way, was much the same: it was a little house, or hut, with a arger house adjoining to 't, all built with canes, and palisadoed round with large canes, to keep out pilfering thieves, of which, it seems, there were not a few in that country; however, the magistrates allowed us a little guard, and we had a soldier with a kind of halberd, or half-pike, who stood sentinel at our door; to whom we allowed a pint of rice, and a little iece of money, about the value of threepence, per day, so hat our goods were kept very safe.

The fair, or mart, usually kept in this place, had been over some time: however, we found that there were three or four junks in the river, and two Japanners-I mean ships from Japan-with goods which they had bought in China, and were not gone away, having some Japanese merchants on shore.

The first thing our old Portuguese pilot did for us, was, to get us acquainted with three missionary Romish priests who were in town, and who had been there some time converting the people to Christianity; but we thought they made but poor work of it, and made them but sorry Christians when they had done; however, that was none of our business. One of these was a Frenchman, whom they called Father Simon another was a Portuguese, and the third a Genoese; bu Iather Simon was courteous, easy in his manner, and very agreeable company; the other two were more reserved seemed rigid and austere, and applied seriously to the work they came about, viz. to talk with, and insinuate themselves ⚫among, the inhabitants, wherever they had opportunity. We often ate and drank with those men; and though, I must con1 fess, the conversion, as they call it, of the Chinese to Christianity is so far from the true conversion required to bring heathen people to the faith of Christ, that it seems to amount to little more than letting them know the name of Christ, and say some prayers to the Virgin Mary and her Son, in a tongue which they understand not, and to cross themselves and the like; yet it must be confessed that the religionists, whom we call missionaries, have a firm belief that these people will be saved, and that they are the instruments of it; and, on this account, they undergo not only the fatigue of the voyage, and the hazards of living in such places, but oftentimes death itself, with the most violent tortures, for the sake of this work. But to return to my story: This French priest, Father Simon, was appointed, it seems, by order of the chief of th mission, to go up to Pekin, the royal seat of the Chinese emperor, and waited only for another priest, who was ordered to come to him from Macao, to go along with him; and we scarce ever met together but he was inviting me to go that journey; telling me how he would show me all the glorious things of that mighty empire, and among the rest, the greatest city in the world; "a city," said he, "that your London and

our Paris put together cannot be equal to." This was the city of Pekin, which, I confess, is very great, and infinitely full of people; but as I looked on those things with different eyes from other men, so I shall give my opinion of them in a few words, when I come in the course of my travels to speak more particularly of them.

But, first, I come to my friar or missionary. Dining with him one day, and being very merry together, I showed some ittle inclination to go with him; and he pressed me and my partner very hard, and with a great many persuasions, to consent. "Why, Father Simon," says my partner, "should you desire our company so much? you know we are heretics, and you do not love us, nor cannot keep us company with any pleasure."—"O," says he, "you may, perhaps, be good Catholics in time; my business here is to convert heathens, and who knows but I may convert you too?"—" Very well, father," said I, "so you will preach to us all the way?"-"I will not be troublesome to you," says he; “ our religion does not divest us of good manners; besides, we are here like countrymen · and so we are, compared to the place we are in; and if you are Hugonots, and I a Catholic, we may all be Christians at last; at least, we are all gentlemen, and we may converse so without being uneasy to one another." I liked this I liked this part of his discourse very well, and it began to put me in mind of m priest that I had left in the Brazils; but this Father Simon did not come up to his character by a great deal; for though Father Simon had no appearance of a criminal levity in him. neither, yet he had not that fund of Christian zeal, strict piety, and sincere affection to religion, that my other good ecclesiastic had.

But to leave him a little,-though he never left us, nor soliciting us to go with him, we had something else before us at first, for we had all this while our ship and our merchandise to dispose of, and we began to be very doubtful what we should do, for we were now in a place of very little business; and once I was about to venture to sail for the river of Kilam, and the city of Nanquin; but Providence seemed now more visibly, as I thought, than ever, to concern itself in our affairs; and I was encouraged, from this very time, to think I should one way or other get out of this entangled circumstance, and be brought home to my own country again, though I had not the least view of the manner Providence, I say, began here to clear up our way a little; and the first thing that offered was, that our old Portuguese pilot brought a Japan merchant to us, who inquired what goods we had ; and, in the first place, he bought all our opium, and gave us a very good price for it, paying us in gold by weight, some in small pieces of their own coin, and some in small wedges, of about ten or eleven ounces each While we were dealing with him for our opium, it came into my head that he might perhaps deal for the ship too, and I or

dered the interpreter to propose it to him; he shrunk up his shoulders at it, when it was first proposed to him; but in a few days after he came to me with one of the missionary priests for his interpreter, and told me he had a proposal to make to me, which was this:-he had bought a great quantity of goods of us, when he had no thoughts of proposals made to him of buying the ship; and that, therefore, he had not money enough to pay for the ship: but if I would let the same men who were in the ship navigate her, he would hire the ship to go to Japan; and would send them from thence to the Philippine Islands with another loading, which he would pay the freight of before they went from Japan; and that at their return he would buv the ship. I began to listen to his proposal, and so eager did my head still run upon rambling, that I could not but begin to entertain a notion of going myself with him, and so to sail from the Philippine Islands away to the South Seas; accordingly I asked the Japanese merchant if he would not hire us to the Philippine Islands, and discharge us there. He said, no, he could not do that, for then he could not have the return of his cargo; but he would discharge us in Japan, at the ship's return. Well, still I was for taking him at that proposal, and going myself; but my partner, wiser than myself, persuaded me from it, representing the dangers, as well of the seas as of the Japanese, who are a false, cruel, and treacherous people; likewise those of the Spaniards at the Philippines, more false, cruel, and treacherous than they.

But to bring this long turn of our affairs to a conclusion; the first thing we had to do was, to consult with the captain of the ship, and with his men, and know if they were willing to go to Japan; and while I was doing this, the young man whom my nephew had left with me, as my companion for my travels, came to me, and told me that he thought that voyage promised very fair, and that there was a great prospect of advantage, and he would be very glad if I undertook it; but that f I would not, and would give him leave, he would go as a merchant, or how I pleased to order him; that if ever he came to England, and I was there and alive, he would render me a faithful account of his success, which should be as much mine as I pleased. I was really loath to part with him; but considering the prospect of advantage, which really was considerable, and that he was a young fellow as likely to do well in it as any I knew, I inclined to let him go; but I told him 1 would consult my partner, and give him an answer the next day. My partner and I discoursed about it, and my partner made a most generous offer: "You know it has been an unlucky ship," said he, "and we both resolve not to go to sea in it again; if your steward (so he called my man) will venture the voyage, I will leave my share of the vessel to him, and let him make the best of it; and if we live to meet in England, and he

meets with success abroad, he shall account for one half of the profits of the ship's freigh to us; the other shall be his own. "

If my partner, who was no way concerned with my young man, made him such an offer, I could do no less than offer him the same; and all the ship's company being willing to go with him, we made over half the ship to him in property, and took a writing from him, obliging him to account for the other; and away he went to Japan. The Japan merchant proved a very punctual, honest man to him; protected him at Japan, and got him a license to come on shore, which the Europeans in general have not lately obtained'; paid him his freight very punctually; sent him to the Philippines, loaded with Japan and China wares, and a supercargo of their own, who, trafficking with the Spaniards, brought back European goods again, and a great quantity of cloves and other spices; and there he was not only paid his freight very well, and at a very good price, but not being willing to sell the ship then, the merchant furnished him goods on his own account; and with some money, and some spices of his own which he brought with him, he went back to the Manillas to the Spaniards, where he sold his cargo very well. Here, having got a good acquaintance at Manilla, he got his ship made a free ship; and the governor of Manilla hired him to go to Acapulco in America, on the coast of Mexico, and gave him a license to land there, and to travel to Mexico, and to pass in any Spanish ship to Europe with all his men. He made the voyage to Acapulco very happily, and there he sold his ship; and having there also obtained allowance to travel by land to Porto Bello, he found means, some how or other, to get to Jamaica, with all his treasure; and about eight years after came to England exceeding rich, of which I shall take notice in its place in the mean time, I return to our particular affairs.

Being now to part with the ship and ship's company, it came before us, of course, to consider what recompense we should give to the two men that gave us such timely notice of the design against us in the river Cambodia. The truth was, they had done us a very considerable service, and de. served well at our hands; though, by the way, they were a couple of rogues too; for as they believed the story of our being pirates, and that we had really run away with the ship, they came down to us not only to betray the design that was formed against us, but to go to sea with us as pirates; and one of them confessed afterwards that nothing else but the hopes of going a roguing brought him to do it: however, the service they did us was not the less; and, therefore, as I had promised to be grateful to them, I first ordered the money to be paid them which they said was due to them on board their

respective ships; over and above that, I gave each of them a small sum of money in gold, which contented them very well; then I made the Englishman gunner in the ship, the gunner being now made second mate and purser; the Dutchman I made boatswain; so they were both very well pleased, and proved very serviceable, being both able seamen, and very stout fellows.

We were now on shore in China; if I thought myself banished and remote from my own country at Bengal, where I had many ways to get home for my money, what could I think of myself now, when I was got about a thousand leagues farther off from home, and perfectly destitute of all manner of prospect of return? All we had for it was this, that in about four months' time there was to be another fair at the place where we were, and then we might be able to purchase all sorts of the manufactures of the country, and withal might possibly find some Chinese junks or vessels from Tonquin, that would be to be sold, and would carry us and our goods whither we pleased. This I liked very well, and resolved to wait; besides, as our particular persons were not obnoxious, so if any English or Dutch ships came thither, perhaps we might have an opportunity to load our goods, and get passage to some other place in India, nearer home. Upon these hopes we resolved to continue here; but, to divert ourselves, we took two or three journeys into the country. First, we went ten days' journey, to the city of Nanquin, a city well worth seeing, indeed; they say it has a million of people in it; it is regularly built, the streets all exactly straight, and cross one another in direct lines, which gives the figure of it great advantage. But when I come to compare the miserable people of these countries with ours, their fabrics, their manner of living, their government, their religion, their wealth, and their glory, as some call it, I must confess that I scarcely think it worth my while to mention them here. It is very observable, that we wonder at the grandeur, the riches, the pomp, the ceremonies, the government, the manufactures, the commerce, and conduct of these people; not that it is to be wondered at, or, indeed, in the least to be regarded, but because having a true notion of the barbarity of those countries, the rudeness and the ignorance that prevails there, we do not expect to find any such thing so far off. Otherwise, what are their buildings to the palaces and royal buildings of Europe? What their trade to the universal commerce of England, Holland, France, and Spain? What are their cities to ours, for wealth, strength, gayety of apparel, rich furniture, and infinite variety? What are their ports, supplied with a few junks and barks, to our navigation, our merchant fleets, our large and powerful navies? Our city of London has more trade than half their mighty empire; one English, Dutch, or French man-of-war of eighty guns, would be able to fight almost all