your fault if you go back to Macao at all.” We then went to
consult together what was to be done; and I asked my partner what
he thought of the pilot’s news, and whether it would suit with his
affairs? He told me he would do just as I would; for he had
settled all his affairs so well at Bengal, and left his effects in
such good hands, that as we had made a good voyage, if he could
invest it in China silks, wrought and raw, he would be content to
go to England, and then make a voyage back to Bengal by the
Company’s ships.
Having resolved upon this, we agreed that if our Portuguese pilot
would go with us, we would bear his charges to Moscow, or to
England, if he pleased; nor, indeed, were we to be esteemed over-
generous in that either, if we had not rewarded him further, the
service he had done us being really worth more than that; for he
had not only been a pilot to us at sea, but he had been like a
broker for us on shore; and his procuring for us a Japan merchant
was some hundreds of pounds in our pockets. So, being willing to
gratify him, which was but doing him justice, and very willing also
to have him with us besides, for he was a most necessary man on all
occasions, we agreed to give him a quantity of coined gold, which,
as I computed it, was worth one hundred and seventy-five pounds
sterling, between us, and to bear all his charges, both for himself
and horse, except only a horse to carry his goods. Having settled
this between ourselves, we called him to let him know what we had
resolved. I told him he had complained of our being willing to let
him go back alone, and I was now about to tell him we designed he
should not go back at all. That as we had resolved to go to Europe
with the caravan, we were very willing he should go with us; and
that we called him to know his mind. He shook his head and said it
was a long journey, and that he had no PECUNE to carry him thither,
or to subsist himself when he came there. We told him we believed
it was so, and therefore we had resolved to do something for him
that should let him see how sensible we were of the service he had
done us, and also how agreeable he was to us: and then I told him
what we had resolved to give him here, which he might lay out as we
would do our own; and that as for his charges, if he would go with
us we would set him safe on shore (life and casualties excepted),
either in Muscovy or England, as he would choose, at our own
charge, except only the carriage of his goods. He received the
proposal like a man transported, and told us he would go with us
over all the whole world; and so we all prepared for our journey.
However, as it was with us, so it was with the other merchants:
they had many things to do, and instead of being ready in five
weeks, it was four months and some days before all things were got
together.
CHAPTER XIV – ATTACKED BY TARTARS
IT was the beginning of February, new style, when we set out from
Pekin. My partner and the old pilot had gone express back to the
port where we had first put in, to dispose of some goods which we
had left there; and I, with a Chinese merchant whom I had some
knowledge of at Nankin, and who came to Pekin on his own affairs,
went to Nankin, where I bought ninety pieces of fine damasks, with
about two hundred pieces of other very fine silk of several sorts,
some mixed with gold, and had all these brought to Pekin against my
partner’s return. Besides this, we bought a large quantity of raw
silk, and some other goods, our cargo amounting, in these goods
only, to about three thousand five hundred pounds sterling; which,