At the several conversations I had with the English merchants at Jidda, they complained grievously of the manner in which they were oppressed by the sherriffe of Mecca and his officers. The duties and fees were increased every voyage; their privileges all taken away, and a most destructive measure introduced of forcing them to give presents, which was only an inducement to oppress, that the gift might be the greater. I asked them if I should obtain from the Bey of Cairo permission for their ships to come down to Suez, whither there were merchants in India who would venture to undertake that voyage? Captain Thornhill promised, for his part, that the very season after such permission should arrive in India, he would dispatch his ship the Bengal Merchant, under command of his mate Captain Greig, to whose capacity and worth all his countrymen bore very ready testimony, and of which I myself had formed a very good opinion, from the several conversations we had together. This scheme was concerted between me and Captain Thornhill only; and tho’ it must be confessed it had the appearance of an airy one, (since it was not to be attempted, till I had returned through Abyssinia and Nubia, against which there were many thousand chances,) it was executed, notwithstanding, in the very manner in which it had been planned, as will be after stated. The kindness and attention of my countrymen did not leave me as long as I was on shore. They all did me the honour to attend me to the water edge. If others have experienced pride and presumption, from gentlemen of the East-Indies, I was most happily exempted from even the appearance of it at Jidda. Happy it would have been for me, if I had been more neglected.