"A boat came off" — illustration for Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe" (1891)

"A boat came off." (See p. 367), signed by Wal Paget, bottom left. The sloop approaching Crusoe's merchantman is not carrying government agents bent on arresting Crusoe and his partner; rather, the "garrulous" Portuguese pilot who will accompanying Crusoe on his adventures from this point makes his initial appearance here. One-third of page 369, centre, framed: 5.6 cm high by 12 cm wide. Running head: "Our Garrulous Pilot" (page 369).

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Passage Illustrated: Crusoe's ship pursued

Being now come to the latitude of 30 degrees, we resolved to put into the first trading port we should come at; and standing in for the shore, a boat came of two leagues to us with an old Portuguese pilot on board, who, knowing us to be an European ship, came to offer his service, which, indeed, we were glad of and took him on board; upon which, without asking us whither we would go, he dismissed the boat he came in, and sent it back.

I thought it was now so much in our choice to make the old man carry us whither we would, that I began to talk to him about carrying us to the Gulf of Nanquin, which is the most northern part of the coast of China. The old man said he knew the Gulf of Nanquin very well; but smiling, asked us what we would do there? I told him we would sell our cargo and purchase China wares, calicoes, raw silks, tea, wrought silks, &c.; and so we would return by the same course we came. He told us our best port would have been to put in at Macao, where we could not have failed of a market for our opium to our satisfaction, and might for our money have purchased all sorts of China goods as cheap as we could at Nanquin. [Chapter XII, "The Carpenter's Whimsical Contrivance," page 367]

Commentary

Crusoe has been worried about being arrested for piracy because he and his business partner purchased a ship that they were not aware was stolen. They have decided to proceed through the Malacca Strait and on towards China to trade, and then sell the vessel before returning to India. Now, every fresh European ship they encounter is cause for apprehension. Off the coast of China they encounter a pilot boat. When the old Portuguese navigator on board offers to help them negotiate the Gulf of Nanquin (in some editions, Nankin), they learn that their logistical destination to market their opium and purchase such Chinese goods as silk and tea would be Macao. Since Crusoe expresses an interest in visiting the capital, Pekin, the Portuguese pilot in his comic English patter recommends they make for Ningpo in order to approach the great canal leading inland to the heart of the Chinese empire.

Related Material

Relevant Illustrations by George Cruikshank (1831) and Cassell (1864)

Above: Cruikshank's vignette of the merchant-ship delivering a broadside to the smaller ships that have been in pursuit Malayan pirates attacking Crusoe's ship in the Malacca Straits (1831). [Click on the image to enlarge it.]

Above: Thomas Macquoid's elegantly border contains the same scene, but shows the other long-boats: Chased by Boats (1864). [Click on the image to enlarge it.]

References

Defoe, Daniel. The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner. Related by himself. With upwards of One Hundred Illustrations. London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, 1863-64.

Defoe, Daniel. The Life and Strange Exciting Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner, as Related by Himself. With 120 original illustrations by Walter Paget. London, Paris,and Melbourne: Cassell, 1891.

Last modified 18 April 2018