Page:Early English adventurers in the East (1917).djvu/320

 belonged. In 1720—to take a year a little beyond the period at which our narrative in the main closes—there was sold "by public outcry" at Anjengo, the birthplace of Sterne's Eliza, the following books belonging to different persons:Coles' English and Latin Dictionary, The Worthies of Devon, Tillotson's Works, Government of the Tongue, Atkinson's Epiphany, The History of the World, 2nd volume of The Taller, Art of Self Government, The Present State of England, Cæsar's Commentaries and Moll's Geography. Here is a decidedly miscellaneous list, far removed for the most part from the reading of the ordinary Englishman of to-day who lives in the East. It must be remembered, however, that when these books were sold Pamela had only just been born, that Clarissa Harlowe was still to arrive—that, in fact, the modern novel had yet to be created.

It is difficult to part with the old era without a pang of regret. It was a spacious age in which great things were accomplished with scanty means and in the face of enormous difficulties. Only men of the finest fibre could have passed, as most of our heroes did, successfully through the ordeals which marked their careers. Though all were traders, intent on commercial gain, they could at times rise to the loftiest heights of self-abnegation in the interests of their country. We cannot in these days, perhaps, realize to the fullest extent the sacrifice that most of them made. Expatriation to the East had an added terror in that period when the voyage was often times an odyssey of disease and misfortune and when a comparatively small proportion of those who went out to fill assigned positions ever returned home. There were none of the luxuries which now make life in the tropics tolerable to the