There was a letter of my partner’s, congratulating me very affectionately upon my being alive, giving me an account how the estate was improved, and what it produced a year, with a particular of the number of squares or acres that it contained; how planted, how many slaves there were upon it, and making two and twenty crosses for blessings, told me he had said so many Ave Marias [Ave Maria 萬福馬利亞，天主教裏對聖母瑪利亞禱告詞的開頭。] to thank the blessed Virgin that I was alive; inviting me very passionately to come over and take possession of my own; and in the meantime, to give him orders to whom he should deliver my effects, if I did not come myself; concluding with a hearty tender of his friendship, and that of his family; and sent me as a present seven fine leopards’ skins, which he had, it seems, received from Africa, by some other ship which he had sent thither, and who, it seems, had made a better voyage than I. He sent me also five chests of excellent sweetmeats, and a hundred pieces of gold uncoined, not quite so large as moidores. By the same fleet, my two merchant trustees shipped me 1200 chests of sugar, 800 rolls of tobacco, and the rest of the whole account in gold.
I might well say now, indeed, that the latter end of Job was better than the beginning. It is impossible to express the flutterings of my very heart when I looked over these letters, and especially when I found all my wealth about me; for as the Brazil ships come all in fleets, the same ships which brought my letters brought my goods, and the effects were safe in the river before the letters came to my hand. In a word, I turned pale, and grew sick; and had not the old man run and fetched me a cordial, I believe the sudden surprise of joy had overset Nature, and I had died upon the spot.
Nay, after that I continued very ill, and was so some hours, till a physician being sent for, and something of the real cause of my illness being known, he ordered me to be let blood, after which I had relief, and grew well; but I verily believe, if I had not been eased by a vent given in that manner to the spirits, I should have died.
I was now master, all on a sudden, of above 5000 pounds sterling in money, and had an estate, as I might well call it, in the Brazils of above a thousand pounds a year, as sure as an estate of lands in England: and in a word, I was in a condition which I scarce knew how to understand, or how to compose myself for the enjoyment of it.
The first thing I did was to recompense [recompense〈v.〉報答，報償] my original benefactor, my good old captain, who had been first charitable to me in my distress, kind to me in my beginning, and honest to me at the end. I showed him all that was sent to me. I told him that, next to the providence of Heaven, which disposed all things, it was owing to him; and that it now lay on me to reward him, which I would do a hundredfold. So I first returned to him the hundred moidores I had received of him; then I sent for a notary, and caused him to draw up a general release or discharge from the 470 moidores which he had acknowledged he owed me in the fullest and firmest manner possible; after which I caused a procuration to be drawn, empowering [empower〈v.〉委托，授權] him to be the receiver of the annual profits of my plantation, and appointing my partner to account with him, and make the returns by the usual fleets to him in my name; and by a clause in the end, made a grant of 100 moidores a year to him, during his life, out of the effects, and 50 moidores a year to his son after him, for his life; and thus I requited my old man.
I had now to consider which way to steer my course next, and what to do with the estate that Providence had thus put into my hands; and, indeed, I had more care upon my head now than I had in my state of life in the island, where I wanted nothing but what I had, and had nothing but what I wanted; whereas I had now a great charge upon me, and my business was how to secure it. I had ne’er a cave now to hide my money in, or a place where it might lie without lock or key till it grew mouldy and tarnished before anybody would meddle with it. On the contrary, I knew not where to put it, or whom to trust with it. My old patron, the captain, indeed, was honest, and that was the only refuge I had.