After waiting several days, with great impatience, for the event of our application, without understanding that the matter was at all advanced toward a conclusion, I applied to the commander of an English country ship, who was to sail on the 25th, and who offered to take the men and stores on board, and to lie-to, if the weather should permit, off Macao, till we could send boats to take them out of his ship. At the same time he apprised me of the danger there might be of his being driven with them out to sea. Whilst I was doubting what measures to pursue, the commander of another country ship brought me a letter from Captain Gore, in which he acquainted me, that he had engaged him to bring us down from Canton, and to deliver the stores we had procured, at his own risk, in the Typa. All our difficulties being thus removed, I had leisure to attend to the purchase of our provisions and stores, which was completed on the 26th; and the day following, the whole stock was sent on board. As Canton was likely to be the most advantageous market for furs, I was desired by Captain Gore to carry with me about twenty sea-otters' skins, chiefly the property of our deceased commanders, and to dispose of them at the best price I could procure; a commission which gave me an opportunity of becoming a little acquainted with the genius of the Chinese for trade. Having acquainted some of the English supercargoes with these circumstances, I desired them to recommend me to some Chinese merchant of credit and reputation, who would at once offer me a fair and reasonable price. I was accordingly directed to a member of the _Hong_; a society of the principal merchants of the place; who being fully informed of the nature of the business, appeared sensible of the delicacy of my situation; assured me I might depend on his integrity; and that, in a case of this sort, he should consider himself merely as an agent, without looking for any profit to himself. Having laid my goods before him, he examined them with great care, over and over again, and at last told me, that he could not venture to offer more than three hundred dollars for them. As I knew, from the price our skins had sold for in Kamtschatka, that he had not offered me one-half their value, I found myself under the necessity of driving a bargain. In my turn, I therefore demanded one thousand; my Chinese then advanced to five hundred; then offered me a private present of tea and porcelain, amounting to one hundred more; then the same sum in money; and, lastly, rose to seven hundred dollars, on which I fell to nine hundred. Here, each side declaring he would not recede, we parted; but the Chinese soon returned with a list of India goods, which he now proposed I should take in exchange, and which, I was afterwards told, would have amounted in value, if honestly delivered, to double the sum he had before offered. Finding I did not choose to deal in this mode, he proposed as his