279 THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES

¥ os
toany slaves there were upon it; and making two-and-twenty crosses
for blessings, told me he had said so many Ave Marias to thank the
Blessed Virgin that I was alive; inviting me very passionately to come
over and take possession of my own, and in the meantime to give him
orders to whom he should deliver my effects, if I did not come myself;
concluding with a hearty tender of his friendship, and that of his
family ; and he sent me as a present, seven fine leopard skins, which
he had, it seems, received from Africa by some other ship which he had
sent thither; and who, it seems, had made a better voyage thanI. He
sent me'also five chests of excellent sweetmeats, and a hundred pieces

of gold uncoined, not quite so large as moidores. ;

By the same flect my merchant-trustees shipped me twelve hundred
chests of sugar, eight hundred rolls of tobacco, and the rest of the
whole account in gold. ?

I might well say now, indeed, that the latter end of Job was better
than the beginning. It is impossible to express the flutterings of my
very heart, when I looked over these letters, and especially when I
found all my wealth about me; for as the Brazil ships came all in fleets,
the same ships which brought my letters brought my goods: and the
effects were safe in the Tagus before the letter came to my hand. In
a word, I turned pale, and grew sick; and had not the old man run
and fetched me a cordial, I believe the sudden surprise of joy had
overset nature, and I had died upon the spot.

Nay, after that, I continued very ill, and was so some hours, till a
physician being sent for, and something of the real cause of my illness
being known, he ordered me to be let blood, after which I had relief,
and grew well; but I verily believe, if it had not been eased-by the
vent given in that manner to the spirits, I should have died..

I was now master, all on a sudden, of above fifty thousand pounds
sterling in money, and had an estate, as I might well call it, in the
Brazils, of above a thousand pounds a-year, as sure as an estate of
lands in England; and, in a word, I was in a condition which I scarce
knew how to understand, or how to compose yee for the enjoy-
ment of.

The first thing I did was to recompense my asinine benefactor, my
good old captain, who had been first charitable to me in my distress,
kind to me in the beginning, and honest to me at the end. I showed
him all that was sent to me; I told him that, next to the: providence
of Heaven, which disposes all things, it was owing to him; and that
it now lay on me to reward him, which I would do an hundred fold.
So i first returned to him the hundred moidores I had received of
him; then I sent for a notary, and caused him to draw up a general