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meant for his owner's private use, and that therefore he could not 
venture to sell it but at a very high price, a price that would justify 
his violation of orders. At length he wrote to say, that on his re- 
turn it would be worth at Boston six or eight dollars per gallon, 
but that he would let us have a cask at one thousand dollars. The 
impudence of this assertion in the first part of the letter, could 
only be equalled by the folly of sending, at the same time, a Boston 
newspaper, in which were the current prices of every article at that 
port. I there found that London Particular Madeira was between 
three and four dollars per gallon, after the duty was paid. It was 
mentioned as plentiful, and a dull sale. Now this wine certainly 
was not London Particular, for I knew that ten pipes of that quality 
were not sent to all America in the course of the year. But even 
if they had, the profit was most enormous ; nearly three hundred 
pounds for what cost forty three pounds. Convinced that it was a 
mean attempt to take advantage of our situation, to which we had 
been reduced by entertaining his countrymen, I positively refused 
to have any thing to do with it. 
A few days afterwards a Portuguese ship arrived direct from 
Lisbon. I made application to them, and offered the enormous 
price of five hundred dollars for a pipe of port. The captain very 
liberally answered that he had no wine for sale, but that he would 
give us all he could possibly spare, taking an order on Bombay for 
a similar quantity. What a contrast to the American ' ! ! I respect 
a merchant; I consider him as one of the great props of our nation : 
but when every idea of honour and liberality is absorbed in the 
pursuit of profit, he becomes one of the most despicable of animals; 
and if his country should adopt his principles, it must inevitably 
