A PROFITABLE INVESTMENT. 81

safe you may order the rest the same way, and if it miscarry you
may have the other half to have recourse to for your supply.”

This was so wholesome advice, and looked so friendly, that I
could not but be convinced it was the best course I could take; so
I accordingly prepared letters to the gentlewoman with whom I
had left my money, and a procuration to the Portuguese captain,
as he desired.

I wrote the English captain’s widow a full account of all my
adventures; my slavery, escape, and how I had met with the
Portuguese captain at sea, the humanity of his behaviour, and in
what condition I was now in, with all other necessary directions
for my supply. And when this honest captain came to Lisbon, he
found means, by some of the English merchants there, to send
over, not the order only, but a full account of my story, to a mer-
chant at London, who represented it effectually to her; whereupon
she not only delivered the money, but out of her own pocket sent
the Portuguese 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 written for, sent them
directly to him at Lisbon, and he brought them all safe to me to
the Brazils; among which, without my direction— for I was too
young in my business to think of them—he had taken care to
have all sorts of tools, iron-work, and utensils necessary for ay,
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 considera-
tion 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 manu-
factures, such as cloth, stufis, bays, 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

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