ved. I told him all the story of
our buying the ship, and how the Dutchmen served us. I told him the
reasons I had to believe that this story of killing the master by the
Malaccans was not true; as also the running away with the ship; but that
it was all a fiction of their own, to suggest that the men were turned
pirates; and they ought to have been sure it was so, before they had
ventured to attack us by surprise, and oblige us so resist them; adding,
that they would have the blood of those men who were killed there, in
our just defence, to answer for.

The old man was amazed at this relation; and told us, we were very much
in the right to go away to the north; and that if he might advise us, it
should be to sell the ship in China, which we might very well do, and
buy or build another in the country; "And," said he, "though you will
not get so good a ship, yet you may get one able enough to carry you and
all your goods back again to Bengal, or any where else."

I told him I would take his advice when I came to any port where I could
find a ship for my turn, or get any customer to buy this. He replied, I
should meet with customers enough for the ship at Nanquin, and that a
Chinese junk would serve me very well to go back again; and that he
would procure me people both to buy one and sell the other.

"Well, but, Seignior," says I, "as you say they know the ship so well, I
may, perhaps, if I follow your measures, be instrumental to bring some
honest innocent men into a terrible broil, and, perhaps, be murdered in
cold blood; for wherever they find the ship they will prove the guilt
upon the men by proving this was the ship, and so innocent men may
probably be overpowered and murdered."--"Why," said the old man, "I'll
find out a way to prevent that also; for as I know all those commanders
you speak of very well, and shall see them all as they pass by, I will
be sure to set them to rights in the thing, and let them know that they
had been so much in the wrong; that though the people who were on board
at first might run away with the ship, yet it was not true that they had
turned pirates; and that in particular those were not the men that first
went off with the ship, but innocently bought her for their trade; and I
am persuaded they will so far believe me, as, at least, to act more
cautiously for the time to come."--"Well," said I, "and will you deliver
one message to them from me?"--"Yes, I will," says he, "if you will gi