Let France tell, who Anne's banner view'd with dread, Up to the shaken empire, to defend Marlborough, so great and brave, he gave 'em light Who durst aspire to grasp th' imperial ball, The diadem and scepter (to enslave All Europe) thus, he sent those hectors to the grave. Let their sad ghosts arise to tell th' alarms, Since Rome and France proclaim it certain death We'll give 'em leave Te Deums now to sing, Le Chese† his prayers backwards now must strive, Victorious Anne, in a triumphant state, Her publick Hallelujah's twice has sounded, And, when a third time she shall consecrate Immanuel's praise, may she then be surrounded With th' universal harmony of all, In shout, for France and Rome's tremendous fall, And may she reign in peace and honour, 'till A signet in God's heart; a plague to hell: In the eternal (dear and full) embrace Amen, Amen. } } Lewis the Fourteenth's Mistress. + Lewis the Fourteenth's Confessor. Jesus Christ. Prince George of Denmark, Queen Ann's Consort. PROVIDENCE DISPLAYED; OR, A VERY SURPRISING ACCOUNT OF ONE MR. ALEXANDER SELKIRK, MASTER OF A MERCHANT-MAN CALLED, THE CINQUE-PORTS; Who dreaming that the ship would soon after be lost, he desired to be left on a desolate island in the South-Seas, where he lived four years and four months, without seeing the face of man, the ship being afterwards cast away as he dreamed. As also, How he came afterwards to be miraculously preserved and redeemed from that fatal place, by two Bristol privateers, called, The Duke and Duchess; that took the rich Aquapulco Ship, worth one-hundred ton of gold, and brought it to England. To which is added, An account of his birth and education. His description of the island where he was cast; how he subsisted; the several strange things he saw, and how he used to spend his time. With some pious ejaculations that he used, composed during his melancholy residence there. Written by his own hand, and attested by most of the eminent merchants upon the Royal-Exchange. Quarto, containing twelve pages. 'N the IN voyage of the Duke and Duchess privateers belonging to Bris tol, who took the rich Aquapulco ship, they came to an island called Juan Fernandez; where sending their pinnace on shore, she returned, after some time, bringing with her a man cloathed in goat skins, who seemed as wild as the goats themselves. Being brought on board the Duke, he said, he had been on the island four years and four months, having been left there by Captain Stradling, in a ship called the Cinque-Ports, about the year 1705, of which ship he was master; and Captain Dampier, who was then with him, and now on board the Duke, told Captain Rogers, he was the best man then on board the Cinque-Ports, who immediately agreed with him to be a mate on board the Duke. His name was Alexander Selkirk, a Scotchman, and the manner of his being found there, was by his making a fire the night before, when he saw the two privateers aforesaid, judging them to be English, by which, judging it to be an habitable island, they had sent their boat to see; and so he came miraculously to be redeemed from that solitary and tedious confinement, who otherwise, in all probability, must have miserably ended his life there. He said, That, during his stay there, he had seen several ships pass by, but only two of them came in to anchor, which he judged to be Spaniards, and retired from them, upon which they fired at him; had they been French, he said he would have submitted himself, but chose rather to hazard dying on the island, than to fall into the hands of the Spaniards in those parts, because he believed they would either murder him, or make him a slave in their mines. The Spaniards landed so near him, before he knew where they were, that he had much ado to escape; for they not only shot at him, but pursued him into the woods, where he climbed up to the top of a tree, at the foot of which they made water, and killed several goats just by, but went off without discovering him. He told them, that he was born at Largo, in the county of Fife, in Scotland, and was bred a sailor from his youth. The reason of his being left on this melancholy island, was a difference betwixt him and his captain, which, together with the ship's being leaky, made him willing rather to stay there than go along with him at first, and, when he was at last willing to go, the captain would not receive him. He had been, he said, on the island, to wood and water, when two of the ship's company were left upon it for six months till the ship returned, being chaced thence by two French South-sea ships. He had with him his cloaths and bedding, with a firelock, some powder, bullets, and tobacco, a hatchet, a knife, a kettle, a bible, some practical pieces, and his mathematical instruments and books. He diverted and provided for himself as well as he could; but, for the first eight months, he had much ado to bear up against melancholy, and the terror of being left alone in such a desolate place. He built two huts with piemento trees, covered them with long grass, and lined them with the skins of goats, which he killed with his gun as he wanted, so long as his powder lasted, which was but a pound; and, that being near spent, he got fire by rubbing two sticks of piemento wood together upon his knee. In the lesser hut, at some distance from the other, he dressed his victuals, and in the larger he slept, and employed himself in reading, singing psalms, and praying; so that he said he was a better christian while in this solitude, or than, he was afraid, he should ever be again. At first he never eat any thing till hunger constrained him, partly for grief, and partly for want of bread and salt; nor did he go to bed till he could watch no longer; the piemento wood, which burnt very clear, served him both for firing and candle, and refreshed him with its fragrant smell. He might have had fish enough, but could not eat them for want of salt, because they occasioned a looseness, except craw-fish, which are there as large as our lobsters, and very good: These he sometimes boiled, and at other times broiled, as he did his goats flesh, of which he made very good broth, for they are not so rank as ours; he kept an account of five hundred that he killed, while there, and caught as many more, which he marked on the ear and let go. When his powder failed, he took them by speed of foot, for his way of living, and continual exercise of walking and running, cleared him of all gross humours, so that he ran with wonderful swiftness through the woods, and up the rocks and hills, as we perceived, when we employed him to catch goats for us. We had a bull-dog, which we sent with several of our nimblest runners, to help him in catching goats; but he distanced and tired both the dog and the men, catched the goats, and brought them to us on his back. He told us, that his agility in pursuing a goat had once like to have cost him his life; he pursued it with so much eagerness, that he catched hold of it on the brink of a precipice, of which he was not aware, the bushes having hid it from him; so that he fell with the goat down the precipice a great height, and was so stunned and bruised with the fall, that he narrowly escaped with his life, and, when he came to his senses, found the goat dead under him. He lay there about twenty-four hours, and was scarce able to crawl to his hut, which was about a mile distant, or to stir abroad again in ten days. He came at last to relish his meat well enough without salt or bread, and, in the season, had plenty of good turneps, which had been sowed there by Captain Dampier's men, and have now overspread some acres of ground. He had enough of good cabbage from the cabbage-trees, and seasoned his meat with the fruit of the piemento trees, which is the same as the Jamaica pepper, and smells deliciously. He found there also a black pepper, called Malagita, which was very good to expel wind, and against griping of the guts. He soon wore out all his shoes and cloaths by running thro' the woods; and, at last, being forced to shift without them, his feet became so hard, that he ran every where without annoyance; and it was some time before he could wear shoes, after we found him; for, not being used to any so long, his feet swelled, when he came first to wear them again. After he had conquered his melancholy, he diverted himself sometimes by cutting his name on the trees, and the time of his being left and continuance there. He was at first pestered with cats and rats, that had bred in great numbers from some of each species which had got ashore from the ships that put in there to wood and water. The rats gnawed his feet and cloaths, while asleep, which obliged him to cherish the cats with his goats flesh; by which many of them became so tame, that they would lie about him in hundreds, and soon delivered him from the rats. He likewise tamed some kids, and, to divert himself, would now and then sing and dance with his cats; so that by the care of Providence, and vigour of his youth, being now but about thirty years old, he came at last to conquer all the inconveniencies of his solitude, and to be very easy. When his cloaths wore out, he made himself a coat and cap of goatsskins, which he stitched together with little thongs of the same, that he cut with his knife. He had no other needle but a nail, and, when his knife was wore to the back, he made others as well as he could, of some iron hoops that were left a-shore, which he beat thin and ground upon stones. Having some linnen cloth by him, he sewed himself shirts with a nail, and stitched them with the worsted of his old stockings, which he pulled out on purpose. He had his last shirt on when we found him in the island. At his first coming on board us, he had so much forgot his language for want of use, that we could scarce understand him, for he seemed to speak his words by halves. We offered him a dram, but he would not touch it, having drank nothing but water since his being there, and it was some time before he could relish our victuals. He could give us an account of no other product of the island than what we have mentioned, except small black plums, which are very good, but hard to come at, the trees which bear them growing on high mountains and rocks. Piemento trees are plenty here, and we saw one sixty feet high, and about two yards thick; and cotton trees higher, and near four fathom round in the stock. The climate is so good, that the trees and grass are verdant all the year. The winter lasts no longer than June or July, and is not then severe, there being only a small frost and a little hail, but sometimes great rains. The heat of the summer is equally moderate, and there is not much thunder or tempestuous weather of any sort. He saw no venomous or savage creature on the island, nor any other sort of beast but goats, &c. as above-mentioned; the first of which had been put a-shore here on purpose for a breed by Juan Fernando a Spaniard, who settled there with some families for a time, till the continent of Chili began to submit to the Spaniards; which, being more profitable, tempted them to quit this island, which is capable of maintaining a good number of people, and of being made so strong that they could not be easily dislodged. Ringrose, in his account of Captain Sharp's voyage and other buccaneers, mentions one, who had escaped a-shore here, out of a ship which was cast away with all the rest of his company, and says, he lived five years alone, before he had the opportunity of another ship to carry him off. Captain Dampier talks of a Moskito Indian, that belonged to Captain Watlin; who, being hunting in the woods, when the Captain left the island, lived there three years alone, and shifted much in the same manner as Mr. Selkirk did, till Captain Dampier came hither, in 1684, and carried him off. The first, that went a-shore, was one of his countrymen, and they saluted one another, first by prostrating themselves by turns on the ground, and then by embracing. But, whatever there is in these stories, this of Mr. Selkirk I know to be true; and his behaviour afterwards gives me reason to believe the account he gave me, how he spent his time, and bore up under such an |