An unknown young man, painted by Mary Beale (?-1699).
A portrait of a young man, formerly identified as Abraham Cowley, painted by English artist Mary Beale (–1699). Robinson tells us that he was born in 1632, and first stepped aboard ship on September 1st, 1651, roughly a year after he first announced his intention of going to sea. He thus vanished out of his parents’ life, for the journey that began as a rebellious trip to London soon turned into a voyage to the west coast of Africa.
Part 1 of 3
ON THE 1st of September, 1651, I went on board a ship bound for London. Never any young adventurer’s misfortunes, I believe, began younger, or continued longer than mine. The ship had no sooner got out of the Humber, than the wind began to blow, and the waves to rise, in a most frightful manner; and as I had never been at sea before, I was most inexpressibly sick in body, and terrified in mind: I began now seriously to reflect upon what I had done, and how justly I was overtaken by the judgment of Heaven, for wickedly leaving my father’s house. All the good counsels of my parents, my father’s tears, and my mother’s entreaties, came now fresh into my mind; and my conscience, which was not yet come to the pitch of hardness to which it has been since, reproached me with the contempt of advice, and the abandonment of my duty.
Précis
Robinson Crusoe, the hero of Daniel Defoe’s tale about a castaway, tells us that after he defied his parents and boarded a ship for London in the docks at Hull, he almost immediately regretted it. The ship had hardly entered the North Sea, before rough weather struck and Robinson was immobilised by fear and seasickness. (55 / 60 words)
Part Two
An English Ship in a Gale, by Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633–1707).
‘An English Ship in a Gale Trying to Claw off [gradually get away from] a Lee Shore’, painted in 1672 by Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633–1707), his first in England. Originally from Amsterdam, in 1672 Van de Velde moved to England with his father to escape war with France, and found employment with King Charles II. The rough seas that Robinson’s ship met just out of Hull terrified him. “I expected every wave would have swallowed us up, and that every time the ship fell down, as I thought, into the trough or hollow of the sea, we should never rise more.” Amidst it all, he vowed to return to his parents, but when the storm passed and the sun shone, all was forgotten — especially as his friend, the master’s son, made him ashamed of being afraid of ‘a cap-full of wind’.
All this while the storm increased, and the sea, which I had never been upon before, went very high, though nothing like what I have seen many times since; no, nor what I saw a few days after; but, such as it was, enough to affect me then, who was but a young sailor, and had never known anything of the matter. I expected every wave would have swallowed us up, and that every time the ship fell down, as I thought, into the trough or hollow of the sea, we should never rise more; and in this agony of mind I made many vows and resolutions, that if it would please God to spare my life this voyage, if ever I got my foot once on dry land, I would go directly home to my father, and never set it into a ship again, while I lived; that I would take his advice, and never run myself into such miseries as these any more.
Précis
Robinson would later sail in far more dangerous seas than this, and sooner than he could have imagined. But for one who had never been to sea before, it was a profound shock; and while it lasted he made vows that if he came safely to land, he would never go to sea again. (54 / 60 words)
Part Three
A Calm with an English Merchant Ship at Anchor, by Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633–1707).
‘A calm with an English Merchant Ship at anchor’, painted by Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633–1707). The little ‘capful of wind’ that had left Robinson prostrate in his cabin was nothing compared to the violent storm that seized the ship while anchored further south in Yarmouth Roads. “It was my advantage, in one respect,” wrote Crusoe, “that I did not know what they meant by founder, till I inquired.” The vessel was driven back to Cromer where the crew scrambled into a rowing boat and watched as their ship went down. After landing safely on the Norfolk coast, they walked thirty miles to Yarmouth. But it is the way of the young, wrote Robinson, that they are not ashamed to sin, and yet are ashamed to repent; and fearing the scorn of his friends in Hull, he went on to London by road, there booked passage on a merchant ship bound for the west coast of Africa.
Now I saw plainly the goodness of his observations about the middle station of life; how easy, how comfortable, he had lived all his days, and never had been exposed to tempests at sea or troubles on shore; and I resolved that I would, like a true repenting prodigal, go home to my father.*
These wise and sober thoughts continued during the storm, and indeed some time after; but the next day, as the wind was abated, and the sea calmer, I began to be a little inured to it. However, I was very grave that day, being also a little sea-sick: but towards night the weather cleared up, the wind was quite over, and a charming fine evening followed; the sun went down perfectly clear, and rose so the next morning; and having little or no wind, and a smooth sea, the sun shining upon it, the sight was, as I thought, the most delightful that I ever saw.
* A reference to The Parable of the Prodigal Son in the Gospel According to St Luke. The prodigal in that story went home and so far as we know stayed there; notwithstanding yet worse weather off Yarmouth in Norfolk, Robinson repented of repentance, and went on.
Précis
The storm did not abate, but mounted ever higher. Robinson thought of the quiet, unadventurous life his father had urged him to embrace, and swore to himself that he would go home and embrace it. Yet as soon as the wind fell and the sun shone, he felt better, and the sea began to cast its spell over him again. (60 / 60 words)
