a sturdy sailing schooner of con- 
 siderable depth and width, and about fifty feet over 
 all, which was well suited to cruise between our is- 
 lands carrying freight and passengers. And in the 
 weavers' colony I discovered an old seafaring man, 
 who had proved to be a poor hand at weaving and 
 of little use at any land occupations; and him I 
 induced to become master of my schooner at a wage 
 to be made up of enough goat's meat, barley loaves 
 and vegetables to keep him well fed and two suits 
 of clothes a year. This with a little tobacco for his 
 pipe was all he needed and he was more than con- 
 tent to serve me thus and I pleased to have him, for 
 I perceived that what I should take in exchange 
 for the carrying of cargoes and passengers would 
 be more than this by far, and the possession of the 
 boat would be an added source of profit. 
 
 And I perceived that when one permits the sur- 
 plus of one's possessions to serve others he is com- 
 pensated for this service, just as he would be if he 
 placed his services at the disposal of his fellows. 
 And at the end of the year my ship had earned 
 for me a considerable store of merchandise over 
 
A New Robinson Crusoe 79 
 
 and above what I had acquired by exchanging grain, 
 rice, lemons, grapes and goats' flesh with the in- 
 habitants of the other islands. So that my house 
 and barns were filled with merchandise. 
 
 I made frequent voyages in my boat for the pleas- 
 ure of the intercourse with other creatures of my 
 kind, and for the profit of the trades which gen- 
 erally accompanied these meetings. 
 
 One day I called on two of the weaver's colony 
 and found they had been too ill to work and had 
 no cloth to offer in exchange. The weavers needed 
 the flour I had brought; so I suggested that they 
 keep the flour and settle at some future time when 
 they should have been able to resume their work. 
 So as a memorandum of the affair I had them write 
 on a flat shell, "Payment due for six measures of 
 flour. Weavers." 
 
 And in leaving I mused to myself: Here i» 
 the beginning of credit as a medium of exchange. 
 Credit which is one man's trust in another, 
 is a great help in the proper distribution of the 
 world's products. Without credit I should have 
 had to take my flour back home where I did not need 
 it, since this was part of my surplus stock. Mean- 
 time the weavers would have been without what 
 they needed and would be able in the end to pay 
 
80 A New 'Robinson Crusoe 
 
 for. But now, by means of credit, I am able to 
 regard my half of this exchange as an accomplished 
 fact and this part of the world's work of distribu- 
 tion is completed. The other part will be completed 
 when I have exchanged my credit for some com- 
 modity which I want. 
 
 Whereupon I remembered that I needed some 
 carpentering on my house, so I returned to the 
 weavers' island and asked : 
 
 "Have you a carpenter in your midst who is not 
 busy?" 
 
 "Certainly," said they, "and what is more the 
 carpenter owes us for his last suit of clothes." 
 
 "That is excellent," I exclaimed, "for it enables 
 me to exchange this credit for six days' services at 
 carpentering; and when the labor is performed I 
 will pay the carpenter with this credit. Then, in- 
 deed, all will be paid." 
 
 Which accordingly we did, and I was greatly 
 impressed with the value of credit as a medium of 
 exchange. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 The end of the next five years saw great changes 
 in our island world. In numbers we were much 
 increased for there had been added two shiploads 
 of refugees, or prisoners as they more properly 
 should be called — victims of the revolutions which 
 had gone on in Peru and Chili. Those in power 
 had sent them hither, and they were set down on the 
 two islands near mine — yet why not on mine I knew 
 not — with no means of getting back to their native 
 land and under sentence if they did so to be stood 
 up against a wall and shot. For such was the 
 custom in those lands. And we were now close 
 to seven hundred adult men and women, not count- 
 ing children which were very numerous. 
 
 Being now so many it was difficult at first to 
 secure free exchange among all who had need of 
 things and who had work or goods to contribute 
 to the common store; for credit will proceed only 
 between those who are known one to another and 
 when there are many who are strangers, and some 
 
 possibly who for laziness or a tendency to deceive 
 
 81 
 
82 A New Robinson Crusoe 
 
 are not deserving to be trusted, exchange cannot 
 proceed as it does between a smaller number who are 
 all known one to another. But presently this was 
 rectified by the finding of silver among the rocks 
 of that island where the miners and iron workers 
 dwelt. The silver was not in large quantities nor 
 was it free, but it must needs be dug and smelted 
 at considerable cost of labor, so that when it was 
 refined and stamped into the shape of a small coin, 
 each coin had cost as much in labor to produce it 
 as, directed in other ways, would have produced a 
 bushel of grain or the equivalent in other merchan- 
 dise. But it was more convenient to carry a piece 
 of silver than the grain or other merchandise, and 
 the silver could be exchanged at a fixed value for 
 labor or commodities and therefore was eagerly 
 welcomed as a medium of exchange. By this me- 
 dium strangers could do business, for the silver 
 having value, it took the place of credit and all 
 exchanges were made more free and simple. Grain 
 which had before been the measure of value, now 
 ceased to be so and merchandise was measured in 
 terms of these silver coins each of which was about 
 a quarter the size of an English shilling. 
 
 And I perceived now for the first time that no 
 
r A New Robinson Crusoe 83 
 
 man cares for money for itself, but for what it 
 will buy. And I remembered how when I was a 
 solitary exile on my island the thing which I valued 
 least of those things I rescued from the wreck was 
 the little hoard of gold and silver coins. Gladly 
 would I have exchanged the whole for a tobacco 
 pipe, or a pound of salt. But now when there were 
 numerous men and women attempting to divide 
 among themselves the world's labors — those labors 
 by which man is fed, clothed, and sheltered — then 
 it becomes of great importance that there be one 
 commodities which all will value alike and all will 
 accept on the same terms of exchange for what he 
 or she has to give, some commodities which will 
 maintain its value the same from day to day and 
 year to year, which will not corrode or deteriorate 
 and which can easily be transported and will have a 
 mark upon it — which commodities, of course, are 
 the materials, gold and silver. 
 
 Silver alone did us very well, and exchanges went 
 on freely. The worker exchanged his work or the 
 product of his work for money and then exchanged 
 the money for the work, or product of the work 
 of others. No one cared for the money for itself. 
 It was valued only for what it would command in 
 
84 A New Robinson Crusoe 
 
 exchange. But everybody wanted as much money 
 as he could get for his work or products, because 
 this money measured his right to command the 
 products or the work of others. 
 
 And after a while I beheld another thing concern- 
 ing money. For I saw the silver disappear and in 
 its place were paper memoranda showing that so 
 much money had been deposited in a public treasury 
 and could be had by one presenting this bit of paper. 
 This did away with the necessity for carrying about 
 much of the silver money and only small amounts 
 had to be used to meet the small exchanges. And 
 the people preferred the paper so long as they knew 
 the money was in safe hands and could be had on 
 demand. 
 
 I was greatly convenienced by the coining of 
 money, for I had stores of merchandise which I 
 had taken in exchange for which I had no immedi- 
 ate need, such as cloth, tools, dressed lumber and 
 all manner of building material and preserved foods. 
 And these I soon disposed of for silver and of the 
 latter I laid up a large store. 
 
 And the silver coins were called marks, for that 
 they most resembled such a coin of that country 
 whence most of these colonists had come. 
 
A New Robinson Crusoe 85 
 
 And having now much money for which I had 
 no immediate use I began to inquire in my mind 
 as to what use I might put it to. And how this 
 was presently answered the next chapter will tell. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 There came to me one from the weavers' colony 
 and spoke thus: 
 
 "We know that y ou have been prospered in your 
 exchanges and hiv^e more money than any single one 
 among us. N -w I have a plan by which I can make 
 your money r.seful to you. I know how to construct 
 a water wheel and the machinery by which the water 
 wheel would turn the stones for grinding grain into 
 flour. Near the house where I live is a stream with 
 an excellent fall of water and if I had a thousand 
 marks I could hire the labor to build a mill which 
 would grind all the grain for this colony. Lend me 
 the thousand marks and I will pledge you the mill 
 and my personal honor that I will pay you ten 
 marks each year for every hundred you lend me 
 and I will eventually repay the principal sum out of 
 the earnings which will come to me for grinding the 
 colony's flour." 
 
 The plan was indeed an excellent one, and my 
 
 money was soon at work ; so that without effort on 
 
 my part I was soon receiving each year ten marks 
 
 86 
 
A New Robinson Crusoe 87 
 
 for every hundred I had lent together with part 
 of the principal sum which was coming back. 
 
 In this again I was one of those who permit their 
 possessions to be of service to others; but in a dif- 
 ferent way from the case of the schooner, for that 
 was my own risk and venture, while in loaning 
 money I was assured of a fixed return and had no 
 need to supervise the work. 
 
 And I perceived that it was pleasanter to permit 
 one's possessions to do the work than to labor 
 at producing for one's self. For now I had little 
 labor that it was really necessary for me to do, but 
 I busied myself supervising the labor of those who 
 worked for me and in doing such things as I might 
 choose for increasing my fiscal strength. 
 
 And I began to see that ownership is the basis of 
 all fiscal strength — the ownership of money or the 
 things that can be exchanged for money. 
 
 And this was brought home to me strongly when 
 I was visited early by a group who were without 
 work, from the barren and rocky island where the 
 miners lived. These desired to set up tilling opera- 
 tions on my island. 
 
 To this I said I would consent on terms usual in 
 such affairs. I would rent them ten acres of ex- 
 cellent land for ten marks a year the acre. 
 
88 A New Robinson Crusoe 
 
 "Do you own this island?' 7 asked the leader of 
 the group. 
 
 "I do," said I, "I discovered it. I was here first. 
 According to the customs of land ownership in all 
 parts of the world, it is mine.' , 
 
 "It isn't fair/' quoth a surly fellow. "No one 
 ought to be allowed to own more land than he can 
 himself use." 
 
 I did not admit that what the fellow said was 
 true, but stood on my rights and was fully sup- 
 ported by the opinion of the other colonists. So I 
 began to rent the arable parts of my domain on these 
 terms. 
 
 This was the most advantageous thing I had yet 
 experienced; for now I began to receive an income 
 which was far in excess of all my needs and for 
 which I did no work at all. 
 
 This opened my eyes to the advantage of owning 
 lands and I began to look about for opportunities 
 to secure other lands which might produce similar 
 returns. And the occasion soon appeared. For one 
 day I had brought a load of melons and other fruits 
 to the weavers' landing ; but finding no one at hand 
 and knowing that the weavers would want what I 
 had brought, I put the articles ashore and hired a 
 man who was fishing to mind the fruit and sell them 
 
A New Robinson Crusoe 89 
 
 to any offering a fair price. The fisherman took 
 charge and erecting a temporary shelter disposed of 
 the stock and later made his accounts to me. 
 
 "Surely/' said I, "this is the beginning of a mar- 
 ket place. For a market place is the convenient 
 spot where commodities pause on their way from 
 the producer to the consumer while questions of 
 want and right to share are worked out." 
 
 And so it proved, for others later came and dis- 
 played their wares for sale and a regular market 
 grew up between the wharf and the dwellings of the 
 weavers. 
 
 Foreseeing which I bought all this land from the 
 weavers, they gladly taking my money for what they 
 could see little value in; but they did later when I 
 charged rent for use of the wharf and the stalls in 
 the market place, which, indeed added considerably 
 to my income. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 My experience in disposing of the load of melons 
 which had been brought to the weavers' island led 
 me to reflect as follows : 
 
 I perceive here the beginning of distribution as 
 one of the tasks of the world. Necessities must not 
 only be produced and transported ; they must be dis- 
 tributed. And in due course distribution, like other 
 labors, becomes a specialty. The loiterer whom I 
 have taken from his fishing and made keeper and 
 salesman of my cargo is now one of the world's dis- 
 tributors. He is helping to get the product to the 
 man who is to consume it. When there are so many 
 consumers with so many differing wants and so 
 many articles to meet them, much work must be 
 done to suit the needs of all and to get all the articles 
 where they are wanted. To do this work calls for 
 those who specialize on this work alone. 
 
 And I summed up thus : 
 
 Production, transportation and distribution are 
 the great labors of the world. Men work to pro- 
 duce from the raw materials yielded by the earth 
 
 90 
 
"A New Robinson Crusoe 91 
 
 the things men need; and having thus produced 
 them, they work to transport and distribute them. 
 Without work there would be neither food, 
 clothes nor shelter. By work all these are brought 
 into existence — together with many other things 
 which contribute merely to man's amusement or ad- 
 ditional comfort. And these things are placed at 
 man's disposal at the time and place most convenient 
 to him. Verily work is honorable, and it is a just 
 decree that he who will not work shall not eat. 
 
 Further I observed that men have found that it 
 is better to attack these undertakings with the com- 
 bined labor and diversified skill of the entire com- 
 munity rather than for each to undertake the per- 
 formance of all things for himself. This results in 
 specialization and organization, and makes neces- 
 sary the exchange of products among all. For the 
 specialist produces but one kind of article — though 
 in quantities more than he needs — but his needs are 
 of all things. Without exchange, there fore — the 
 exchange of his specialty for the specialties of the 
 rest — he could not live. He would not have food, 
 clothes or shelter. 
 
 Thus it happens that there must be exchange and 
 to make exchange easy a common medium, such as 
 
92 A New Robinson Crusoe 
 
 metai money, supplementing credit without which 
 few exchanges would take place. 
 
 And thus it happens also that the necessity that 
 is upon all to resort to this thing called exchange to 
 secure what all must have to live, affords an oppor- 
 tunity to the person of the greater fiscal strength 
 to take advantage of the person of less fiscal 
 strength and to compel the latter to yield more than 
 a strictly fair return for what he receives ; and the 
 consequences of this are seen in the fact that all the 
 less agreeable tasks of the world, and the more 
 onerous ones, are performed in return for the least 
 rewards. They are, indeed, performed under a sort 
 of fiscal compulsion. 
 
 Of what fiscal strength is made up, and of how 
 it is lessened by competition and increased by the 
 absence of competition, I have spoken. And how 
 the ownership of lands and wharves, and instru- 
 ments of transportation like ships are important aids 
 to fiscal strength, was made more evident to me by 
 each new experience. 
 
 And now I have come to that point in my narra- 
 tive where I must review briefly the happenings of 
 a score of years. For it was in the twenty-fourth 
 year after I was cast away that there came an end to 
 my residence in this part of the earth. And the 
 
A New Robinson Crusoe 93 
 
 strange happenings that then took place I shall tell 
 at the proper time. 
 
 In the years which followed, and while I was 
 busily solving my fiscal problems, the colony was 
 developing in many ways. The people soon got to- 
 gether and built a school-house and a church on 
 each island and later they built a general assembly 
 hall where they could gather to discuss matters af- 
 fecting the general welfare of the community. In 
 order to meet expenses of this sort they agreed to 
 tax themselves in proportion to their property. One 
 man was chosen to settle the disputes. He was 
 judge. Another to gather the taxes. He was asses- 
 sor. Six were selected to draw up laws in accord 
 with the wishes of a majority of the people. They 
 were parliament. And a general manager for the 
 community was chosen, and it was agreed to call 
 him Governor. They chose a man of honesty to 
 handle the community money and called him treas- 
 urer. A constable was selected to put down any dis- 
 turbance ; and they built a small gaol. 
 
 And the colonists began now to seek the satisfac- 
 tion of wants as well as needs. Having solved the 
 problem of a regular supply of food, clothes and 
 shelter with the expenditure by each man of some 
 eight hours of labor daily, they began to seek also 
 
94 A New Robinson Crusoe 
 
 pleasure. They paid small sums to certain of their 
 number to sing and dance for them; and in time 
 they paid also preachers and lecturers, and even 
 printed books and a paper once a week. There were 
 those who polished semi-precious stones, of which 
 the islands yielded not a few, and some who tried 
 their skill at painting pictures and carving statuary ; 
 though with no high degree of art. And those who 
 were thus engaged were in return supplied with 
 necessaries by those who produced the latter. And 
 in time the colony organized a small army and 
 equipped a schooner with a few small cannon for a 
 navy, delighting to see the soldiers drill and the 
 small warship maneuver and shoot its guns. 
 
 "I perceive," said I, observing this, "that every 
 man who is used in occupations of this sort is not 
 available for producing, transporting or distributing 
 food, clothes or shelter. So the more we have of 
 pleasure and war, the more we pay for the things 
 yre all must have." 
 
 But this troubled me not at all, for I had enough 
 and to spare, and the burdening was upon the poor, 
 who, by reason of their fiscal weakness, could not 
 shift it from themselves. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 As time went on I found it profitable to bring 
 more land under cultivation. By purchasing ma- 
 chinery and hiring laborers this was easy to accom- 
 plish. 
 
 I soon perceived that the greater a man's income 
 is, the easier is it to add thereto; I mean without 
 labor other than taking thought as to how invest- 
 ments shall be made and what business is good to 
 venture on. 
 
 Seeing my prosperity my neighbors came to me 
 offering to lend me money, assuming, as I take it, 
 that having much I would be able certainly to pay 
 it back. So that I was able, to my amusement, to 
 borrow at a low rate and to lend again the same 
 money at a high rate, and thus to add to my income 
 with no labor whatsoever. 
 
 And in other ways my properties were increased, 
 as when the owner of a mill which I had advanced 
 the money to set up, having ill fortune and being 
 unable to redeem his pledge to repay the loan, I was 
 compelled to take the mill ; and having set a skillful 
 
 95 
 
96 A New Robinson Crusoe 
 
 workman to manage it, I had much more from it 
 than I had received when it was merely a pledge for 
 the loan. And another mill having been set up near 
 by I saw that it would be well to buy that also, 
 thereby wiping out competition in the milling trade ; 
 having done which I was able to double the charge 
 for all milling done. And this, too, was much to my 
 advantage. 
 
 I had not neglected meantime to buy the lands 
 about the harbor — it chanced that there was but one 
 — of the islands where the iron workers dwelt; and 
 as I now controlled all the harbors of the three is- 
 lands, and could say what boats might or might not 
 land, I readily bought the two other boats which 
 had been built to compete with my schooner and thus 
 controlled the carrying trade between the islands. 
 
 The owners of the iron mines found that the 
 carrying charges on their products ate up a large 
 share of the profit of their labors so they were in a 
 mood to listen to an offer to purchase all these prop- 
 erties which I caused to be made to them through a 
 discreet agent, and in that manner I became the 
 owner of the mines and the iron mills. 
 
 Some bold spirits among the iron workers were 
 disposed to grumble at seeing these properties fall 
 into the possession of one man, and particularly so 
 
A New Robinson Crusoe 97 
 
 when wages were reduced — for having no spur of 
 competition I was not compelled to pay more than 
 a bare living wage. But they soon discovered that 
 it was more discreet to keep their opinions to them- 
 selves; for when they had been discharged they 
 found it difficult to get other work. They thought 
 at first they might turn to the cultivation of the soil, 
 but they soon perceived that land had so increased 
 in price that they were unable to buy or even to rent 
 enough to keep them. So they were compelled to 
 hire out by the day to the tenants who had long ago 
 rented tracts on my island. 
 
 I have spoken of the parliament which the colon- 
 ists had set up to make such laws as they might need. 
 This body at various times required my attention; 
 for once a law was proposed which would have 
 vested the ownership of the docks in the people and 
 brought carrying charges under regulation. This 
 I denounced as opposed to all respectable usage and 
 savoring of revolution against property and I took 
 pains that one of my capable and faithful employes 
 should be put forward as a candidate against this 
 member of the parliament and with the assistance 
 of the many who were friendly to me or were bound 
 to me in some business way I had no difficulty in 
 
98 A New Robinson Crusoe 
 
 substituting my man for him that had put forward 
 the obnoxious legislation. 
 
 After that I gave close attention to all those put 
 forward as candidates and by quietly contributing 
 funds where they would be most effective was able 
 to keep a parliament in office made up of men un- 
 tainted by disturbing doctrines. 
 
 In this experience it was borne in upon me that 
 the foundation of all fiscal power, whether it be 
 used for good or bad, is in the laws of ownership. 
 For if the community had been unwilling to main- 
 tain a law which said that I, by discovering an is- 
 land, became owner of it, I could not have collected 
 rents for vast tracts which I had leased to my neigh- 
 bors. So also the law had permitted me by paying 
 a trifling sum to acquire the ownership of lands 
 which the community must use if it were to live, 
 such as those on which the wharves were built and 
 the various market sites. So, too, I was permitted 
 to control by ownership the exhaustless riches of 
 minerals — coal, iron and silver — which nature had 
 deposited for man's use, but which these people 
 could not use except with my consent. For this con- 
 sent they all paid me tribute. 
 
 And I marveled greatly that people intelligent 
 enough to form laws by majority consent, should 
 
A New Robinson Crusoe 99 
 
 form such laws as should cut themselves off from 
 the means of livelihood and forge fiscal bonds to 
 bind them to the service of a few who have the wit 
 or luck to acquire fiscal strength. 
 
 But it was not for me to tell them to change the 
 laws so that lands might be free to those who would 
 make them yield, or mines to those who might be 
 willing to dig their contents, or harbors to the many 
 who must use them. And in truth these people were 
 doing only what other peoples have done for cen- 
 turies ; and it is opposed to the habit of men's minds 
 to think out new ways for making the state of all 
 men better ; but each hopes that he may win a posi- 
 tion of fiscal strength and come to live upon the 
 work of others, so he lends his influence against the 
 welfare of the whole and deserves the hardships 
 which in practically every instance are put upon him. 
 
 Now it happened that the Governor of the colony 
 for a considerable time had been a man elected to 
 the office largely by my aid. He was a man of pleas- 
 ant ways and excellent intentions, but not rich, and 
 he knew that what little property he had would be 
 jeopardized if he should offend me. So when I in- 
 formed him that it was my desire to be honored by 
 this office he readily retired and I was chosen with 
 no opposition. 
 
ioo A New Robinson Crusoe 
 
 Before this I had enjoyed many perquisites of 
 my increased wealth. I wore better clothes than the 
 others; my house was larger and better furnished 
 and I kept two boats for my private use together 
 with a dozen servants. 
 
 I had taken a wife from one of the best families 
 in the colony, a woman of unusual personal charm 
 who dutifully bore me four healthy and promising 
 children. 
 
 As Governor it was my endeavor so to administer 
 the colony's affairs that I might have a favorable 
 mention in the history of this island nation. To this 
 end I had a Governor's palace built of a character 
 suitable to the office, and a Public Library in each 
 of the islands, each builded entirely at my own ex- 
 pense. 
 
 I was able to use my influence as Governor to 
 keep the taxes low on lands and to distribute the 
 burden among that large and useful class known as 
 laborers. This, however, I did by indirection and 
 without ostentation. 
 
 My will I made about this time. For I deem it 
 a matter of ordinary prudence that a man having 
 property should face the certainty that one day he 
 must take leave of this earthly sphere and go to that 
 place which an all-wise Providence has prepared for 
 
A New Robinson Crusoe IOI 
 
 those who have repented for their sins and sought 
 salvation for their souls through the mediating grace 
 of the only begotten Son. To continue the property, 
 therefore, in the possession of my natural heirs I 
 took the advice of the best lawyers in our midst and 
 on their advice, a trust was arranged which was to 
 last as the lawyers say "a life on a life/* which 
 would be in all likelihood a half century at least; 
 and the heirs were to have only the income of the 
 estates, but never the principal — the income being 
 now very great and sufficient for all luxuries as well 
 as needs. And thus I had the satisfaction of know- 
 ing that my estates would not be squandered, but 
 would go on increasing in value as the community 
 grew in numbers and in importance. 
 
 But in all these matters my expectations were 
 doomed to disappointment for reasons which in the 
 next chapter I will relate. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 It had long been my custom to set down daily the 
 important happenings in my life, a habit which had 
 begun in noting down the days, weeks and months 
 and such things as I desired to keep a record of in 
 the early years of my solitary life on my island. 
 The early record was of the various expedients I 
 had used to build a shelter from the elements to in- 
 sure myself a supply of food and to put clothing on 
 my back. How these matters were worked out when 
 other human beings were near at hand presented 
 problems of no less interest to my mind and these 
 I have set down, too, together with such comments 
 as seemed to go with them, and the whole I had pre- 
 served in a considerable volume which I hoped 
 might some day be read with interest by the genera- 
 tions which should perpetuate my name. It was 
 read, alas, by those who were not of my kin, by cer- 
 tain treacherous fellows who found access by stealth 
 or subterfuge to the place where it was kept — with 
 what results I was presently to learn. For on the 
 
 sixth day of October, 1686, the night being dark 
 
 102 
 
r A New Robinson Crusoe 103 
 
 and somewhat blustering with a mist and no moon 
 I was suddenly set upon as I was returning to my 
 house from a stroll upon the beach — the hour being 
 about eight in the evening and before I had oppor- 
 tunity to cry out or give an alarm or in any way 
 defend myself, I was thrown to the ground, my head 
 was bound with a scarf which gagged and almost 
 suffocated me and when I had been securely bound 
 I felt myself carried I knew not whither and laid 
 down I knew not where, nor did I have any notion 
 of what was happening or why until a long time 
 afterward when I was released and found myself in 
 the cabin of one of my pleasure boats at sea and the 
 ship under a full spread of canvas. 
 
 My captors proved to be three members of the 
 island's law making body, young fellows whom I 
 had known but slightly but whom I had always 
 looked upon as honest and thoughtful citizens. To 
 my amazed questionings they gave most amazing 
 answers. 
 
 "A revolution is taking place in the island," the 
 spokesman said, "and the committee on the common 
 welfare has decreed your removal." 
 
 From which I understood that I was being taken 
 out to sea to be drowned. 
 
 "Not that," went on the leader gathering from 
 
104 ^ New ^Robinson Crusoe 
 
 my expression what were my thoughts. "It is our 
 hope that your removal may be accomplished with- 
 out anything more serious than an adventurous trip 
 which you will make to the mainland and thence 
 back to England, if indeed you are so favored as to 
 reach that goal. But should you return your drown- 
 ing or death by some other means is decreed. In 
 about an hour from now you will be transferred to 
 another boat and in that you will be conveyed by 
 two of our faithful patriots to some landing from 
 which you will have to venture afterward by your- 
 self. We will soon be back in this vessel with an 
 account of an unhappy accident, namely, that while 
 you were endeavoring to stay the foresail during 
 a sudden shifting of the wind you fell overboard 
 and before we could put the ship about and come to 
 your assistance you were drowned." 
 
 "And to what purpose," I inquired, "is all this 
 mummery ?" 
 
 "That the people may believe that you are dead 
 and that by your will all the properties of which 
 you have been the owner are passed to public own- 
 ership." 
 
 Saying which the speaker laid before me on the 
 table a document in form like the will which I had 
 caused to be drawn up ; but I noted that the date of 
 
'A New Robinson Crusoe 10$ 
 
 the witnessing and the attest was of several months 
 past, and that the document lacked only my signa- 
 ture to make it formal. By this will all the lands 
 and properties of which I stood seized were quit- 
 claimed to the people of the three-island settlement ■ 
 for their common use. 
 
 "Your signature to this document will pay your 
 passage to the continent," I was told "If you do 
 not care to sign it the supposed drowning can be 
 made a real one." 
 
 Seeing that it would be worse than useless to re- 
 sist I made a virtue of necessity and told my cap- 
 tors it would make me very happy to become in this 
 way the benefactor of my fellow citizens. I quickly 
 signed the will. 
 
 This matter finished, the revolutionary leader fav- 
 ored me with further explanation* 
 
 "Your diary," said he, "is one potent cause of 
 these present happenings^ A servant's curiosity 
 brought your writings to the attention of others 
 who were curious, and to still others who were in- 
 terested, and finally to those who had long sought 
 for some remedy for certain difficult problems 
 touching the people's welfare. For there has grown 
 up in our midst this thing called poverty. In a land 
 where nature has been bountiful, and there would 
 
106 A New Robinson Crusoe 
 
 seem to be enough of all things for all, there have 
 appeared those who did not have food nor a suffi- 
 cient amount of clothes or shelter. We have found 
 that work could not be had by all, and that those 
 who worked were not necessarily those who pos- 
 sessed. The drudgery was done for the least com- 
 pensation, and many of those things which are 
 produced go to the ownership and control of those 
 who labor not at all." 
 
 The speaker paused to observe the effect on me 
 of his words. I assured him that what he said was 
 true. Whereupon he went on as follows: 
 
 "The reason for this unfortunate state of things* 
 together with the remedy which should be applied 
 we found in the diary which you left,. We perceived 
 that many of these consequences flow from the 
 great disparity in fiscal strength among our people; 
 and the basis and substance of fiscal strength, as you 
 have so clearly set forth in your writings is owner- 
 ship. It is the ownership of lands over and above 
 what the owner is able or willing to use which en- 
 ables him to exact rent; it is the ownership of such 
 public highways as harbor frontages and wharves 
 which exacts added tribute ; and it is the ownership 
 of nature's storehouses such as mines, water powers, 
 and forests which adds to the ability of the owner 
 
A New Robinson Crusoe 107 
 
 to take toll of those who must draw on these re- 
 sources to maintain their lives. But unless our laws 
 permitted private ownership of such properties, 
 those who have thriven and grown powerful on 
 such ownership would not have waxed so great. The 
 fault is ours for we are supposed to make the laws 
 not for the few and strong but for the many, in- 
 cluding those who are weak. We, the people, have 
 forged the chains which bind us to the service of 
 our fiscal masters." 
 
 What the young man said was the truth ; but im- 
 agine my sensations when I had these doctrines 
 hurled at me almost in the words I had set them 
 down as abstract truths, thought out merely for the 
 pleasure of the thinking. 
 
 "And will you then," I asked, "abolish owner- 
 ship?" For even in the extremity wherein I found 
 myself I could not repress a curious interest along 
 these lines. 
 
 "A man may own what he produces," was the 
 answer. 
 
 "And when I lend the shovel I have produced, am 
 I to have no compensation for its use?" 
 
 "A shovel, yes," the revolutionist replied. "Or a 
 ship. But not the gifts of God to man. Not the 
 harbors or the land, or the mineral in the ground, 
 
108 A New Robinson Crusoe 
 
 or the power of the running stream or the timber 
 of the uncut forests. These are things that should 
 belong equally to all. When ownership is limited 
 and not permitted to trespass on the unused stores 
 of a bountiful Providence, man may be safely left 
 to own all other things. His fiscal strength will not 
 then become overweening. Men will differ among 
 themselves, and always there will be those who will 
 have more and those who will have less. Some men 
 will be thrifty and some will be improvident. Some 
 will set themselves to acquire and others will acquire 
 only what they need. And men still will trade, buy 
 and sell. But exchanges will be between men more 
 nearly equal in their fiscal strength and therefore 
 each exchange will be more fair. Each party to the 
 trade is more apt to profit by it. And always there 
 will be opportunity for one willing to exchange his 
 labor for what man needs ; for always there will be 
 the measureless abundance of nature's stores to be 
 converted into food, clothes and shelter for those 
 who need them." 
 
 To this long speech I listened in silence for I had 
 naught to say. Indeed he was but speaking those 
 things I had myself discovered and to a large extent 
 set down quite clearly in my daily writings. But, 
 alas, my discovery had undone me. These rebels 
 
A New Robinson Crusoe 109 
 
 had discovered that the path to freedom was to be 
 found along fiscal lines, and I being the great ob- 
 struction in that path was now to be removed. Often 
 in later years have I wondered what success at- 
 tended their adventure. But my curiosity never 
 was so insistent as to brave the menace of an at- 
 tempt to return. I doubt not, however, these peo- 
 ple found a larger measure of a practical kind of 
 freedom than most people do in our larger world. 
 
 By this time the other boat had come into hailing 
 distance and in due course I was put aboard. And 
 as a parting gift I was handed the flip-can which 
 I had brought ashore when I landed on my island — 
 this as a souvenir of the life I was leaving now 
 forever. 
 
 Six months later I was ashore at Liverpool after 
 some hardships, but no adventures worthy of note 
 as compared with those which I have already told. 
 As to how the revolution fared in that three-island 
 settlement I have never learned.