As he wrote a good hand and understood accounts tolerably well, the Anabaptist made him his bookkeeper. At the expiration of two months, being obliged to go to Lisbon about some mercantile affairs, he took the two philosophers with him in the same ship, Pangloss during the course of the voyage explained to him how everything was so constituted that it could not be better. James did not quite agree with him on this point. "Mankind," said he, "must in some things have deviated from their original innocence; for they were not born wolves, and yet they worry one another like those beasts of prey. God never gave them twenty-four pounders nor bayonets, and yet they have made cannon and bayonets to destroy one another. To this account I might add not only bankruptcies, but the law which seizes on the effects of bankrupts, only to cheat the creditors." "All this was indispensably necessary," replied the one-eyed doctor; "for private misfortunes are public benefits; so that the more private misfortunes there are the greater is the general good." While he was arguing in this manner the sky was overcast, the winds blew from the four quarters of the compass, and the ship was assailed by a most terrible tempest within sight of the port of Lisbon. CHAPTER V. A Tempest, a Shipwreck, an Earthquake, and what else befell Dr. Pangloss, Candide, and James the Anabaptist. ONE-HALF of the passengers, weakened and half-dead with the inconceivable anxiety and sickness which the rolling of a vessel at sea occasions through the whole human frame, were lost to all sense of the danger that surrounded them. The other made loud outcries, or betook themselves to their prayers. The sails were blown into shivers, and the masts were brought by the board. The vessel was a perfect wreck. Every one was busily employed, but nobody could be either heard or obeyed. |
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