schoolboy’s, so that I heard the Frenchmen all speak of me as _Ce jeune Anglois_, and sometimes (though I was bigger than any of ’em, saving his lordship and one other), _Ce petit Anglois_. But to-night I cared for none of their contempts, being altogether wrapped up in the talk of Madam Heliodora. Now after supper, the guests being in the course of departing, his lordship carried me apart for a moment to speak with him in his private closet, and I observed how tall and seemly a person he was, and how stately in his velvet coat, with a great gold chain about his neck, and a medal hanging therefrom. He addressed himself to me mighty civilly, saying that my relation had entertained him prodigiously, and desiring that I would prolong my stay at St Thomas so long as it suited with my occasions. He promised me, moreover, to ask the chief of our English Factory at Maderas to send him sure word whenever an English ship bound for Surat or Bombaim should arrive there, that so I might take passage in her, and that thus I need be under no fear of missing any chance of returning to my place. This being so, I did accept of his lordship’s offer with many thanks, and so bid him good night, and returned home with Mr Marigny. This gentleman was full of pleasant wit touching the events of the evening, and talked on thus until bedtime, I answering him scarce a word, for I could think only of Madam Heliodora, and repeat in my mind those things that she had said to me. And now that I am come to speak of a part of my life that displays the most intolerable presumption and foolishness in me, I desire (while humbly affirming that no man perceives clearer than I the folly of my doings) to disarm your censure in some degree by putting you in remembrance that I was extreme unused to ladies’ company, never having so much as seen a woman’s face for over three years. Even in the days of my favour at Goa, I saw but little of the ladies, as I have before said, they being kept so recluse, and at Surat there was only some few Dutchwomen and those unhappy English of whom Mr Martin had spoken to me, with whom I had consorted as little as might be. And so you must needs go back to Ellswether, and to the days when my cousin Dorothy and I played together in the fields, to find a time when I was in daily intercourse with any person not of my own sex. And although this plea can’t pardon my folly, yet it may be it can mitigate it.