For the vote which protected him from annoyance here left him exposed to serious risks on the other side of the Cape of Good Hope.

The Old Company, though its exclusive privileges were no more, and though its dividends had greatly diminished, was still in existence, and still retained its castles and warehouses, its fleet of fine merchantmen, and its able and zealous factors, thoroughly qualified by a long experience to transact business both in the palaces and in the bazaars of the East, and accustomed to look for direction to the India House alone.

The private trader therefore still ran great risk of being treated as a smuggler, if not as a pirate.

He might indeed, if he was wronged, apply for redress to the tribunals of his country.

But years must elapse before his cause could be heard; his witnesses must be conveyed over fifteen thousand miles of sea; and in the meantime he was a ruined man.