FORTUNATE SPECULATIONS. 541

But this was not all: I had a kind of impatience upon me to
be nearer home, and yet the most unsettled resolution imaginable
which way to go. In the interval of these consultations my friend,
who was always upon the search for business, proposed another
voyage to me among the Spice Islands, and to bring home a load-
ing of cloves from the Manillas, or thereabouts; places where
indeed the Dutch do trade, but islands belonging partly to the
Spaniards; though we went not so far, but to some other, where
they have not the whole power, as they have at Batavia, Ceylon,
&c. We were not long in preparing for this voyage; the chief
difficulty was in bringing me to come into it. However, nothing
else offering, and finding that really stirring about and trading,
the profit being so great, and, as I may say, certain, had more
pleasure in it, and more satisfaction to the mind than sitting still,
which, to me especially, was the unhappiest part of life; I resolved
on this voyage too, which we made very successfully, touching at
Borneo and several islands, whose names I do not remember, and
came home in about five months. We sold our spice, which was
chiefly cloves, and some nutmegs, to the Persian merchants, who
carried them away for the Gulf; and making near five of one, we
really got a great deal of money.

My friend, when we made up this account, smiled at me.
“Well now,” said he, with a sort of agreeable insult upon my
indolent temper, “is not this better than walking about here, like
a man of nothing to do, and spending our time staring at the
nonsense and ignorance of the pagans?” ‘Why, truly,” says I,
“my friend, I think it is, and I begin to be a convert to the
principles of merchandizing ; but I must tell you,” said I, “ by the
way, you do not know what I am a doing; for if once I conquer
my backwardness, and embark heartily, as old as I am, I shall
harass you up and down the world till I tire you; for I shall
pursue it so eagerly, I shall never let you lie still.”

But to be short with my speculations, a little while after this
there came in a Dutch ship from Batavia; she was a coaster, not
an European trader, and of about two hundred tons burden; the
men, as they pretended, having been so sickly that the captain
had not men enough to go to sea with. He lay by at Bengal, and