June 18. – Rained all day, and I stayed within. I thought at this time the rain felt cold, and I was something chilly, which I knew was not usual in that latitude.
June 19. – Very ill, and shivering, as if the weather had been cold.
June 20. – No rest all night; violent pains in my head, and feverish.
June 21. – Very ill, frighted almost to death with the apprehensions of my sad condition, to be sick, and no help. Prayed to God, for the first time since the storm off Hull, but scarce knew what I said, or why; my thoughts being all confused.
June 22. – A little better, but under dreadful apprehensions of sickness.
June 23. – Very bad again; cold and shivering, and then a violent headache.
June 24. – Much better.
June 25. – An ague [ague〈n.〉瘧疾] very violent; the fit held me seven hours; cold fit and hot, with faint sweats after it.
June 26. – Better; and having no victuals to eat, took my gun, but found myself very weak. However, I killed a she-goat, and with much difficulty got it home, and broiled some of it, and eat. I would fain have stewed it, and made some broth [broth〈n.〉肉湯], but had no pot.
June 27. – The ague again so violent that I lay abed all day, and neither eat nor drank. I was ready to perish for thirst; but so weak, I had not strength to stand up, or to get myself any water to drink. Prayed to God again, but was light-headed; and when I was not, I was so ignorant that I knew not what to say; only I lay and cried, “Lord, look upon me! Lord, pity me! Lord, have mercy upon me!” I suppose I did nothing else for two or three hours, till the fit wearing off, I fell asleep, and did not wake till far in the night. When I wake, I found myself much refreshed, but weak, and exceeding thirsty. However, as I had no water in my whole habitation, I was forced to lie till morning, and went to sleep again. In this second sleep I had this terrible dream.
I thought that I was sitting on the ground, on the outside of my wall, where I sat when the storm blew after the earthquake, and that I saw a man descend from a great black cloud, in a bright flame of fire, and light upon the ground. He was all over as bright as a flame, so that I could but just bear to look towards him. His countenance was most inexpressibly dreadful, impossible for words to describe. When he stepped upon the ground with his feet, I thought the earth trembled, just as it had done before in the earthquake, and all the air looked, to my apprehension, as if it had been filled with flashes of fire.
He was no sooner landed upon the earth, but he moved forward towards me, with a long spear or weapon in his hand, to kill me; and when he came to a rising ground, at some distance, he spoke to me, or I heard a voice so terrible that it is impossible to express the terror of it. All that I can say I understood was this: “Seeing all these things have not brought thee to repentance, now thou shalt die”; at which words I thought he lifted up the spear that was in his hand to kill me.
No one that shall ever read this account, will expect that I should be able to describe the horrors of my soul at this terrible vision; I mean, that even while it was a dream, I even dreamed of those horrors; nor is it any more possible to describe the impression that remained upon my mind when I awaked, and found it was but a dream.
I had, alas! no divine [divine〈n.〉神的] knowledge; what I had received by the good instruction of my father was then worn out, by an uninterrupted series, for eight years, of seafaring wickedness, and a constant conversation with nothing but such as were, like myself, wicked and profane to the last degree. I do not remember that I had, in all that time, one thought that so much as tended either to looking upwards towards God, or inwards towards a reflection upon my own ways; but a certain stupidity of soul, without desire of good, or conscience of evil, had entirely overwhelmed me; and I was all that the most hardened, unthinking, wicked creature among our common sailors can be supposed to be; not having the least sense, either of the fear of God, in danger, or of thankfulness to God, in deliverance.