I observe, that our people in England often admire how the officers, which the Company send into India, and the merchants which generally stay there, get such very good estates as they do, and sometimes come home worth sixty, seventy, and a hundred thousand pounds at a time. But it is no wonder, or, at least, we shall see so much farther into it, when we consider the innumerable ports and places where they have a free commerce, that it will then be no wonder; and much less will it be so, when we consider, that at all those places and ports where the English ships come, there is so much, and such constant demand for the growth of all other countries, that there is a certain vent for the return, 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 the 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 stayed here, and sought no farther for making my fortune: but what was all this to a man on the wrong side 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 getting in it? And indeed I think it is with great justice that I now call it a restless desire, for it was so: when I was at home, I was restless to go abroad; and now 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 profits of the voyage to me were things of no great force to me, for the prompting me forward to farther undertakings: hence I 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 seeing. I was come into a part of the world which I never was 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 upon my own, for I acknowledge his was 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, as old as I was, 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, viz. among the Spice Islands; and to bring home a load of cloves from the Manillas, or thereabouts; places where, indeed, the Dutch do trade, but the islands belong 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 more satisfaction to the 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 remember, 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 for 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 an 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 ignorace of the Pagans?”—“Why truly,” said 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 once I conquer my backwardness, and embark heartily, as old as I am, I shall harass you up and down the world till I 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 an European trader, and of about two hundred tons burden: the men, as they pretended, having been so sickly, that the captain had not men enough to go to sea with, he lay by at Bengal; and, as if having got money enough, or being willing, for other reasons, to go for Europe, he gave public notice, that 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 home 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 not having received 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 were to travel to Surat, and so by sea to the Gulf of Persia.
Nothing had so heartily troubled me a good while, as that I missed the opportunity of going with them; for such a ramble, I thought, and in such company as would both have guarded me and diverted me, would have suited mightily with my great design; and I should both have 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 were attacked on shore by some of the Malaccans, 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 had brought her in at the Bay of Bengal, leaving the mate and five men more on shore; of whom we shall hear farther.
Well; let them come by 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, if we had examined, would certainly have faltered in their accounts, contradicted one another, and perhaps have contradicted themselves; or, one how or other, we should have seen reason to have suspected them: but the man shewed 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 being withal a little too unwary, or at least having no suspicion of the thing, we went through with our bargain.
However, we picked up some English seamen here after this, and some Dutch; and we now resolved for a second voyage to the south-east, for cloves, &c. that is to say, among the Philippine and Malacca isles; and, in short, not to fill this part of my story with trifles, when what is yet 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 partner, going in the ship above-mentioned, on a voyage to China; but designing first to go 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, but 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 for 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. Thompson, 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.