The evening of the 15th I reached Fauconberg, where I was met by a packet of six or eight letters from different friends, accompanied with presents of hung-beef, bullocks tongues, Madeira, porter, rum, and two gallons of excellent shrub, besides a fine bacon ham, and a beautiful pointer; both the last from the identical Charles Macdonald, the English sailor, which he had brought me from Virginia, in return for the little civility I had formerly shewn him so unexpectedly at the Hope. This mark of the poor fellow’s gratitude and generosity, the true characteristics of a British tar, gave me greater pleasure than all the things I received put together. But still I must except two letters, the one from Mr. Lude at Amsterdam, and the other from Mr. de Graav, his administrator at Paramaribo, acquainting me finally, and to my heartfelt satisfaction, that the amiable Joanna and the little boy were at my disposal, but at no less a price than two thousand florins, amounting, with other expences, to near two hundred pounds sterling, a sum which I was totally unable to raise. I already owed the sum of fifty pounds, that I had borrowed for the black boy Quaco’s redemption; but Joanna was to me invaluable, and though appraised at one-twentieth part of the whole estate, which had been sold for forty thousand florins, no price could be too dear for a young woman, possessing so much excellence, provided I could pay it. Solomon well observes, “that as cold water is to a thirsty soul, so are good tidings from a distant country;” and this news, on its first arrival, had indeed the most reviving effect on me: but when reflection taught me how impossible it was for me to obtain such a sum of money, and while I was employed in giving all the presents I had received (except the ham and the dog) to Joanna’s relations at Fauconberg, who loaded me with adorations and caresses, I exclaimed, with a bitter sigh, “Oh! that I could have but found a sum sufficient to purchase every one of their freedoms!” I now found myself, though exceedingly weak, however so much better, that on the next day I went down so far as the estate Bergshove, whence the administrator, a Mr. Gourlay, humanely caused me to be transported to Paramaribo in a decent tent-barge with six oars; but relapsing, I arrived just alive on the evening of the 19th, having past the preceding night on the estate called the Jalosee, apparently dead. I cannot leave the river Comewina without presenting the reader with a view of Magdenberg, from the Tempatee; and a peep at Calais, from the Hope, at the mouth of the Cosaweenica Creek.