MEMOIR OF DRURY. 65 



God to take away the said Dm Dfury, and the 

 business or work by that circumstance should be at 

 a stand for want of a legal successor or proper per- 

 son already nominated or provided for in this agree- 

 ment, in that case the said Captain Wilson, doth 

 agree that the half of the profit, or advantage, 

 that the said Dru Drury did enjoy in his lifetime 

 shall be continued to his son William Drury, of the 

 Strand, Goldsmith, &c. &c." 



Many similar agreements, formally drawn up, 

 written on stamp-paper, and signed in the presence 

 of witnesses, were entered into with commanders of 

 vessels proceeding to various quarters of the globe ; 

 and those whom Drury used to employ in collecting 

 insects, were often enjoined to turn their attention 

 at the same time to this subject. As might have 

 been expected, the hopes of sudden wealth, with 

 which some of them were thus inspired, were gene- 

 rally, if not in every instance, disappointed. We 

 find poor Lewin, to whom the discovery of a trea- 

 sure of this kind would have been even more than 

 usually acceptable, writing in the following terms 

 (which we give nearly verbatim, but not nearly 

 literatim) to his patron, in a letter from Sidney, 

 dated 7th March, 1803 : " I hope you will never 

 mention any more in your letters about gold ; and 

 sorry enough I am that ever such a thought entered 

 into my head ; but enough of that subject, for I am 

 really sick of it; for had it not been for those 

 ideas, or rather dreams, I never should have gone to 

 Otaheite in search of pearls, where I very nigh lost 



