Before leaving us Mr. Russell had placed me in charge of the books and accounts. We were excessively busy during the year, as, in addition to orders for teas, those for manufactured silks were unprecedentedly large. In May I was on the sick list; Doctor Bradford[71] sent me to Macao in July for change of air, whence I returned in October. A serious relapse took place in December, and, as a 'last chance,' passage was taken for me in a small ship called the 'Howard,' of about 400 tons, for New York. It was supposed the 'sea air' might have a good effect. I was carried to the ship in such a state as to leave small hope of reaching New York alive. We sailed from Whampoa early in February 1832. (To replace me in the office, George R. Sampson was engaged, afterwards Sampson & Tappan, Boston.) Down the China Sea the weather and progress were good; we passed out into the Indian Ocean between Pulo Crockatoa and Prince's Island, which took us ten days. We had a light 'trade' to the Cape; there we were met by a succession of north-westerly gales, which detained us twenty-two days. We were becalmed on the Equator a long time; but at length arrived at New York, on the 162nd day, my health perfectly restored.
I was delighted to meet again Mr. Samuel Russell, then at the 'Clinton Hotel,' as genial and kindly as always. He asked me to breakfast, to meet Mr. Joseph Coolidge, Junior, about to leave for the office at Canton, and afterwards I was invited to make him a visit at Middletown, where I had the pleasure to make the acquaintance of Mrs. Russell, a charming, quiet lady, whose reception of me was of the kindest.
The 'Roman' was now again fitting out for Canton, under my old shipmate, Captain Lavender. He had made several voyages in the 'America,' belonging to Mr. Thomas H. Smith. Mr. Olyphant consented to my going in the ship, and there was no other passenger on board. It was not yet the usage for China ships to take passengers, nor would they take general letters. We sailed on October 25, 1832, after a very short stay at home. This time we took the Gilolo passage into the Pacific. At five A.M. of March 5, 1833, we made Fo-Ki Point, on the coast of 'teas, silks, and cassia,' and at 5.30 P.M. anchored under the peak of Lantao, in the Lantao Channel, in 131 days' passage. Lavender despatched a fast boat to his agents at Canton, Messrs Olyphant & Co., advising his arrival, while I took another and arrived at the Factories in the evening of the 9th.
Thus ended a second 'run home' (as those trips were euphemistically called) of a year each. These 'runs,' however, were in reality nine months of listening to 'what the wild waves were saying,' 'and wandering about at home,' unknowing and almost unknown, for three months; to being subjected, while there, to sleep on mattresses and pillows filled with feathers in the summer months, with the thermometer at any height you please, instead of on the clean, cool, hard rattan mat or mattress of bamboo shavings, as in Canton, where it was rarely over 96° at midnight.
It was not until eleven more years had passed that I took another 'run.' This was from Macao in 1844 in the 'Prince of Wales,' of Bombay (Captain Jones), to Galle, then in the steamer 'Seaforth,' from Colombo, viâ Cannanore and Mangalore, to Bombay, with a trip to Mahableshwar and Poonah for 'sight-seeing;' then to Aden and back to Bombay in the East India Company's steamer 'Atalanta;' thence to Macao, viâ Singapore, in the splendid new clipper 'Mohr' of about 280 tons, belonging to Messrs. Jardine, Matheson, & Co., and commanded by 'my old friend,' Fraser, who was second officer of the 'Good Success' in 1825, to Singapore.
At the end of 1833 we had the misfortune to lose our estimable chief Mr. W. H. Low, whose health failed from incessant application to the duties of his responsible position. He took passage in the Company's ship 'Waterloo,' for England, with his family, and some months after we heard of his death at the Cape.
The same year was notable for the hitherto unprecedented event of the marriage at Macao of a young American lady, Miss Shillaber, of Boston, to Doctor Thomas R. Colledge, of the Company's 'Factory.' It was a brilliant affair, and celebrated with more than usual éclat from its novelty.