"I was sent here to see that justice was done to every body, if I
possibly could--no easy task, when all are amassing money, not caring
how they obtain it; but, surely, if any one has peculiar claims upon
me, it is you."
The superior then asked me many questions relative to my parentage,
and I did not conceal any thing from him. I told who I was, and why,
at an early age, I had left my father's house. He asked me many
questions, and, after about two hours' conversation, he dismissed me,
saying,
"You may always depend upon my protection and gratitude."
Before he dismissed me, he told me that he was about to send a
despatch-boat to Lisbon, and as I might wish to inform my friends of
my safety, if I would write letters, he would insure their being
safely delivered to my friends in England. I gladly availed myself of
this offer, and indeed would have begged a passage for myself, if it
had not been that I considered Olivarez's money to be the property of
Mr. Trevannion, and was determined to remit it to him before I left
Rio. This detained me about six weeks longer, during which interval
Olivarez had suffered the penalty due to his crimes, having been
strangled in the market-place.
The money received was 28,000 cruzados, and not knowing how to dispose
of it, I applied to the superior, who gave me orders for it in
duplicates upon the treasury at Lisbon, one of which I had very soon
an opportunity of sending home to Mr. Trevannion, with a duplicate of
my first letter, and a second to him and Amy, stating my intention of
returning as soon as possible. But this was by a Portuguese frigate,
which made a very circuitous route home, and I did not choose to go by
that conveyance, as her detention at the different ports was so
uncertain. At last I became very impatient for my departure, and
anxiously awaited the sailing of some vessel to any port of Europe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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