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travels of Englishmen, of which many I find are published, and more promised every day: it is enough for me to tell you that we made this voyage to Achin, in the island of Sumatra, and from thence to Siam, where we exchanged some of our wares for opium and some arrack; the first a commodity which bears a great price among the Chinese, and which, at that time, was much wanted there. In a word, we went up to Suskan, made a very great voyage, were eight months out, and returned to Bengal; and I was very well satisfied with my adventure. I observe that our people in England often admire how officers, which the Company send into India, and the merchants which generally stay there, get such very great estates as they do, and sometimes come home worth sixty or seventy thousand pounds at a time; but it is no wonder, or at least we shall see so much further into it, when we consider the innumerable ports and places where they have a free commerce, that it will be none; and much less it will be so when we consider that at those places and ports where the English ships come, there is such great and constant demand for the growth of all other countries, that there is a certain vent for the returns, as well as a market abroad for the goods carried out.

In short, we made a very good voyage, and I got so much money by my first adventure, and such an insight into the method of getting more, that had I been twenty years younger, I should have been tempted to have staid here and sought no further for making any fortune; but what was all this to a man upwards of threescore, that was rich enough, and came abroad more in obedience to a restless desire of seeing the world, than a covetous desire of gaining by it? And, indeed, I think it is with great justice I now call it restless desire, for it was When I was at home, I was restless to go abroad; and when I was abroad, I was restless to be at home. I say, what was this gain to me? I was rich enough already, nor had I any uneasy desires about getting more money; and therefore the profit of the voyage to me was of no great force for the prompting me forward to further undertakings; hence I

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thought that by this voyage I had made no progress at all, because I was come back, as I might call it, to the place from whence I came, as to a home; whereas my eye, which, like that which Solomon speaks of, was never satisfied with seeing, was still more desirous of wandering and secing. I was come into a part of the world which I was never in before, and that part, in particular, which I had heard much of, and was resolved to see as much of it as I could; and then I thought I might say I had seen all the world that was worth seeing.

But my fellow-traveller and I had different notions: I do not name this to insist on my own, for I acknowledge his were the most just, and the most suited to the end of a merchant's life; who, when he is abroad upon adventures, it is his wisdom to stick to that, as the best thing for him, which he is like to get the most money by. My new friend kept himself to the nature of the thing, and would have been content to have gone, like a carrier's horse, always to the same inn, backward and forward, provided he could, as he called it, find his account in it. On the other hand, mine was the notion of a mad, rambling boy, that never cares to see a thing twice over. But this was not all I had a kind of impatience upon me to be nearer home, and yet the most unsettled resolution imaginable which way to go. In the interval of these consultations, my friend, who was always upon the search for business, proposed another voyage to me among the Spice Islands, and to bring home a loading of cloves from the Manillas, or thereabouts; places, indeed, where the Dutch trade, but islands belonging partly to the Spaniards; though we went not so far, but to some other, where they have not the whole power, as they have at Batavia, Ceylon, &c.

We were not long in preparing for this voyage; the chief difficulty was in bringing me to come into it: however, at last, nothing else offering, and finding that really stirring about and trading, the profit being so great, and, as I may say, certain, had more pleasure in it, and had more satisfaction to my mind, than sitting still, which, to me especially, was the unhappiest part of life, I resolved on this voyage too, which we

made very successfully, touching at Borneo, and several islands whose names I do not reniember, and came home in about five months. We sold our spice, which was chiefly cloves and some nutmegs, to the Persian merchants, who carried them away to the gulf; and making near five of one, we really got a great deal of money.

My friend, when we made up this account, smiled at me. "Well now," said he, with a sort of agreeable insult upon my indolent temper, “is not this better than walking about here, like a man of nothing to do, and spending our time in staring at the nonsense and ignorance of the pagans?"—" Why truly," says I," my friend, I think it is, and I begin to be a convert to the principles of merchandising; but I must tell you," said I, "by the way, you do not know what I am doing; for if I once conquer my backwardness, and embark heartily as old as I am, I shall harass you up and down the world till tire you; for I shall pursue it so eagerly, I shall never let you lie still."

But, to be short with my speculations, a little while after this there came in a Dutch ship from Batavia; she was a coaster, not a European trader, of about two hundred tons burden; the men, as they pretended, having been so sickly, that the captain had not hands enough to go to sea with, he lay by at Bengal; and having, it seems, got money enough, or being willing, for other reasons, to go for Europe, he gave public notice he would sell his ship. This came to my ears before my new partner heard of it, and I had a great mind to buy it; so I went to him, and told him of it. He considered awhile, for he was no rash man neither; but musing some time, he replied, "She is a little too big; but, however, we will have her." Accordingly, we bought the ship, and agreeing with the master, we paid for her, and took possession. When we had done so, we resolved to entertain the men, if we could, to join them with those we had, for the pursuing our business; but on a sudden,-they having received, not their wages, but their share of the money, as we afterwards learnt,— not one of them was to be found; we inquired much about

them, and at length were told that they were all gone together by land to Agra, the great city of the Mogul's residence, and from thence to travel to Surat, and go by sea to the Gulf of Persia.

Nothing had so much troubled me a good while as that I should miss the opportunity of going with them; for such a ramble, I thought, and in such company as would both have guarded and diverted me, would have suited mightily with my great design; and I should have both seen the world and gone homewards too: but I was much better satisfied a few days after, when I came to know what sort of fellows they were; for, in short, their history was, that this man they called captain was the gunner only, not the commander; that they had been a trading voyage, in which they had been attacked on shore by some of the Malays, who had killed the captain and three of his men; and that after the captain was killed, these men, eleven in number, had resolved to run away with the ship, which they did, and brought her to Bengal, leaving the mate and five men more on shore; of whom hereafter.

Well, let them get the ship how they would, we came honestly by her, as we thought, though we did not, I confess, examine into things so exactly as we ought; for we never inquired any thing of the seamen, who would certainly have faltered in their account, contradicted one another, and perhaps contradicted themselves; or one how or other we should have had reason to have suspected them; but the man showed us a bill of sale for the ship, to one Emanuel Clostershoven, or some such name, for I suppose it was all a forgery, and called himself by that name, and we could not contradict him; and withal having no suspicion of the thing, we went through with our bargain.

We picked up some more English sailors here after this, and some Dutch; and now we resolved for a second voyage to the south-east for cloves, &c., that is to say, among the Philippine and Molucca Isles; and, in short, not to fill up this part of my story with trifles, when what is to come is so remarkable, I spent, from first to last, six years in this country, trading

from port to port, backward and forward, and with very good success, and was now the last year with my new partner, going, in the ship above mentioned, on a voyage to China, but designing first to Siam, to buy rice.

In this voyage, being by contrary winds obliged to beat up and down a great while in the Straits of Malacca, and among the islands, we were no sooner got clear of those difficult seas than we found our ship had sprung a leak, and we were not able, by all our industry, to find out where it was. This forced us to make some port, and my partner, who knew the country better than I did, directed the captain to put into the river of Cambodia; for I had made the English mate, one Mr. Thomp son, captain, not being willing to take the charge of the ship upon myself. This river lies on the north side of the great bay or gulf which goes up to Siam. While we were here, and going often on shore for refreshment, there comes to me one day an Englishman, and he was, it seems, a gunner's mate on board an English East India ship which rode in the same river, up at or near the city of Cambodia; what brought him hither we knew not; but he comes to me, and speaking English, "Sir," says he, "you are a stranger to me, and I to you, but I have something to tell you that very nearly concerns you."

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I looked steadfastly at him a good while, and thought at first I had known him; but I did not. "If it very nearly concerns me," said I," and not yourself, what moves you to tell it to me?”—“I am moved," says he, "by the imminent danger you are in, and, for aught I see, you have no knowledge of it. "I know no danger I am in," says I, "but that my ship is leaky, and I cannot find it out; but I intend to lay her aground to-morrow, to see if I can find it.". "But, sir," says he, leaky or not leaky, find it or not find it, you will be wiser than to lay your ship on shore to-morrow, when you hear what I have to say to you: do you know, sir," said he, "the town of Cambodia lies about fifteen leagues up this river? and there are two arge English ships about five leagues on this side, and three Dutch."-" Well," said I, Well," said I," and what is that to me ?"?"-" Why, sır," said he, “is it for a man that is upon such adventures as

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