Robinson Crusoe

The last twenty-five pages of the novel chronicle Crusoe’s final days on the island, negotiating with prisoners of the English ship. They also chronicle Crusoe’s dealings with his plantation, upon Crusoe’s arrival in first Lisbon and then London, though not before encountering packs of wolves that Crusoe and other men must fight on their way through the French mountains. Crusoe leaves the island December 19, 1686, after spending twenty-eight years, two months and nineteen days there. He arrives in England June 11, 1687, thirty-five years after his first departure, to find his mother and father dead. Two sisters and two children of one of his brothers make up his remaining family. The master of the ship, whose captain Crusoe saved from mutiny, provides Crusoe with 200 pounds for Crusoe’s efforts.

Crusoe goes to Lisbon to learn about the status of his plantation in Brazil. The captain assures Crusoe the plantation is doing well, informing Crusoe its monies are donated to the King and to the poor by the trustees Crusoe assigned upon his initial departure. The captain tells Crusoe the trustees named the captain as benefactor in Crusoe’s great absence. Meanwhile, the captain was in debt to Crusoe:“470 Moidores of gold, besides 60 chests of sugar, and 15 double rolls of tobacco” (206-07).