Having thus settled my affairs, sold my cargo, and turned all my
effects into good bills of exchange, my next difficulty was which
way to go to England: I had been accustomed enough to the sea, and
yet I had a strange aversion to go to England by the sea at that
time, and yet I could give no reason for it, yet the difficulty
increased upon me so much, that though I had once shipped my
baggage in order to go, yet I altered my mind, and that not once
but two or three times.
It is true I had been very unfortunate by sea, and this might be
one of the reasons; but let no man slight the strong impulses of
his own thoughts in cases of such moment: two of the ships which I
had singled out to go in, I mean more particularly singled out than
any other, having put my things on board one of them, and in the
other having agreed with the captain; I say two of these ships
miscarried. One was taken by the Algerines, and the other was lost
on the Start, near Torbay, and all the people drowned except three;
so that in either of those vessels I had been made miserable.
Having been thus harassed in my thoughts, my old pilot, to whom I
communicated everything, pressed me earnestly not to go by sea, but
either to go by land to the Groyne, and cross over the Bay of
Biscay to Rochelle, from whence it was but an easy and safe journey
by land to Paris, and so to Calais and Dover; or to go up to
Madrid, and so all the way by land through France.
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