A narrative of voyages and commercial enterprises . up in an unsuccessful specu-lation in 1836, and I was thus a third time left destitute. On making an estimate of my losses of the twenty years between1805 and 1825, I find their aggregate amount to exceed two hundredthousand dollars, although I never possessed at any one time a suraexceeding eighty thousand dollars. Under such losses, I have beensupported by the consoling reflection, that they have been exclusivelymine, and that it is not in the power of any individual to say, withtruth, that I have injured him to the amount of a dollar. With


A narrative of voyages and commercial enterprises . up in an unsuccessful specu-lation in 1836, and I was thus a third time left destitute. On making an estimate of my losses of the twenty years between1805 and 1825, I find their aggregate amount to exceed two hundredthousand dollars, although I never possessed at any one time a suraexceeding eighty thousand dollars. Under such losses, I have beensupported by the consoling reflection, that they have been exclusivelymine, and that it is not in the power of any individual to say, withtruth, that I have injured him to the amount of a dollar. With a small annual sum from the Neapolitan indemnity, I havebeen enabled to support myself, till this was on the point of ceasingby the cancelling of that debt ; v, hen I was so fortunate as to obtainan office in the custom-house, the duties of which I hope to performfaithfully, and in peace, during the few remaining years, or months,or days, which may be allotted me on earth. A 1 1 i: .\ u 1 X. WILLIAM SIIALEH TO R. J. ;CAB Cleveland :. ILlli^T Macao the 14ih February, 1804, clear-ed tlic Lrma the IHth, and, after a hard and tedi-ous passage, I cleared the Formosa passage the 7lhof March. We had the most intolerably badweather, during our passage, that I ever cxpcricn-cod ; pale succeeded gnle with torrents of rain,and we found no steady weather until we came into>i liigh latitude. The Imd Biate of our foremast, and being destitute ofSparc spars of any kind, determined me to give up alltiioughts of going to the southward ; and, as it appearedncccsniiry to gain a high latitude to get to the eastwardat ail, I resolved to procc cd to Columbia River to get a newmast ond oth(*r spars. \Vc had scvcml persons on boardwho had Ijcen there. From what they told me, and Van-rouvrrh drscriplion of that ontranrc, I was led to .suppose it the roodeligible rtlacht tlmt we could make. Nolwiilislanding all these plau-sible considerations, it proved rather an unhappy resolution, as


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Keywords: ., bookcentury18, booksubjectcommerce, booksubjectvoyagesandtravels