338 “ AFTER MANY DAYS.”

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 sent me as a present
seven fine leopards’ 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 than I. He sent me also five
chests of excellent sweetmeats, and an hundred pieces of gold un-
coined, not quite so large as moidores.

By the same fleet my two merchant trustees shipped me 1200
chests of sugar, 800 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 flutter-
ings of my very heart when I looked over these letters, and espe-
cially when I found all my wealth about me. For as the Brazil
ships come all in fleets, the same ships which brought my letters
brought my goods, and the effects were safe in the river before the
letters 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 a vent given in that manner to the spirits, I should have
died.

I was now master, all on’ a sudden, of above £5000 sterling in
money; and had an estate, as I might well call it, in the Brazils of
above £1000 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 un-
derstand, or how to compose myself for the enjoyment of it.

The first thing I did was to recompense my original benefactor,
my good old captain, who had been first charitable to me in my
distress, kind to me in my beginning, and honest to me at the end.