J 779. THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 3Q1 



of the principal merchants of the place, who being 

 fully informed of the nature of the business, appeared 

 sensible of the delicacy of my situation ; assured me 

 I might depend on his integrity ; and that, in a case 

 of this sort, he should consider himself merely as an 

 agent, without looking for any profit to himself. 

 Having laid my goods before him, he examined them 

 with great care over and over again, and at last told 

 me that he could not venture to offer more than three 

 hundred dollars for them. As I knew from the price 

 our skins had sold for in Kamtschatka that he had 

 not offered me one half their value, I found myself 

 under the necessity of driving a bargain. In my 

 turn I therefore demanded one thousand ; my Chinese 

 then advanced to five hundred ; then offered me a 

 private present of tea and porcelain, amounting to 

 one hundred more ; then the same sum in money ; 

 and, lastly, rose to seven hundred dollars, on which I 

 fell to nine hundred. Here, each side declaring he 

 would not recede, we parted ; but the Chinese soon 

 returned with a list of India goods, which he now 

 proposed I should take in exchange, and which, I 

 was afterward told, would have amounted in value, 

 if honestly delivered, to double the sum he had be- 

 fore offered. Finding I did not choose to deal in 

 this mode, he proposed as his ultimatum, that we 

 should divide the difference, which, being tired of 

 the contest, I consented to, and received the eight 

 hundred dollars. 



The ill health, which at this time I laboured 

 under, left me little reason to lament the very 

 narrow limits, within which the policy of the 

 Chinese obliges every European at Canton to con- 

 fine his curiosity. I should otherwise have felt 

 exceedingly tantalized with living under the walls 

 of so great a city, full of objects of novelty, without 

 being able to enter it. The account given of this 

 place by Peres le Comte and Du Halde, are in 

 every one's hand. The authors have lately been 



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