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
Portuguese 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 lodging, together with a warehouse for our goods; it was a
little hut, with a larger house adjoining to it, built and also
palisadoed round with canes, to keep out pilferers, of which 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 half-pike, who stood sentinel
at our door, to whom we allowed a pint 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 missionary 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
Christians 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 courteous, and very agreeable company; but 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 confess 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 understood 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, 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 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, 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 inclination 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 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 Huguenots, 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 part of
his discourse 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 levity in him, 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 solicited 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 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 twelves 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 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 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 buy 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
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 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. 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 prospect 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 loath
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 discoursed 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 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 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 wares, 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 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. 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. 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 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 about a thousand
leagues farther off from home, and 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 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 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 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 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. We wonder at the
grandeur, 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 shipping 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 said, considering them as a
barbarous nation of pagans, little better than savages, we did not expect
such things among them. But all the forces of their empire, though they
were to bring two millions of men into the field together, would be able
to do nothing but ruin the country and starve themselves; a million of
their foot could not stand before one embattled body of our infantry,
posted so as not to be surrounded, though they were not to be one to
twenty in number; nay, I do not boast if I say that thirty thousand
German or English foot, and ten thousand horse, well managed, could
defeat all the forces of China. Nor is there a fortified town in China
that could hold out one month against the batteries and attacks of an
European army. They have firearms, it is true, but they are awkward and
uncertain in their going off; and their powder has but little strength.
Their armies are badly disciplined, and want skill to attack, or temper
to retreat; and therefore, I must confess, it seemed strange to me, when
I came home, and heard our people say such fine things of the power,
glory, magnificence, and trade of the Chinese; because, as far as I saw,
they appeared to be a contemptible herd or crowd of ignorant, sordid
slaves, subjected to a government qualified only to rule such a people;
and were not its distance inconceivably, great from Muscovy, and that
empire in a manner as rude, impotent, and ill governed as they, the Czar
of Muscovy might with ease drive them all out of their country, and
conquer them in one campaign; and had the Czar (who is now a growing
prince) fallen this way, instead of attacking the warlike Swedes, and
equally improved himself in the art of war, as they say he has done; and
if none of the powers of Europe had envied or interrupted him, he might
by this time have been Emperor of China, instead of being beaten by the
King of Sweden at Narva, when the latter was not one to six in number.
As their strength and their grandeur, so their navigation, commerce, and
husbandry are very imperfect, compared to the same things in Europe;
also, in their knowledge, their learning, and in their skill in the
sciences, they are either very awkward or defective, though they have
globes or spheres, and a smattering of the mathematics, and think they
know more than all the world besides. But they know little of the
motions of the heavenly bodies; and so grossly and absurdly ignorant are
their common people, that when the sun is eclipsed, they think a great
dragon has assaulted it, and is going to run away with it; and they fall
a clattering with all the drums and kettles in the country, to fright the
monster away, just as we do to hive a swarm of bees!
As this is the only excursion of the kind which I have made in all the
accounts I have given of my travels, so I shall make no more such. It is
none of my business, nor any part of my design; but to give an account of
my own adventures through a life of inimitable wanderings, and a long
variety of changes, which, perhaps, few that come after me will have
heard the like of: I shall, therefore, say very little of all the mighty
places, desert countries, and numerous people I have yet to pass through,
more than relates to my own story, and which my concern among them will
make necessary.
I was now, as near as I can compute, in the heart of China, about thirty
degrees north of the line, for we were returned from Nankin. I had
indeed a mind to see the city of Pekin, which I had heard so much of, and
Father Simon importuned me daily to do it. At length his time of going
away being set, and the other missionary who was to go with him being
arrived from Macao, it was necessary that we should resolve either to go
or not; so I referred it to my partner, and left it wholly to his choice,
who at length resolved it in the affirmative, and we prepared for our
journey. We set out with very good advantage as to finding the way; for
we got leave to travel in the retinue of one of their mandarins, a kind
of viceroy or principal magistrate in the province where they reside, and
who take great state upon them, travelling with great attendance, and
great homage from the people, who are sometimes greatly impoverished by
them, being obliged to furnish provisions for them and all their
attendants in their journeys. I particularly observed in our travelling
with his baggage, that though we received sufficient provisions both for
ourselves and our horses from the country, as belonging to the mandarin,
yet we were obliged to pay for everything we had, after the market price
of the country, and the mandarin's steward collected it duly from us.
Thus our travelling in the retinue of the mandarin, though it was a great
act of kindness, was not such a mighty favour to us, but was a great
advantage to him, considering there were above thirty other people
travelled in the same manner besides us, under the protection of his
retinue; for the country furnished all the provisions for nothing to him,
and yet he took our money for them.
We were twenty-five days travelling to Pekin, through a country exceeding
populous, but I think badly cultivated; the husbandry, the economy, and
the way of living miserable, though they boast so much of the industry of
the people: I say miserable, if compared with our own, but not so to
these poor wretches, who know no other. The pride of the poor people is
infinitely great, and exceeded by nothing but their poverty, in some
parts, which adds to that which I call their misery; and I must needs
think the savages of America live much more happy than the poorer sort of
these, because as they have nothing, so they desire nothing; whereas
these are proud and insolent and in the main are in many parts mere
beggars and drudges. Their ostentation is inexpressible; and, if they
can, they love to keep multitudes of servants or slaves, which is to the
last degree ridiculous, as well as their contempt of all the world but
themselves.
I must confess I travelled more pleasantly afterwards in the deserts and
vast wildernesses of Grand Tartary than here, and yet the roads here are
well paved and well kept, and very convenient for travellers; but nothing
was more awkward to me than to see such a haughty, imperious, insolent
people, in the midst of the grossest simplicity and ignorance; and my
friend Father Simon and I used to be very merry upon these occasions, to
see their beggarly pride. For example, coming by the house of a country
gentleman, as Father Simon called him, about ten leagues off the city of
Nankin, we had first of all the honour to ride with the master of the
house about two miles; the state he rode in was a perfect Don Quixotism,
being a mixture of pomp and poverty. His habit was very proper for a
merry-andrew, being a dirty calico, with hanging sleeves, tassels, and
cuts and slashes almost on every side: it covered a taffety vest, so
greasy as to testify that his honour must be a most exquisite sloven. His
horse was a poor, starved, hobbling creature, and two slaves followed him
on foot to drive the poor creature along; he had a whip in his hand, and
he belaboured the beast as fast about the head as his slaves did about
the tail; and thus he rode by us, with about ten or twelve servants,
going from the city to his country seat, about half a league before us.
We travelled on gently, but this figure of a gentleman rode away before
us; and as we stopped at a village about an hour to refresh us, when we
came by the country seat of this great man, we saw him in a little place
before his door, eating a repast. It was a kind of garden, but he was
easy to be seen; and we were given to understand that the more we looked
at him the better he would be pleased. He sat under a tree, something
like the palmetto, which effectually shaded him over the head, and on the
south side; but under the tree was placed a large umbrella, which made
that part look well enough. He sat lolling back in a great elbow-chair,
being a heavy corpulent man, and had his meat brought him by two women
slaves. He had two more, one of whom fed the squire with a spoon, and
the other held the dish with one hand, and scraped off what he let fall
upon his worship's beard and taffety vest.
Leaving the poor wretch to please himself with our looking at him, as if
we admired his idle pomp, we pursued our journey. Father Simon had the
curiosity to stay to inform himself what dainties the country justice had
to feed on in all his state, which he had the honour to taste of, and
which was, I think, a mess of boiled rice, with a great piece of garlic
in it, and a little bag filled with green pepper, and another plant which
they have there, something like our ginger, but smelling like musk, and
tasting like mustard; all this was put together, and a small piece of
lean mutton boiled in it, and this was his worship's repast. Four or
five servants more attended at a distance, who we supposed were to eat of
the same after their master. As for our mandarin with whom we travelled,
he was respected as a king, surrounded always with his gentlemen, and
attended in all his appearances with such pomp, that I saw little of him
but at a distance. I observed that there was not a horse in his retinue
but that our carrier's packhorses in England seemed to me to look much
better; though it was hard to judge rightly, for they were so covered
with equipage, mantles, trappings, &c., that we could scarce see anything
but their feet and their heads as they went along.
I was now light-hearted, and all my late trouble and perplexity being
over, I had no anxious thoughts about me, which made this journey the
pleasanter to me; in which no ill accident attended me, only in passing
or fording a small river, my horse fell and made me free of the country,
as they call it--that is to say, threw me in. The place was not deep,
but it wetted me all over. I mention it because it spoiled my pocket-
book, wherein I had set down the names of several people and places which
I had occasion to remember, and which not taking due care of, the leaves
rotted, and the words were never after to be read.
At length we arrived at Pekin. I had nobody with me but the youth whom
my nephew had given me to attend me as a servant and who proved very
trusty and diligent; and my partner had nobody with him but one servant,
who was a kinsman. As for the Portuguese pilot, he being desirous to see
the court, we bore his charges for his company, and for our use of him as
an interpreter, for he understood the language of the country, and spoke
good French and a little English. Indeed, this old man was most useful
to us everywhere; for we had not been above a week at Pekin, when he came
laughing. "Ah, Seignior Inglese," says he, "I have something to tell
will make your heart glad."--"My heart glad," says I; "what can that be?
I don't know anything in this country can either give me joy or grief to
any great degree."--"Yes, yes," said the old man, in broken English,
"make you glad, me sorry."--"Why," said I, "will it make you
sorry?"--"Because," said he, "you have brought me here twenty-five days'
journey, and will leave me to go back alone; and which way shall I get to
my port afterwards, without a ship, without a horse, without _pecune_?"
so he called money, being his broken Latin, of which he had abundance to
make us merry with. In short, he told us there was a great caravan of
Muscovite and Polish merchants in the city, preparing to set out on their
journey by land to Muscovy, within four or five weeks; and he was sure we
would take the opportunity to go with them, and leave him behind, to go
back alone.
I confess I was greatly surprised with this good news, and had scarce
power to speak to him for some time; but at last I said to him, "How do
you know this? are you sure it is true?"--"Yes," says he; "I met this
morning in the street an old acquaintance of mine, an Armenian, who is
among them. He came last from Astrakhan, and was designed to go to
Tonquin, where I formerly knew him, but has altered his mind, and is now
resolved to go with the caravan to Moscow, and so down the river Volga to
Astrakhan."--"Well, Seignior," says I, "do not be uneasy about being left
to go back alone; if this be a method for my return to England, it shall
be your fault if you go back to Macao at all." We then went to consult
together what was to be done; and I asked my partner what he thought of
the pilot's news, and whether it would suit with his affairs? He told me
he would do just as I would; for he had settled all his affairs so well
at Bengal, and left his effects in such good hands, that as we had made a
good voyage, if he could invest it in China silks, wrought and raw, he
would be content to go to England, and then make a voyage back to Bengal
by the Company's ships.
Having resolved upon this, we agreed that if our Portuguese pilot would
go with us, we would bear his charges to Moscow, or to England, if he
pleased; nor, indeed, were we to be esteemed over-generous in that
either, if we had not rewarded him further, the service he had done us
being really worth more than that; for he had not only been a pilot to us
at sea, but he had been like a broker for us on shore; and his procuring
for us a Japan merchant was some hundreds of pounds in our pockets. So,
being willing to gratify him, which was but doing him justice, and very
willing also to have him with us besides, for he was a most necessary man
on all occasions, we agreed to give him a quantity of coined gold, which,
as I computed it, was worth one hundred and seventy-five pounds sterling,
between us, and to bear all his charges, both for himself and horse,
except only a horse to carry his goods. Having settled this between
ourselves, we called him to let him know what we had resolved. I told
him he had complained of our being willing to let him go back alone, and
I was now about to tell him we designed he should not go back at all.
That as we had resolved to go to Europe with the caravan, we were very
willing he should go with us; and that we called him to know his mind. He
shook his head and said it was a long journey, and that he had no
_pecune_ to carry him thither, or to subsist himself when he came there.
We told him we believed it was so, and therefore we had resolved to do
something for him that should let him see how sensible we were of the
service he had done us, and also how agreeable he was to us: and then I
told him what we had resolved to give him here, which he might lay out as
we would do our own; and that as for his charges, if he would go with us
we would set him safe on shore (life and casualties excepted), either in
Muscovy or England, as he would choose, at our own charge, except only
the carriage of his goods. He received the proposal like a man
transported, and told us he would go with us over all the whole world;
and so we all prepared for our journey. However, as it was with us, so
it was with the other merchants: they had many things to do, and instead
of being ready in five weeks, it was four months and some days before all
things were got together.