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Robinson Crusoe

By DANIEL DEFOE Condensation by JAMES B. CONNOLLY My father designed me for the law, but I would be satisfied only with going to sea, and being one day at Hull and one of my companions about to go by sea to London in his father's ship, nothing would serve me but I must go with him--this on September 8,1651, and I being then nineteen years of age. The ship was no sooner out of port than the wind began to blow and the sea to rise in the most frightful manner, which made me most terribly sick in body and frightened in mind. In my agony I vowed that if God would spare me through this one voyage I would go, immediately I set foot on land, directly home to my good parents and be ever after guided in my conduct by their advice. But next day the wind was abated and the sea calmer, and the sun went down to a perfectly fine evening, and when to that was added a bowl of punch made by a shipmate, I forgot my resolution to return home after the voyage; and such has been my habit, to my great misfortune, all my life--to disavow in the hour of peril the headstrong actions which have brought me to peril, and when the danger is past to forget all vows and plunge headlong once more on my heedless courses.