![]() We sold our spice, which was chiefly cloves, and some nutmegs,to the Persian merchants, who carried them away for the Gulf and,making near five of one, we really got a great deal of money. We were not long in preparing for this voyage the chiefdifficulty was in bringing me to come into it however, at last, nothingelse offering, and finding that really stirring about and trading, theprofit being so great, and, as I may say, certain, had more pleasure init, and more satisfaction to the mind, than sitting still which, to meespecially, was the unhappiest part of life, I resolved on this voyagetoo: which we made very successfully, touching at Borneo, and severalislands, whose names I do not remember, and came home in about fivemonths. among theSpice Islands and to bring home a load of cloves from the Manillas, orthereabouts places where, indeed, the Dutch do trade, but the islandsbelong partly to the Spaniards though we went not so far, but to someother, where they have not the whole power as they have at Batavia,Ceylon, &c. ![]() ![]() My new friend kepthimself to the nature of the thing, and would have been content to havegone, like a carrier's horse, always to the same inn, backward andforward, provided he could, as he called it, find his account in it: onthe other hand, mine, as old as I was, was the notion of a mad ramblingboy, that never cares to see a thing twice over.īut this was not all: I had a kind of impatience upon me to be nearerhome, and yet the most unsettled resolution imaginable, which way to go.In the interval of these consultations, my friend, who was always uponthe search for business, proposed another voyage to me, viz. I was come into a part of the world which I neverwas in before and that part in particular which I had heard much of and was resolved to see as much of it as I could and then I thought Imight say I had seen all the world that was worth seeing.īut my fellow-traveller and I had different notions: I do not name thisto insist upon my own, for I acknowledge his was most just, and the mostsuited to the end of a merchant's life who, when he is abroad uponadventures, it is his wisdom to stick to that, as the best thing forhim, which he is like to get the most money by. I say, what was this gain to me? Iwas rich enough already nor had I any uneasy desires about getting moremoney and therefore, the profits of the voyage to me were things of nogreat force to me, for the prompting me forward to farther undertakings:hence I thought, that by this voyage I had made no progress at all because I was come back, as I might call it, to the place from whence Icame, as to a home whereas my eye, which, like that which Solomonspeaks of, was never satisfied with seeing, was still more desirous ofwandering and seeing. ![]() ![]() World, than a covetous desire of getting in it? And indeed I thinkit is with great justice that I now call it a restless desire, for itwas so: when I was at home, I was restless to go abroad and now I wasabroad, I was restless to be at home. ![]()
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