I had not been here many days, when I was deserted by all my officers and men, who were continually employed in removing their effects from my ship to some of the European ships, without my knowledge, I being then confined to bed. My officers were using all their efforts to engage the gentlemen belonging to the company in their interest, and had only left my son and a few negroes to look after the ship, and to defend my effects, which were on the brink of falling into the bottomless pit of Chinese avarice; besides, they and the ship's company had so many ways of disposing of every thing they could lay their hands on, that I found it impossible to oblige them to do what I thought justice to our owners: They all soon recovered from their illness, and they all became their own masters. There were no magistrates for me to appeal to on shore, who would aid me so far as to compel them to remain in my ship; and the officers commanding the English ships could not afford me the help they might have been inclined to give, lest the supercargoes might represent their conduct to the East India Company. And these last, who superintend the English trade at this port, seemed even inclined to have refused me a passage in one of their ships, and even treated me as one enemy would treat another in a neutral port; looking on me in that light for presuming to come within the limits of the Company, without considering the necessity by which I had been compelled to take that step. When Captains Hill and Newsham came to visit me, they were astonished at the ruinous condition of my ship, and could scarcely think it possible for her to have made so long a passage. The rottenness of her cordage, and the raggedness of her sails, filled them with surprise and pity for my condition. When I had given them a short history of the voyage, and requested they would receive my officers and company, with their effects, they at once said, That they saw plainly my ship was in no condition to be carried any farther, and they were willing to receive us all as soon as we pleased, on payment of our passage. But the supercargoes were displeased that I had not applied to them, as they are the chief men here, though only passengers when aboard; so that I was quite neglected, and the English captains were ordered to fall down with their ships five or six miles below where I lay. I was thus left destitute in the company of five foreign ships; yet their officers, seeing me deserted by my countrymen, kindly offered me their services, and assisted me as much as they could, and without them I know not what might have been my fate, as I was under perpetual apprehensions that the Chinese would have seized my ship.