The greater weight the anxieties and perplexities of these things were to our thoughts while we were at sea, the greater was our satisfaction when we saw ourselves on shore; and my partner told me he dreamed that he had a very heavy load upon his back, which he was to carry up a hill, and found that he was not able to stand longer under it; but that the Portuguese¹ pilot came and took it off his back, and the hill disappeared, the ground before him appearing all smooth and plain: and truly it was so; they were all like men who had a load taken off their backs.  For my part I had a weight taken off from my heart that it was not able any longer to bear; and as I said above we resolved to go no more to sea in that ship.  When we came on shore, the old pilot, who was now our friend, got us a lodging², together with a warehouse³ for our goods; it was a little hut, with a larger house adjoining to it, built and also palisadoed round with canes⁴, to keep out pilferers, of which there were not a few in that country: however, the magistrates⁵ allowed us a little guard, and we had a soldier with a kind of half-pike, who stood sentinel at our door, to whom we allowed a pint⁷ of rice and a piece of money about the value of three-pence per day, so that our goods were kept very safe.  
The fair or mart usually kept at this place had been over some time; however, we found that there were three or four junks in the river, and two 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 missionary⁸ Romish priests who were in the 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 Christians¹⁰ when they had done.  One of these was a Frenchman, whom they called Father Simon; another was a Portuguese; and a third a Genoese.  Father Simon was courteous¹¹, and very agreeable company; but the other two were more reserved, seemed rigid¹² and austere¹³, and applied¹⁴ seriously to the work they came about, viz. to talk with and insinuate¹⁵ themselves among the inhabitants wherever they had opportunity.  We often ate and drank with those men; and though I must confess the conversion¹⁶, 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 Virgin¹⁷ Mary and her Son, in a tongue which they understood not, and to cross themselves, and the like; yet it must be confessed that the religionists, whom we call missionaries¹⁸, 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 fatigue¹⁹ of the voyage, and the hazards of living in such places, but oftentimes death itself, and the most violent tortures, for the sake of this work.
 
Father Simon was appointed, it seems, by order of the chief of the mission, to go up to Pekin, and waited only for another priest, who was ordered to come to him from Macao, to go along with him.  We scarce ever met together but he was inviting²⁰ me to go that journey; telling me how he would show me all the glorious things of that mighty²¹ empire, and, among the rest, Pekin, the greatest city in the world: “A city,” said he, “that your London and our Paris put together cannot be equal to.”  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.
 
Dining with Father Simon one day, and being very merry together, I showed some little inclination²² to go with him; and he pressed me and my partner very hard to consent.  “Why, father,” 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.”—“Oh,” 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 divest²³ 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 Huguenots, and I a Catholic, we may all be Christians at last; at least, we are all gentlemen, and we may converse²⁴ so, without being uneasy to one another.”  I liked this part of his discourse²⁵ very well, and it began to put me in mind of my priest that I had left in the Brazils; but Father Simon did not come up to his character by a great deal; for though this friar had no appearance of a criminal levity²⁶ in him, yet he had not that fund of Christian⁹ zeal²⁷, strict piety²⁸, and sincere affection to religion that my other good ecclesiastic²⁹ had.
 
But to leave him a little, though he never left us, nor solicited³⁰ 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.  Once I was about to venture to sail for the river of Kilam, and the city of Nankin; but Providence³¹ 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 entangled³² 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 opium³³, 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 twelves ounces each.  While we were dealing³⁴ with him for our opium, it came into my head that he might perhaps deal for the ship too, and I ordered 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 our goods, when he had no thoughts of proposals made to him of buying the ship; and that, therefore, he had not money to pay for the ship: but if I would let the same men who were in the ship navigate³⁵ 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 buy the ship.  I began to listen to his proposal, and so eager did my head still run upon rambling³⁶, that I could not but begin to entertain a notion of going myself with him, and so to set 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 cargo³⁷; 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 treacherous³⁸ 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.  While I was doing this, the young man whom my nephew had left with me as my companion came up, and told me that he thought that voyage promised very fair, and that there was a great prospect³⁹ of advantage, and he would be very glad if I undertook it; but that if I would not, and would give him leave, he would go as a merchant, or as 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 loath⁴⁰ to part with him; but considering the prospect of advantage, which really was considerable, and that he was a young fellow likely to do well in it, I inclined to let him go; but I told him I would consult my partner, and give him an answer the next day.  I discoursed⁴¹ about it with my partner, who thereupon 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 steward⁴²” (so he called my man) “will venture the voyage, I will leave my share of the vessel⁴³ 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 freight 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 not do 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 licence to come on shore, which the Europeans in general have not lately obtained.  He paid him his freight very punctually; sent him to the Philippines loaded with Japan and China wares⁴⁴, and a supercargo of their own, who, trafficking with the Spaniards, brought back European goods again, and a great quantity of 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, where he sold his cargo very well.  Here, having made a good acquaintance at Manilla, he got his ship made a free ship, and the governor of Manilla hired him to go to Acapulco, on the coast of America, and gave him a licence 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 to get to Jamaica, with all his treasure, and about eight years after came to England exceeding rich.
 
But to 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 deserved well at our hands; though, by the way, they were a couple of rogues⁴⁵, 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.  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 contented⁴⁶ them very well.  I then 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 seamen⁴⁷, and very stout⁴⁸ fellows.
 
We were now on shore in China; if I thought myself banished⁴⁹, 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 about a thousand leagues farther off from home, and destitute⁵⁰ 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 various manufactures of the country, and withal might possibly find some Chinese junks from Tonquin for sail, that 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 obnoxious⁵¹, so if any English or Dutch ships came thither⁵², 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 Nankin, a city well worth seeing; they say it has a million of people in it: it is regularly built, and the streets are all straight, and cross one another in direct lines.  But when I come to compare the miserable⁵³ people of these countries with ours, their fabrics⁵⁴, 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.  We wonder at the grandeur⁵⁵, the riches, the pomp, the ceremonies, the government, the manufactures, the commerce, and conduct of these people; not that there is really any matter for wonder, but because, having a true notion of the barbarity of those countries, the rudeness and the ignorance that prevail 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, gaiety 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 the shipping⁵⁶ belonging to China: but the greatness of their wealth, their trade, the power of their government, and the strength of their armies, may be a little surprising to us, because, as I have sa............