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
licence 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 him 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 spice; and there
he was not only paid his freight very well, and at a very good price,
but being not willing to sell the ship then, the merchant furnished him
with goods on his own account; that for 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 gotten 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 licence to land there, and 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 go 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
of Cambodia. The truth was, they had done us a 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; 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 to them,
which they said was due to them on board their respective ships; that is
to say, the Englishman nineteen months pay, and to the Dutchman seven;
and, 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
of 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 gotten 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 that 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 Nanquin, 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 journies into the country; first, we went ten days
journey to see the city of Nanquin, a city well worth seeing indeed:
they say it has a million of people in it; which, however, I do not
believe: 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 came 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, I do not so much as think it worth naming, or worth my while to
write of, or any that shall come after me to read.
It is very observable, that we wonder at the grandeur, the riches, the
pomp, the ceremonies, the government, the manufactures, the commerce,
and the conduct of these people; not that they are to be wondered at,
or, indeed, in the least to be regarded; but because, having first a
notion of the barbarity of those countries, the rudeness and the
ignorance that prevail there, we do not expect to find any such things
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 their cities to ours, for wealth,
strength, gaiety of apparel, rich furniture, and an infinite variety?
What are their ports, supplied with a few junks and barks, to our
navigation, our merchants’ fleets, our large and powerful navies? Our
city of London has more trade than all their mighty empire. One English,
or Dutch, or French man of war of eighty guns, would fight with and
destroy all the shipping of China. But the greatness of their wealth,
their trade, the power of their government, and strength of their
armies are 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; and this, indeed, is the advantage with
which all their greatness and power is represented to us: otherwise, it
is in itself nothing at all; for, as I have said of their ships, so it
may be said of their armies and troops; 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.
If they were to besiege a strong town in Flanders, or to fight a
disciplined army, one line of German cuirassiers, or of French cavalry,
would overthrow all the horse of China; 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 30,000 German or English foot, and 10,000
French horse, would fairly beat all the forces of China. And so of our
fortified towns, and of the art of our engineers, in assaulting and
defending towns; there is not a fortified town in China could hold out
one month against the batteries and attacks of an European army; and at
the same time, all the armies of China could never take such a town as
Dunkirk, provided it was not starved; no, not in ten years siege. They
have fire-arms, it is true, but they are awkward, clumsy, and uncertain
in going off; they have powder, but it is of no strength; they have
neither discipline in the field, exercise in their arms, skill to
attack, nor 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, riches, glory, magnificence, and trade of the
Chinese, because I saw and knew that they were a contemptible herd or
crowd of ignorant, sordid slaves, subjected to a government qualified
only to rule such a people; and, in a word, for I am now launched quite
beside my design, I say, in a word, were not its distance inconceivably
great from Muscovy, and were not the Muscovite empire almost as rude,
impotent, and ill-governed a crowd of slaves as they, the czar of
Muscovy might, with much ease, drive them all out of their country, and
conquer them in one campaign; and had the czar, who I since hear is a
growing prince, and begins to appear formidable in the world, fallen
this way, instead of attacking the warlike Swedes, in which attempt none
of the powers of Europe would have 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 imperfect and impotent, compared to the same things in
Europe. Also, in their knowledge, their learning, their skill in the
sciences; they have globes and spheres, and a smatch of the knowledge of
the mathematics; but when you come to inquire into their knowledge, how
short-sighted are the wisest of their students! They know nothing of the
motion of the heavenly bodies; and so grossly, absurdly ignorant, that
when the sun is eclipsed, they think it is a great dragon has assaulted
and run away with it; and they fall a-cluttering 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 this kind which I have made in all the
account I have given of my travels, so I shall make no more descriptions
of countries and people: it is none of my business, or any part of my
design; but giving an account of my own adventures, through a life of
infinite wanderings, and a long variety of changes, which, perhaps, few
have heard the like of, I shall say nothing of 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 the latitude of thirty degrees north of the line, for we were
returned from Nanquin; 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 to go; so I
referred him 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
with great homage from the people, who are sometimes greatly
impoverished by them, because all the countries they pass through are
obliged to furnish provisions for them, and all their attendants. That
which I particularly observed, as to our travelling with his baggage,
was this; 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 every thing we had after the
market-price of the country, and the mandarin’s steward, or commissary
of the provisions, collected it duly from us; so that our travelling in
the retinue of the mandarin, though it was a very great kindness to us,
was not such a mighty favour in him, but was, indeed, a great advantage
to him, considering there were about thirty other people travelling in
the same manner besides us, under the protection of his retinue, or, as
we may call it, under his convoy. This, I say, was a great advantage to
him; for the country furnished all the provisions for nothing, and he
took all our money for them.
We were five-and-twenty days travelling to Pekin, through a country
infinitely populous, but miserably cultivated; the husbandry, economy,
and the way of living, all very miserable, though they boast so much of
the industry of the people: I say miserable; and so it is; if we, who
understand how to live, were to endure it, or to compare it with our
own; but not so to these poor wretches, who know no other. The pride of
these people is infinitely great, and exceeded by nothing but their
poverty, which adds to that which I call their misery. I must needs
think the naked savages of America live much more happy, because, as
they have nothing, so they desire nothing; whereas these are proud and
insolent, and, in the main, are mere beggars and drudges; their
ostentation is inexpressible, and is chiefly shewed in their clothes and
buildings, and in the keeping multitudes of servants or slaves, and,
which is to the last degree ridiculous, 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; for all their famed ingenuity is no more. My friend Father
Simon, and I, used to be very merry upon these occasions, to see the
beggarly pride of those people. For example, coming by the house of a
country-gentleman, as Father Simon called him, about ten leagues off
from the city of Nanquin, 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.
The habit of this greasy Don was very proper for a scaramouch, or
merry-andrew; being a dirty calico, with all the tawdry trappings of a
fool’s coat, such as hanging sleeves, taffety, and cuts and slashes
almost on every side: it covered a rich taffety vest, as greasy as a
butcher, and which testified, that his honour must needs be a most
exquisite sloven.
His horse was a poor, lean, starved, hobbling creature, such as in
England might sell for about thirty or forty shillings; and he had 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; and we were told he was 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 his
repast; it was a kind of a garden, but he was easy to be seen; and we
were given to understand, that the more we looked on him, the better he
would be pleased.
He sat under a tree, something like the palmetto-tree, which effectually
shaded him over the head, and on the south side; but under the tree also
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 his meat being brought him by two women-slaves: he had two more,
whose office, I think, few gentlemen in Europe would accept of their
service in, viz. one 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, with the other; while the great fat brute
thought it below him to employ his own hands in any of those familiar
offices, which kings and monarchs would rather do than be troubled with
the clumsy fingers of their servants.
I took this time to think what pain men’s pride puts them to, and how
troublesome a haughty temper, thus ill-managed, must be to a man of
common sense; and, leaving the poor wretch to please himself with our
looking at him, as if we admired his pomp, whereas we really pitied and
contemned him, we pursued our journey: only 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 said he had the honour to
taste of, and which was, I think, a dose that an English hound would
scarce have eaten, if it had been offered him, viz. a mess of boiled
rice, with a great piece of garlick 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 lump or piece of lean mutton boiled in it;
and this was his worship’s repast, four or five servants more attending
at a distance. If he fed them meaner than he was fed himself, the spice
excepted, they must fare very coarsely indeed.
As for our mandarin with whom we travelled, he was respected like 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;
but this I observed, that there was not a horse in his retinue, but that
our carriers’ pack-horses in England seem to me to look much better; but
they were so covered with equipage, mantles, trappings, and such-like
trumpery, that you cannot see whether they are fat or lean. In a word,
we could scarce see any thing but their feet and their heads.
I was now light-hearted, and all my trouble and perplexity that I had
given an account of being over, I had no anxious thoughts about me;
which made this journey much the pleasanter to me; nor had I any ill
accident attended me, only in the 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, to my great loss, as to the names of some places
which I touched at in this voyage.
At length we arrived at Pekin; I had nobody with me but the youth, whom
my nephew the captain 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 gave him his passage, that is to say, bore
his charges for his company; and to use him as an interpreter, for he
understood the language of the country, and spoke good French and a
little English; and, indeed, this old man was a most useful implement to
us every where; for we had not been above a week at Pekin, when he came
laughing: “Ah, Seignior Inglese,” said he, “I have something to tell
you, will make your heart glad.”—“My heart glad,” said I; “what can
that be? I don’t know any thing 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 sorrow;” sorry, he would have said. This
made me more inquisitive. “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 Muscovy and Polish
merchants in the city, and that they were 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 surprised with this news: a secret joy
spread itself over my whole soul, which I cannot describe, and never
felt before or since; and I had no power, for a good while, to speak a
word to the old man; but at last I turned to him: “How do you know
this?” said I: “are you sure it is true?”—“Yes,” he said, “I met this
morning in the street an old acquaintance of mine, an Armenian, or one
you call a Grecian, who is among them; he came last from Astracan, and
was designing to go to Tonquin; where I formerly knew him, but has
altered his mind, and is now resolved to go back with the caravan to
Moscow, and so down the river of Wolga to Astracan.”—“Well, Seignior,”
said 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 made a good voyage here, if he
could vest it in China silks, wrought and raw, such as might be worth
the carriage, he would be content to go to England, and then make his
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
part neither, if we had not rewarded him farther; for the service he had
done us was really worth all that, and more; for he had not only been a
pilot to us at sea, but he had been also like a broker for us on shore;
and his procuring for us the Japan merchant was some hundreds of pounds
in our pockets. So we consulted together about it; and, being willing to
gratify him, which was, indeed, 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
compute it, came to about one hundred and seventy-five pounds sterling
between us, and to bear his charges, both for himself and horse, except
only a horse to carry his goods.
Having settled this among ourselves, we called him to let him know what
we had resolved: I told him, he had complained of our being like to let
him go back alone, and I was now to tell him we were resolved he should
not go back at all: that as we had resolved to go to Europe with the
caravan, we resolved also 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
he had no pecune to carry him thither, nor to subsist himself when he
came thither. We told him, we believed it was so, and therefore we had
resolved to do something for him, that would 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 ashore (life and casualties
excepted), either in Muscovy or in England, which he would, 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 the whole world; and so, in short, we all prepared
ourselves for the 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 odd days before all
things were got together.
It was the beginning of February, our style, when we set out from Pekin.
My partner and the old pilot had gone express back to the port where we
had first put in, to dispose of some goods which he had left there; and
I, with a Chinese merchant, whom I had some knowledge of at Nanquin, and
who came to Pekin on his own affairs, went to Nanquin, where I bought
ninety pieces of fine damasks, with about two hundred pieces of other
very fine silks, of several sorts, some mixed with gold, and had all
these brought to Pekin against my partner’s return: besides this, we
bought a very large quantity of raw silk, and some other goods; our
cargo amounting, in these goods only, to about three thousand five
hundred pounds sterling, which, together with tea, and some fine
calicoes, and three camel-loads of nutmegs and cloves, loaded in all
eighteen camels for our share, besides those we rode upon; which, with
two or three spare horses, and two horses loaded with provisions, made
us, in short, twenty-six camels and horses in our retinue.
The company was very great, and, as near as I can remember, made between
three and four hundred horses and camels, and upward of a hundred and
twenty men, very well armed, and provided for all events. For, as the
eastern caravans are subject to be attacked by the Arabs, so are these
by the Tartars; but they are not altogether so dangerous as the Arabs,
nor so barbarous when they prevail.
The company consisted of people of several nations, such as Muscovites
chiefly; for there were about sixty of them who were merchants or
inhabitants of Moscow, though of them some were Livonians; and to our
particular satisfaction, five of them were Scots, who appeared also to
be men of great experience in business, and very good substance.