The Adventures of Naufragus Author:Horne Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: the whole race with such a stigma; and every lover of the sex will naturally consider this instance as a lamentable exception. No sooner had I brought my ship... more » to anchor off Tappanooly, than I repaired to the dwelling of Mr. Prince, the resident, a gentleman as much and as deservedly esteemed for the amiable simplicity and engaging mildness of his manners, as he is distinguished for the able and indefatigable discharge of his public duties. I produced a letter addressed to this gentleman by my Pondicherry agents, requesting his information and assistance in the delivery of a cargo of pepper, which was consigned to me by a French merchant of Pondicherry, and was expected to have already arrived at Tappanooly ; but he told me that he was totally ignorant of any such consignment having arrived on the island, or indeed of any being on its way ; and that owing to the great scarcity of pepper on the coast just then, it was almost impossible to procure any. This was a severe disappointment to me; but it was amply compensated by the circumstance of a cargo of soft sugar, which had been recently left on the island by a ship, unable, from having sprung aleak at sea, to proceed on her voyage, being now for immediate sale. From recent accounts-current, received from Bengal, it appeared that the price of sugar at that place had risen, and was then extremely high so that comparing the prime cost of the sugar at Tappanooly, with the Bengal price, I concluded that the purchase of it would be a speculation calculated to afford a more than reasonable profit, that is, according to an estimation by no means sanguine, one hundred and twenty per cent, at least. The circumstance also of my having on board the total proceeds of my various freights since I left Bengal, amounting in specie to eleven tho...« less