My next concern was, where I should lodge him; and that I might do well by him, and yet be perfectly easy myself, I erected a tent for him in the vacant place between my two fortifications, in the inside of the last, and the outside of the first; and, as there was an entrance or door into my cave, I made a formal framed door-case, and a door to open on the inside; I barred it up in the night time, taking in my ladders too, so that, was my man to prove treacherous, there could be no way to come at me in the inside of my innermost wall, without making so much noise in getting over, that it must needs waken me; for my first wall had now a complete roof over it of long poles, spreading over my tent, and leaning up to the side of the mountain, which was again laid cross with smaller sticks instead of laths, and thatched over a great thickness with the rice straw, which was as strong as reeds; and at the hole of the place, left on purpose to go in or out by the ladder, had placed a kind of trap-door, which, if it had been attempted on the outside, would not have opened at all, but have fallen down, and made a great noise; and as to my weapons, every night I took them all to my bed side.
But there was no occasion for this precaution; for surely never master had a more sincere, faithful, and loving servant, than Friday proved to me. Without passion, sullenness, or design, perfectly obliging and engaging, his affections were as much tied to me, as those of a child to its parents; & I might venture to say, he would have sacrificed his life for the saving mine, upon any occasion whatsoever. And indeed the many testimonies he gave me of this, sufficiently convinced me that I had no occasion to use these precautions. And here I could not but reflect with great wonder, that however it hath pleased the Almighty in his providence, and in the government of the creation, to take from so great a part of the world of his creatures, the noblest uses to which their faculties, and the powers of their souls are adapted; yet that he has bestowed upon them the same reason, affections, sentiments of kindness and obligation, passions of resentment, sincerity, fidelity, and all the capacities of doing and receiving good that he has given us; and that when he is graciously pleased to offer them occasions of exerting these, they are as ready, nay, more ready, to apply them to the proper uses for which they were bestowed, than we often are. These thoughts would make me melancholy, especially when I considered how mean a use we make of all these, even though we have these powers enlightened by the Holy Spirit of God, and by the knowledge of this world, as an addition to our understanding; and why it has pleased the heavenly Wisdom to conceal the life saving knowledge from so many millions of souls who would certainly make a much better use of it than generally mankind do at this time. These reflections would sometimes lead me so far, as to invade the sovereignty of Providence, and, as it were, arraign the justice of such an arbitrary disposition of things, that should obscure that light from some, and reveal it to others, and yet expect a like duty from all. But I closed it up, checking my thoughts with this conclusion; first, That we were ignorant of that right and law by which those should be condemned; but as the Almighty was necessarily, and by the nature of his essence, infinitely just and holy; so it could not be otherwise, but that if these creatures were all destined to absence from himself, it was on account of sinning against that light, _which_, as the Scripture says, _was a law to themselves_ and by such rules as their consciences would acknowledge to be just, though the first foundation was not discovered to us. And, secondly, That still as we were the clay in the hand of the potter, no vessel could thus say to him, _Why hast thou fashioned me after this manner_?