WANDERING TO AND FRO. 6389

cumstances be the fitter to embrace a proposal for trade, or, indeed,
for anything else; whereas, otherwise, trade was none of my
element. However, I might perhaps say with some truth, that if
trade was not my element, rambling was, and no proposal for
seeing any part of the world which I never had seen before could
possibly come amiss to me.

It was, however, some time before we could get a ship to our
minds; and when we had got a vessel, it was not easy to get
English sailors; that is to say, so many as were necessary to
govern the voyage and manage the sailors which we should pick up
there. After some time we got a mate, a boatswain, and a gunner,
English, a Dutch carpenter, and three Portuguese foremastmen.
With these we found we could do well enough, having Indian sea-
men, such as they are, to make up.

There are many travellers who have written the history of their
voyages and travels this way, that it would be very little diversion
to anybody to give a long account of the places we went to, and
the people who inhabit there. Those things I leave to others, and
refer the reader to those journals and travels of Englishmen, of
which many I find are published, and more promised every day.
"Tis enough to me to tell you that I made this voyage to Achen,
in the island of Sumatra, and from thence to Siam, where we ex-
changed some of our wares for opium, and some arrack; the first
a commodity which bears a great price among the Chinese, and
which at that time was very much wanted there. In a word, we
went up to Suskan, made a very great voyage, were eight months
out, and returned to Bengal; and I was very well satisfied with my
adventure. I observe that our people in England often admire
how the officers which the Company send into India, and the
merchants which generally stay there, get such very great estates
as they do, and sometimes come home worth sixty, enemy to
one hundred thousand pounds at a time.

But it is no wonder, or at least we shall see so much further
into it, when we consider the innumerable ports and places where
they have a free commerce, that it will then be no wonder; and
much less will it be so, when we consider at all those places and
ports where the English ships come, there is so much, and such