In this distressed situation, and very ill in health, I went down in a king’s boat to Cataraqui, where I arrived on the 8th of November, and took up my abode at Mr. Howell’s tavern. My indisposition increasing, I was obliged to keep to my blankets, and had only one faithful squaw to attend me. In this miserable state I lay some time, expecting every hour to change my climate, though determined to use every endeavour to effect a recovery. At this interesting period my correspondent arrived from England, and notwithstanding the losses he had sustained by my imprudence, performed the part of a good Samaritan, pouring oil and wine into my wounds; and finding my disorder required medical assistance, desired a surgeon to attend me, and I was soon sufficiently recovered to pursue my journey to La Chine, where I remained some months in preparing the goods which he brought from England {175} for a Northwest journey among the Indians, intending to go next spring to Michillimakinac; _mais la mauvaise fortune qui nous poursuivit toûjours_, frustrated all our schemes, and obliged us to leave La Chine on the 26th of May, 1786, from whence we proceeded in a large Schenectady boat[114] to Oswegatche, where we stopped a few hours, and landed at a place called Toniata Creek, where I determined to apply for five hundred acres of land as a loyalist settler;[115] which being granted me by government, I immediately felled timber to build a house for the accommodation of Indians, in hopes of deriving considerable advantages by barter. In a few days the Indians came to trade with us, which gave us encouragement, and at the same time flattered us with the pleasing ideas of succeeding in commerce: but some affairs requiring my friend’s attendance at Montreal, trade suffered a temporary suspense, and at his return he told me that we must leave our quarters, for he was apprehensive of a seizure for an English debt.