The Journal

Kenneth A. Ritley — Independent Study High School Project, based on Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe

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For reasons of posterity, I feel it justified to give freely my account of what happened to me, in the form of a journal which I kept all during that bewildering time.

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Dec. 15, 1983

I am now glad to have regained my liberty, this fifteenth day in the last month of the nineteen hundred, fourscore and third year of our Lord.

I awoke in my cell a full and rested man, for the food served to us was impeccable and very strange for a jail, where I thought there would be no nourishment of any sort. Upon returning back to my room from the mess-hall, I saw my good barrister present some type of bill or writ to my jailor, another African, but one whom I did not care much for; upon the receipt of which he motioned to his associate-jailors that I be removed.

I was taken to still another room, where I was presented with a brown bag, in which were contained my possessions. I was also given a five-pound note, much to my surprise, for evidently they reconciled that some harm in my detainment might have come and they were sincere and wished forgiveness. I graciously accepted the money and my valuables, though many of them were not, and bid them escort me to the door where I was thus set free.

Of course I, Kenneth Ritley, being a charitable person, tried in every manner possible to give my African, the six men and one stranger, my barrister, the hand-washer manservant, and even the moron, some small monetary token of my gratitude, but they would have none of it and instead bid me that I should keep the money, which I did, and used it to live off of for near half of an active life, for five pounds was so extraordinary large a sum.

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End of Journal

The Journal

Kenneth A. Ritley — Independent Study High School Project, based on Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe

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For reasons of posterity, I feel it justified to give freely my account of what happened to me, in the form of a journal which I kept all during that bewildering time.

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Dec. 14, 1983

I awoke this morning with a renewed freshness, such as the likes I have not seen for a good many years. Yet now I feel it proper and fitting to tell something of where I am presently at, though I know not why. I will then proceed to elaborate upon those events which, after leaving that “lounge area” that I described yesterday, eventually led to my disposal in these present circumstances.

I now gathered that I was confined in some jail! How mysterious can it be that God might feel compelled to have one such as I, who I before considered to be a pious and God-fearing man, observant of all the holydays and fasts, and resting every Sabbath; how He could have thought fit to have me snatched up en route to post a letter, which, by the way, I never did; subjected to a very bizarre set of circumstances I still cannot understand, and then, for almost no reason that I could plainly see, confined to a jail! How mysterious indeed!

My high regard of the men who brought me here soon began to falter, for it was quite unusual that I be jailed without any of the due proceedings I would come to suspect: no barrister was brought before me, neither a proper trial to establish my innocence or guilt, as the case may be. But look now how I talk! I say I might not be innocent, but surely I am, for what manner of law must I have broken to be jailed without any of the preliminaries I might expect!

Upon leaving that lounge area I recently told about, I was brought into a sitting room, where I stood and held a small placard to my breast. Then, in a sudden instant, a bright flash went off, a flash so bright, I believe, that had I been looking squarely at it I feel I would have been blinded for sure; and indeed, as it were, I was not looking squarely at it, yet after its occurrence I retained for several minutes the image of the flash in my eyes. I feel that this was not unlike the story the cannibals tell, for who of all but they would know best? — they tell that the eye retains its last image after death. This thought could scarce have reassured me any more, for it suggested to me just how near death I was for this to happen!

No longer was I acting in a passive manner as I had done before. I stood up and demanded, “Where hast thou brought me, and wherefore? I bid thee answer, knaves, that ye all not see such a man as I in violent turmoil and unrest!” I have never been very good at making threatening comments, but I realized that indeed I must have been better than I thought, for upon hearing these words that African, now with me in this room, remarked — and this I feel very reassuring, about with my threat, for pagans and Negroes were hardest to threaten, and I gathered he was both; he remarked, as I say, “Jss cool, jss cool. Jus’ relax, kay? Daint nufin dat yoh can do, cuz we goss da goods on ya, and yous in pooty deep trouba, heah? Yous calms down, an’ we gwyne take yoh pitchure.”

Though he spoke with a good many pagan words which I could not understand, I did gather that I was going to have my portrait done, no doubt in restitution for all the trouble they had caused me; yet I could have gathered that anyway, for I saw the artist’s light equipment and shades, though I saw not his canvas and easel.

I felt very sorry for having threatened them all in so violent a manner, especially when a man returned bearing my portrait. I was indeed fascinated by the skill with which he had captured my essence, and on such a tiny canvas, too, for it was only about two or three inches on a side! When I inquired if I could keep that portrait, which was indeed very glossy, no doubt covered over with a sealer of sorts, and was so flexible — indeed, I have never seen canvas like it; when I asked, as I say, I was told not, that it must be entered into a book. And what a huge book it was! for I then saw it and the scores and hundreds of pictures, as the African called it, within the book, and all of them bearing placards at their breasts. I then deduced, for I was not in the least lacking wits, that the purpose of the placards was for cataloguing all of the portraits; moreover, I figured that, after being asked to do so many sittings in such an unusual manner, the artists of course became good, for the likeness of me was as a mirror; and fast, for he wasted no time in handing me over the finished result; indeed so fast was he that I did not even see him at work.

After this I was incarcerated for the first time, for I am now, at present, writing during my second incarceration. I asked that man who sat beside me in the lounge room for the charges that, all of a sudden, must have been brought against me. He told them to me, in Latin, and I recognized them as words spoken similarly by one of the first six men — the same one, in fact, who graciously told me of my rights and not my wrongs. But as I could speak not a word of Latin, I knew not what charges were against me. (Apparently, too, that man knew not their meanings in the King’s English, or any other English, for that matter, for when I bid him repeat the words in my language, he must needs repeat them in Latin. If the reader of this passage survives me, for I feel uncertain as to my secure future, let him endeavor to learn the meanings in English of felony manslaughter.)

Here I sat in my jail for the first time, and pondered, too, as to what a nice jail it was, for there was a sink and mirror, and all manner of toiletries, and a bed, and bars instead of walls that I might have company. Indeed what a jail! for there was not so much as a rat I could see, nor any racks or stocks, nor trebuchets, nor Iron Maidens of Nuremberg, nor any of the various items I would expect to be here.

I was not here an hour when I was taken before a judge. I was surprised to see that he wore not a wig, nor any of the barristers present, and I thought how they should be disappointed, that is, dis-appointed, by the King if ever word of their actions got out. I was called to the witness stand, strange as it was, for I was able to sit. Following my good man’s bidding, for I now ascertained him to be some barrister, who by his actions was better suited to a life of solicitation, I spoke not a word, except for that “Fifth Amendment” phrase which I spoke earlier about. The magistrate must have known the implications of that phrase, for at once as I said it, he motioned the Bailiff to assist me off the stand, which he did and I was gracious and beholding that a man of such obvious importance as he would consent to help me.

The trial progressed, though most of it in Latin and, hence, incomprehensible to me; after which I was taken and placed in this cell, devoid of all my personal possessions, where I have for two more days sat, and a third, counting this day.

The Journal

Kenneth A. Ritley — Independent Study High School Project, based on Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe

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For reasons of posterity, I feel it justified to give freely my account of what happened to me, in the form of a journal which I kept all during that bewildering time.

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Dec. 13, 1983

Three days have passed since that terrible event; nay, shall I say disastrous event, which so quickly landed me in this incomprehensible, harsh environment. Never before did I scarce even consider that a happening such as that — That — could have so effectually rendered me, poor miserable Kenneth Ritley, in such a place so utterly devoid of all humanity and happiness as this. How might I have predicted its forthcoming?

Even when I muse over the actual circumstance of my arrest, my heart begins to pound and my breath to become shallow and quick, as if one of Satan’s demons stood over me that very instant, taunting my soul with his tail. I remember the large, black African dressed all in blue (and who, some years earlier, might have brought a fat Guinea or two on the open market, less handling costs, of course), how he so rapidly approached me and exposed his arms that I might see them, and be afraid, and cease my activity; and how, upon the termination of my activity just now mentioned, how he did push my body in a most uncomfortable way against the embankment and proceeded, in the due course of his search, to examine my person for any illegal possessions, which he found none, if I may say, after an unduly thorough endeavor.

Need I make mention of the thoughts which at this time began to cross my mind? Of those things which I might have done to be so deserving of his efforts, I thought about, but then one by one, and after some due consideration, for with my hands effectually bound I had an abundance of time in which to think, systematically eliminated bizarre or impossible, or highly improbable, to say the least. Yet all the while I could not refrain from sensing that that African had good cause, or shall I say that he thought he had good cause, for my detainment in so thorough and so violent a manner.

In a short while some audible and mechanical cries I heard signaled the arrival of more of the African’s kind, and as I looked up (for I was laying prone upon the ground, my hands bound behind my back) I saw their brightly-lit vehicles approach in the night. Blazing chariots of light, they were, crying and shrieking still louder as they neared, and setting afoot in my stomach no small amount of fear; and in my bladder, as well, for I soon began to think that I could not any longer, as they say, contain my emotions.

With their arrival, I ceased all my reflections upon my life and forgot the thought that it was God and His Providence that somehow brought all this down upon me. As those chariots, one by one, stopped on the roadside, their masters and chauffeurs, which by their dress alone were not indistinguishable, emerged and hastened on foot in their approach to me. Evidently, my tall African, as I began to think of him that way, in sight of the way he looked after me in the few short moments I knew him; as I say, my African payed particular good attention to his associates’ coming, as did I, and no doubt felt as much emotion in their presence, for as they met he stood with only the most perfect of posture and quickly proceeded to give an entire summary, brief but concise, of the events which led inevitably to my detainment; and all this he did without the least inkling of direction from his associates.

Upon some small conference between them all, for now there were six in all, they stood me up off the ground where I had lain and, with a bright candlestick in my face, proceeded to read to me a full account of the rights I had; this I found very reassuring, for not so much as once did they read to me any of my wrongs. Upon receiving from me my consent that I understood my rights (which indeed was something I felt very compelled to do, especially after the cordial way in which they elaborated upon all of my rights and none of my wrongs in the first place; and in the next place how they so graciously awaited a response from me); upon receiving this, as I say, they helped me into one of their chariots, though still with my hands bound, and chauffeured me off to their “station,” as they called it — a place which I at first incorrectly construed to be some center for the arrival and departure of coaches as public transportation. The bitter-will I harbored towards them, and especially to that African who handled me in so violent and rough a manner, soon subsided and was replaced instead by good-will, especially after I found that one of the men offered to sit beside me in the coach, or chariot, as I have called it, and so accompany me to the “station” in that manner, attentive to me to the last degree, moreso than any manservant I had seen or owned attended to his master. I found his attitude to be most gracious, and that he was especially interested to hear anything that I might say.

Indeed I thought still more highly of them for, as we arrived at the station, one of the first things they did was, much to my surprise, thoroughly and carefully wash my hands. (Oddly enough, a strange man working there, and who I had not as yet seen, took my hands and smeared them in some black ink; he was obviously some type of idiot, if not a true moron, but was quick to learn and when one of the other men looked upon him, this moron carefully dabbed my fingers onto some blotting paper and then, when he saw that not all of the ink was removed, gave me a moistened tissue with which I might remove what he did not.)

Shortly thereafter I was ushered into what I gather was some sort of lounge, for there was a table with a lamp, several chairs, which I did not at all find to be comfortable; and there were several very odd-looking quills, though not so much as one bottle of ink to be found.

Into this room came with me the six men and African I had before seen, two other men (one of which was dressed in the same manner as were the six and the African), and yet another man who sat not at all with the other men, but with me.

What next occurred seemed very puzzling to me, and to this very day I still cannot figure why it happened. One of the first six men I had seen, and who had brought me to this “station,” as they called it, though I could see no other such carriages nor chariots nor coaches of any sort hereabouts; this man asked me a question. I cannot recall what he asked of me, but this is of no concern, for the man sitting beside me, and who I had now gathered was acting in my behalf, told the other men that I should not answer that question, “lest it would contradict ‘the Fifth Amendment’.” This continued, and with every question asked, my friend, for this was as I now thought of him, remarked those selfsame words. This to me seemed very odd, in the first place that the men would continue to ask questions when they knew full well, or at least could predict with some degree of accuracy, what that man’s reply would be; and in the next place, that such a strange amendment would exist, that would prohibit me from answering any questions; I thought at long last that they should consider having so silly an amendment as that was, abolished.

All the while I could not as yet ascertain why I was being held against my will, or by whom, and whether any small hope for my recovery and deliverance from the place which I was at was in store for me in my near future.

Alas now, this thirteenth day of the last month of this nineteen hundred, three and fourscore year of our Lord, being evening, I tire and can scarce go on.