from place to place; which, not being universally known, seemed
proper to be explained before we examined into its original.

There are indeed two different ways of tracing all things used by
the historian and the antiquary; these are upwards and downwards.

The former shows you how things are, and leaves to others to
discover when they began to be so. The latter shows you how

things were, and leaves their present existence to be examined by
others. Hence the former is more useful, the latter more

curious. The former receives the thanks of mankind; the latter
of that valuable part, the virtuosi.

In explaining, therefore, this mystery of carrying goods and
passengers from one place to another, hitherto so profound a

secret to the very best of our readers, we shall pursue the
historical method, and endeavor to show by what means it is at

present performed, referring the more curious inquiry either to
some other pen or to some other opportunity.

Now there are two general ways of performing (if God permit) this
conveyance, viz., by land and water, both of which have much

variety; that by land being performed in different vehicles, such
as coaches, caravans, wagons, etc.; and that by water in ships,

barges, and boats, of various sizes and denominations. But, as
all these methods of conveyance are formed on the same

principles, they agree so well together, that it is fully
sufficient to comprehend them all in the general view, without

descending to such minute particulars as would distinguish one
method from another.

Common to all of these is one general principle that, as the
goods to be conveyed are usually the larger, so they are to be

chiefly considered in the conveyance; the owner being indeed
little more than an appendage to his trunk, or box, or bale, or

at best a small part of his own baggage, very little care is to
be taken in stowing or packing them up with convenience to

himself; for the conveyance is not of passengers and goods, but
of goods and passengers.

Secondly, from this conveyance arises a new kind of relation, or
rather of subjection, in the society, by which the passenger

becomes bound in allegiance to his conveyer. This allegiance is
indeed only temporary and local, but the most absolute during its

continuance of any known in Great Britain, and, to say truth,
scarce consistent with the liberties of a free people, nor could

it be reconciled with them, did it not move downwards; a
circumstance universally apprehended to be incompatible to all

kinds of slavery; for Aristotle in his Politics hath proved
abundantly to my satisfaction that no men are born to be slaves,

except barbarians; and these only to such as are not themselves
barbarians; and indeed Mr. Montesquieu hath carried it very

little farther in the case of the Africans; the real truth being
that no man is born to be a slave, unless to him who is able to

make him so.
Thirdly, this subjection is absolute, and consists of a perfect

resignation both of body and soul to the disposal of another;
after which resignation, during a certain time, his subject

retains no more power over his own will than an Asiatic slave, or
an English wife, by the laws of both countries, and by the

customs of one of them. If I should mention the instance of a
stage-coachman, many of my readers would recognize the truth of

what I have here observed; all, indeed, that ever have been under
the dominion of that tyrant, who in this free country is as

absolute as a Turkish bashaw. In two particulars only his power
is defective; he cannot press you into his service, and if you

enter yourself at one place, on condition of being discharged at
a certain time at another, he is obliged to perform his

agreement, if God permit, but all the intermediate time you are
absolutely under his government; he carries you how he will, when

he will, and whither he will, provided it be not much out of the
road; you have nothing to eat or to drink, but what, and when,

and where he pleases. Nay, you cannot sleep unless he pleases
you should; for he will order you sometimes out of bed at

midnight and hurry you away at a moment's warning: indeed, if
you can sleep in his vehicle he cannot prevent it; nay, indeed,

to give him his due, this he is ordinarily disposed to encourage:
for the earlier he forces yon to rise in the morning, the more

time he will give you in the heat of the day, sometimes even six
hours at an ale-house, or at their doors, where he always gives

you the same indulgence which he allows himself; and for this he
is generally very moderate in his demands. I have known a whole

bundle of passengers charged no more than half-a-crown for being
suffered to remain quiet at an ale-house door for above a whole

hour, and that even in the hottest day in summer. But as this
kind of tyranny, though it hath escaped our political writers,

hath been I think touched by our dramatic, and is more trite
among the generality of readers; and as this and all other kinds

of such subjection are alike unknown to my friends, I will quit
the passengers by land, and treat of those who travel by water;

for whatever is said on this subject is applicable to both alike,
and we may bring them together as closely as they are brought in

the liturgy, when they are recommended to the prayers of all
Christian congregations; and (which I have often thought very

remarkable) where they are joined with other miserable wretches,
such as women in labor, people in sickness, infants just born,

prisoners and captives. Goods and passengers are conveyed by
water in diversvehicles, the principal of which being a ship, it

shall suffice to mention that alone. Here the tyrant doth not
derive his title, as the stage-coachman doth, from the vehicle

itself in which he stows his goods and passengers, but he is
called the captain--a word of such various use and uncertain

signification, that it seems very difficult to fix any positive
idea to it: if, indeed, there be any general meaning which may

comprehend all its different uses, that of the head or chief of
any body of men seems to be most capable of this comprehension;

for whether they be a company of soldiers, a crew of sailors, or
a gang of rogues, he who is at the head of them is always styled

the captain.
The particular tyrant whose fortune it was to stow us aboard laid

a farther claim to this appellation than the bare command of a
vehicle of conveyance. He had been the captain of a privateer,

which he chose to call being in the king's service, and thence
derived a right of hoisting the military ornament of a cockade

over the button of his hat. He likewise wore a sword of no
ordinary length by his side, with which he swaggered in his

cabin, among the wretches his passengers, whom he had stowed in
cupboards on each side. He was a person of a very singular

character. He had taken it into his head that he was a
gentleman, from those very reasons that proved he was not one;

and to show himself a fine gentleman, by a behavior which seemed
to insinuate he had never seen one. He was, moreover, a man of

gallantry; at the age of seventy he had the finicalness of Sir
Courtly Nice, with the roughness of Surly; and, while he was deaf

himself, had a voice capable of deafening all others.
Now, as I saw myself in danger by the delays of the captain, who

was, in reality, waiting for more freight, and as the wind had
been long nested, as it were, in the southwest, where it

constantly blew hurricanes, I began with great reason to
apprehend that our voyage might be long, and that my belly, which

began already to be much extended, would require the water to be
let out at a time when no assistance was at hand; though, indeed,

the captain comforted me with assurances that he had a pretty
young fellow on board who acted as his surgeon, as I found he

likewise did as steward, cook, butler, sailor. In short, he had
as many offices as Scrub in the play, and went through them all

with great dexterity; this of surgeon was, perhaps, the only one
in which his skill was somewhat deficient, at least that branch

of tapping for the dropsy; for he very ingenuously and modestly
confessed he had never seen the operation performed, nor was