The Family Robinson Crusoe
9781465686664
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
It is well known that a Swiss, Counsellor Horner of Zurich, sailed some years ago round the world on board a Russian vessel, the Podesta, commanded by Captain Kreusenstern. They discovered a number of islands, and one among the rest of a considerable size and great fertility, situate to the south-west of Java, near the coast of Papua or New Guinea, hitherto unknown to navigators, and which appeared to them worthy to be examined. They landed accordingly; and to the great surprise of the crew, but particularly of Mr. Horner, they found this island, which they had conceived to be uninhabited, already in the possession of a European family, who met them on the bank, and saluted them in German. The family consisted of a father, a mother, and four sons of a robust and active appearance, who willingly communicated to Mr. Horner the history of their adventures. The father had been a pastor or clergyman of West Switzerland, who having lost his fortune in the Revolution of 1798, and reflecting on the family he had to bring up, resolved to become a voluntary exile, and to seek in other climates the means of support. He sailed accordingly with his wife and children, four sons, from twelve to five years of age, for England, where he accepted an appointment of missionary to Otaheite; not that he had any desire to take up his abode in that island, but that he had conceived the plan of passing from thence to Port Jackson, and domiciliating himself there as a free settler. He possessed a considerable knowledge of agriculture, and, with the aid of his sons, he hoped to gain for himself there that advantageous establishment, which his own country, convulsed with the horrors of war, denied him. He turned all that yet remained to him into money, and then vested his little property in seeds of various sorts and a few cattle, as a farming stock. The family took their passage accordingly, satisfied with this consolation that they should still remain together, and sailed with favourable winds till they came in sight of New Guinea. Here they were attacked by a most destructive and unrelenting tempest; and it is in this crisis of their adventures that the Swiss Pastor, or Family Robinson Crusoe, begins the journal, which he liberally consigned to the care of Mr. Horner, who carried it with him into Switzerland; and from the manuscript, thus brought over from one of the remotest parts of the earth, the following narrative has been faithfully printed.