Then he told us he did not doubt but that the captain, who was one of
the best-humoured gentlemen in the world, would be easily brought to
accommodate us as well as we could desire, and, to make me easy, told
me he would go up the next tide on purpose to speak to the captain
about it. The next morning, happening to sleep a little longer than
ordinary, when I got up, and began to look abroad, I saw the boatswain
among the men in his ordinary business. I was a little melancholy at
seeing him there, and going forward to speak to him, he saw me, and
came towards me, but not giving him time to speak first, I said,
smiling, 'I doubt, sir, you have forgot us, for I see you are very
busy.' He returned presently, 'Come along with me, and you shall see.'
So he took me into the great cabin, and there sat a good sort of a
gentlemanly man for a seaman, writing, and with a great many papers
before him.
'Here,' says the boatswain to him that was a-writing, 'is the
gentlewoman that the captain spoke to you of'; and turning to me, he
said, 'I have been so far from forgetting your business, that I have
been up at the captain's house, and have represented faithfully to the
captain what you said, relating to you being furnished with better
conveniences for yourself and your husband; and the captain has sent
this gentleman, who is made of the ship, down with me, on purpose to
show you everything, and to accommodate you fully to your content, and
bid me assure you that you shall not be treated like what you were at
first expected to be, but with the same respect as other passengers are
treated.' The mate then spoke to me, and, not giving me time to thank the
boatswain for his kindness, confirmed what the boatswain had said, and
added that it was the captain's delight to show himself kind and
charitable, especially to those that were under any misfortunes, and
with that he showed me several cabins built up, some in the great
cabin, and some partitioned off, out of the steerage, but opening into
the great cabin on purpose for the accommodation of passengers, and
gave me leave to choose where I would. However, I chose a cabin which
opened into the steerage, in which was very good conveniences to set
our chest and boxes, and a table to eat on.
The mate then told me that the boatswain had given so good a character
of me and my husband, as to our civil behaviour, that he had orders to
tell me we should eat with him, if we thought fit, during the whole
voyage, on the common terms of passengers; that we might lay in some
fresh provisions, if we pleased; or if not, he should lay in his usual
store, and we should have share with him. This was very reviving news
to me, after so many hardships and afflictions as I had gone through of
late. I thanked him, and told him the captain should make his own
terms with us, and asked him leave to go and tell my husband of it, who
was not very well, and was not yet out of his cabin. Accordingly I
went, and my husband, whose spirits were still so much sunk with the
indignity (as he understood it) offered him, that he was scare yet
himself, was so revived with the account that I gave him of the
reception we were like to have in the ship, that he was quite another
man, and new vigour and courage appeared in his very countenance. So
true is it, that the greatest of spirits, when overwhelmed by their
afflictions, are subject to the greatest dejections, and are the most
apt to despair and give themselves up.