"I was sent here to see that justice was done to everybody, 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 anything 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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