As to the disputes, wranglings, strife, and contention, which has
happened in the world about religion, whether niceties in doctrines, or
schemes of church-government, they were all perfectly useless to us, as,
for aught I can yet see, they have been to all the rest in 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 His instruction of his Word; and I cannot see the least
use that the greatest knowledge of the disputed points in 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 fluently, though in
broken English, to me, I acquainted him with my own story, or at least
so much of it as related to my coming into the place, how I had lived
there, and how long: I let him into the mystery (for such it was to him)
of gunpowder and bullets, 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 many
occasions.

I described to him the countries of Europe, and 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 the parts of the
world. I gave him an account of the wreck which I had been on board of,