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the captain; which he readily promised, and very honestly might.

So they took him in, and brought him on board; and he was as good as his word to them; for he never went back any more; and the sloop being come to the mouth of the inlet where we lay, we weighed, and set sail; but, as we went out, being pretty near the shore, we fired three guns, as it were among them, but without any shot; for it was of no use to us to hurt any more of them. After we had fired, we gave them a cheer, as the seamen call it; that is to say, we hallooed at them, by way of triumph, and so carried off their ambassador. How it fared with the general, we know

nothing of that.

This passage, when I related it to a friend of mine, after my return from those rambles, agreed so well with his relation of what happened to one Mr. Knox, an English captain, who some time ago was decoyed on shore by those people, that it could not be very much to my satisfaction to think what mischief we had all escaped; and I think it cannot but be very profitable to record the other story (which is but short) with my own, to show whoever reads this, what it was I avoided, and prevent their falling into the like, if they have to do with the perfidious people of Ceylon. The relation is as follows:—

The island of Ceylon being inhabited for the greatest part by barbarians, which will not allow any trade or commerce with any European nation, and inaccessible by any travellers, it will be convenient to relate the occasion how the author of this story happened to go into this island, and what opportunities he had of being fully acquainted with the people, their laws and customs, that so we may the better depend upon the account, and value it, as it deserves, for the rarity as well as the truth of it; and both these the author gives us a brief relation of in this manner. His words are as follow:

In the year 1657, the Anne frigate, of London, Captain Robert Knox commander, on the 21st day of January, set sail out of the Downs, in the service of the honourable the East India Company of England, bound for Fort St. George, upon the coast of Coromandel, to trade for one year from port to port in India; which having performed, as he was

lading his goods to return to England, being in the road of Matlipatam, on the 19th of November, 1659, there happened such a mighty storm, that in it several ships were cast away, and he was forced to cut his mainmast by the board, which so disabled the ship, that he could not proceed in his voyage; whereupon Cotiar, in the island of Ceylon, being a very commodious bay, fit for her present distress, Thomas Chambers, esquire, since Sir Thomas Chambers, the agent at Fort St. George, ordered that the ship should take in some cloth and Indian merchants belonging to Porta Nova, who might trade there while she lay to set her mast, and repair the other damages sustained by the storm. At her first coming thither, after the Indian merchants were set on shore, the captain and his men were very jealous of the people of that place, by reason the English never had any commerce or dealing with them; but after they had been there twenty days, going ashore and returning again at pleasure, without any molestation, they began to lay aside all suspicious thoughts of the people that dwelt thereabouts, who had kindly entertained them for their money.

By this time the king of the country had notice of their arrival, and, not being acquainted with their intents, he sent down a dissuava, or general, with an army to them, who immediately sent a messenger to the captain on board, to desire him to come ashore to him, pretending a letter from the king. The captain saluted the message with firing of guns, and ordered his son Robert Knox, and Mr. John Loveland, merchant of the ship, to go ashore, and wait on him. When they were come before him, he demanded who they were, and how long they should stay. They told him they were Englishmen, and not to stay above twenty or thirty days, and desired permission to trade in his majesty's port. His answer was-that the king was glad to hear that the English were come into his country, and had commanded him to assist them as they should desire, and had sent a letter to be delivered to none but the captain himself. They were then twelve miles from the sea-side, and therefore replied, that the captain could not leave his ship to come so far; but if he pleased to go down to the sea-side, the captain would wait on him to receive the letter; whereupon the dissuava desired them to stay that day, and on the morrow he would go with them; which, rather than dis

HISTORY OF CAPTAIN KNOX ON THE SAME ISLAND. 219

please him in so small a matter, they consented to. In the evening the dissuava sent a present to the captain, of cattle and fruits, &c., which, being carried all night by the messengers, was delivered to him in the morning, who told him withal that his men were coming down with the dissuava, and desired his company on shore against his coming, having a letter from the king to deliver into his own hand. The captain, mistrusting nothing, came on shore with his boat, and, sitting under a tamarind tree, waited for the dissuava. In the meantime, the native soldiers privately surrounded him and the seven men he had with him, and, seizing them, carried them to meet the dissuava, bearing the captain on a hammock on their shoulders.

The next day the long-boat's crew, not knowing what had happened, came on shore to cut down a tree to make cheeks for the mainmast, and were made prisoners after the same manner, though with more violence, because they were more rough with them, and made resistance: yet they were not brought to the captain and his company, but quartered in another house in the same town.

The dissuava having thus gotten two boats and eighteen men, his next care was to gain the ship; and to that end, telling the captain that he and his men were only detained because the king intended to send letters and a present to the English nation by him, desired he would send some men on board his ship to order her to stay; and because the ship was in danger of being fired by the Dutch, if she stayed long in the bay, to bring her up the river. The captain did not approve of the advice, but did not dare to own his dislike; and so sent his son with the order, but with a solemn conjuration to return again, which he accordingly did, bringing a letter from the company in the ship-that they would not obey the captain, nor any other, in this matter, but were resolved to stand on their own defence. This letter satisfied the dissuava, who thereupon gave the captain leave to write for what he would have brought him from the ship, pretending that he had not the king's order to release them, though it would suddenly come.

The captain seeing he was held in suspense, and the season of the year spending for the ship to proceed on her voyage to some place, sent order to Mr. John Burford, the chief mate, to take charge of the ship, and set sail to Porta

Nova, from whence they came, and there to follow the agent's order.

And now began that long and sad captivity they all along feared. The ship being gone, the dissuava was called up to the king, and they were kept under guards awhile, till a special order came from the king to part them, and put one in a town, for the conveniency of their maintenance, which the king ordered to be at the charge of the country. On September 16, 1660, the captain and his son were placed in a town called Bonder Cooswat, in the country of Hotcurly, distant from the city of Candi northward thirty miles, and from the rest of the English, a full day's journey. Here they had their provisions brought them twice a day, without money, as much as they could eat, and as good as the country yielded. The situation of the place was very pleasant and commodious; but that year that part of the land was very sickly by agues and fevers, of which many died. The captain and his son, after some time, were visited with the common distemper, and the captain being also loaded with grief for his deplorable condition, languished more than three months, and then died, February the 9th, 1661,

Robert Knox, his son, was now left desolate, sick, and in captivity, having none to comfort him but God, who is the father of the fatherless, and hears the groans of such as are in captivity, being alone to enter upon a long scene of misery and calamity, oppressed with weakness of body and grief of soul, for the loss of his father, and his remediless trouble that he was like to endure; and the first instance of it was in the burial of his father: for he sent his black boy to the people of the town, to desire their assistance, because they understood not their language; but they sent him only a rope, to drag him by the neck into the woods, and told him, -that they would offer him no other help, unless he would pay for it. This barbarous answer increased his trouble for his father's death, that now he was like to lie unburied, and be made a prey to the wild beasts in the woods; for the ground was very hard, and they had not tools to dig with, and so it was impossible for them to bury him; and having a small matter of money left him, viz., a pagoda and a gold ring, he hired a man, and so buried him in as decent a manner as their condition would permit.

CONCLUSION OF CAPTAIN KNOX'S HISTORY.

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CHAPTER XVIII.

CONCLUSION OF CAPTAIN KNOX'S HISTORY-OUR OWN STORY RESUMED ADVENTURES AT GOA AND SURAT, AND ACCOUNT OF OUR TRADE WITH THE MERCHANTS IN THESE LATITUDES.

His dead father being thus removed out of his sight, but his ague continuing, he was reduced very low, partly by sorrow, and partly by his disease, All the comfort he had was to go into the woods and fields with a book, either the Practice of Piety, or Mr. Rogers's Seven Treatises, which were the only two books he had, and meditate and read, and sometimes pray; in which his anguish made him often invert Elijah's petition, that he might die, because his life was a burthen to him. God, though he was pleased to prolong his life, yet he found a way to lighten his grief, by removing his ague, and granting him a desire, which, above all things, was acceptable to him. He had read his two books over so often, that he had both almost by heart; and though they were both pious and good writings, yet he longed for the truth from the original fountain, and thought it his greatest unhappiness, that he had not a Bible, and did believe that he should never see one again; but, contrary to his expectation, God brought him one after this manner. As he was fishing one day, with his black boy, to catch some fish to relieve his hunger, an old man passed by them, and asked his boy, whether his master could read? and when the boy had answered, yes, he told him,—that he had gotten a book from the Portuguese, when they left Columbo; and, if his master pleased, he would sell it him. The boy told his master, who bade him go and see what book it was. The boy having served the English some time, knew the book, and, as soon as he had got it into his hand, came running to him, calling out before he came to him, It is the Bible! The words startled him, and he flung down his angle to meet him, and, finding it true, was mightily rejoiced to see it; but he was afraid he should not have enough to purchase it, though he was resolved to part with all the money he had, which was but one pagoda, to buy it;