As to all the disputes, wrangling, strife, and contention which have happened in the world about religion, whether niceties in doctrines, or schemes of church-government, they were all perfectly useless to us, and, for aught I can yet see, they have been so to the rest of the world.  We had the sure guide to heaven, viz. the word of God; and we had, blessed be God, comfortable views of the Spirit of God teaching and instructing us by his word, leading us into all truth, and making us both willing and obedient to the instruction of his word.  And I cannot see the least use that the greatest knowledge of the disputed points of religion, which have made such confusions in the world, would have been to us, if we could have obtained it.—­But I must go on with the historical part of things, and take every part in its order.

After Friday and I became more intimately acquainted, and that he could understand almost all I said to him, and speak pretty fluently, though in broken English, to me, I acquainted him with my own history, or at least so much of it as related to my coming to this place; how I had lived here, and how long:  I let him into the mystery, for such it was to him, of gunpowder and bullet, and taught him how to shoot.  I gave him a knife; which he was wonderfully delighted with; and I made him a belt, with a frog hanging to it, such as in England we wear hangers in; and in the frog, instead of a hanger, I gave him a hatchet, which was not only as good a weapon, in some cases, but much more useful upon other occasions.

I described to him the country of Europe, particularly England, which I came from; how we lived, how we worshipped God, how we behaved to one another, and how we traded in ships to all parts of the world.  I gave him an account of the wreck which I had been on board of, and showed him, as near as I could, the place where she lay; but she was all beaten in pieces before, and gone.  I showed him the ruins of our boat, which we lost when we escaped, and which I could not stir with my whole strength then; but was now fallen almost all to pieces.  Upon seeing this boat, Friday stood musing a great while, and said nothing.  I asked him what it was he studied upon?  At last, says he, “Me see such boat like come to place at my nation.”  I did not understand him a good while; but, at last, when I had examined farther into it, I understood by him, that a boat, such as that had been, came on shore upon the country where he lived; that is, as he explained it, was driven thither by stress of weather.  I presently imagined that some European ship must have been cast away upon their coast, and the boat might get loose, and drive ashore; but was so dull, that I never once thought of men making their escape from a wreck thither, much less whence they might come:  so I only inquired after a description of the boat.

Friday described the boat to me well enough; but brought me better to understand him when he added with some warmth, “We save the white mans from drown.”  Then I presently asked him, if there were any white mans, as he called them, in the boat?  “Yes,” he said; “the boat full of white mans.”  I asked him how many?  He told upon his fingers seventeen, I asked him then what became of them?  He told me, “They live, they dwell at my nation.”