der only, but a full account of my story, to a
merchant at London, who represented it effectually to her; whereupon,
she not only delivered the money, but out of her own pocket sent the
Portugal captain a very handsome present for his humanity and charity
to me.

The merchant in London vesting this hundred pounds in English goods,
such as the captain had writ for, sent them directly to him at Lisbon,
and he brought them all safe to me to the Brasils; among which, without
my direction (for I was too young in my business to think of them) he
had taken care to have all sort of tools, iron work, and utensils
necessary for my plantation, and which were of great use to me.

When this cargo arrived, I thought my fortune made, for I was surprised
with joy of it; and my good steward the captain had laid out the five
pounds which my friend had sent him for a present for himself, to
purchase, and bring me over a servant under bond for six years service,
and would not accept of any consideration, except a little tobacco,
which I would have him accept, being of my own produce.

Neither was this all; but my goods being all English manufactures, such
as cloth, stuffs, baize, and things particularly valuable and desirable
in the country, I found means to sell them to a very great advantage; so
that I may say, I had more than four times the value of my first cargo,
and was now infinitely beyond my poor neighbour, I mean in the
advancement of my plantation; for the first thing I did, I bought me a
Negro slave, and an European servant also; I mean another besides that
which the captain brought me from Lisbon.

But as abused prosperity is oftentimes made the very means of our
greatest adversity, so was it with me. I went on the next year with
great success in my plantation: I raised fifty great rolls of tobacco on
my own ground, more than I had disposed of for necessaries among my
neighbours; and these fifty rolls, being each of above a hundred weight,
were well cured and laid by against the return of the fleet from Lisbon.
And now, increasing in business and in wealth, my head began to be full
of projects and undertakings beyond my reach; such as are indeed often
the ruin of the best heads in business.

Had I continued in the station I was now in, I had room for all the
happy things to have yet befallen me, for which my father so earnestly
recommended a quiet retired life, and of which he had so sensibly
described the middle station