Office in
London. This the major positively refused; and whenever it was afterwards
urged, stopped us short, by telling us, he was certain that he could not
oblige his mistress more than in giving every assistance in his power to
her good friends and allies the English; and that it would be a particular
satisfaction to her to hear, that, in so remote a part of the world, her
dominions had afforded any relief to ships engaged in such services as
ours; that he could not therefore act so contrary to the character of his
empress as to accept of any bills; but that to accommodate the matter, he
would take a bare attestation of the particulars with which we might be
furnished, and that this he should transmit to his court, as a certificate
of having performed his duty. I shall leave, he continued, to the two
courts all farther acknowledgments, but cannot consent to accept of any
thing of the kind alluded to.

When this matter was adjusted, he began to enquire about our private wants,
saying, he should consider himself as ill used if we had any dealings with
the merchants, or applied to any other person except himself.

In return for such singular generosity, we had little to bestow but our
admiration and our thanks. Fortunately, however, Captain Clerke had sent by
me a set of prints and maps, belonging to the last voyage of Captain Cook,
which he desired me to present in his name to the commander; who being an
enthusiast in every thing relating to discoveries, received it with a
satisfaction which shewed, that, though a trifle, nothing could have been
more acceptable. Captain Clerke had likewise entrusted me with a
discretionary power of shewing him a chart of the discoveries made in the
present voyage; and as I judged that a person in his situation, and of his
turn of mind, would be exceedingly gratified by a communication of this
sort, though, out of delicacy, he had forborn to ask more than a few
general questions on the subject, I made no scruple to repose in him a
confidence, of which his whole conduct shewed him to be deserving.

I had the pleasure to find, that he felt this compliment as I hoped he
would, and was much struck at seeing, in one view, the whole of that coast,
as well on the side of Asia as on that of America, of which his countrymen
had been so many years employed in acquiring a partial and imperfect
knowledge.[19]

Excepting this mark of confidence, and the set of prints I have already
mentioned, we h