454 
A VOYAGE TO 
1780. 
January, 
W 
intruding to their care a bottle of rum for the Mandarin , 
One of them chofe to accompany us on hoard. 
At two in the afternoon we joined the fhips, and feveral 
of our fhooting parties returned about the fame time from 
the woods, having had little fuccefs, though they faw T a 
great variety of birds and animals, fome of which will be 
hereafter noticed. 
At five, a proa , with fix men, rowed up to the fhip, from 
the upper end of the harbour, and a decent-looking per- 
lonage introduced himfelf to Captain Gore with an eafe 
and good-breeding, which convinced us his time had been 
fpent in other company than what this ifland afforded. He 
brought with him the French paper above tranfcribed, and 
faid he was the Mandarin mentioned in it. He fpoke a few 
Portugueze words, hut, as none of us were acquainted with 
this language, we were obliged to have recourfe to a black 
man on board, who could fpeak the Malay, which is the 
general language of thefe iflanders, and was underflood by 
the Mandarin . After a little previous converfation, he de¬ 
clared to us, that he was a Chriftian, and had been baptized 
by the name of Luco; that he had been fent hither in Au- 
guft laft, from Sai-gon, the capital of Cochin China, and 
had fince waited in expe< 5 lation of fome French fhips, which 
he was to pilot to a fafe port, not more than a day’s fail 
hence, upon the coalt of Cochin China. We acquainted 
him, that we were not French, but Englifh, and afked him, 
whether he did not know, that thefe two nations were now 
at war with one another. He made anfwer in the affirma¬ 
tive ; but, at the fame time, fignified to us, that it was indif¬ 
ferent to him to what nation the fhips he was inftrudted to 
wait for belonged, provided their object was to trade with 
the people of Cochin China. He here produced another 
paper, 
