Page:To the Court of the Emperor of China - vol I.djvu/9

Rh Returning to his native land after an effective residence of eight years in a country where in that length of time he could not sail to acquire great information, M. Van-Braam settled in Guelderland, and remained there till 1783.

At the last mentioned epoch the Independence of America had just been solemnly acknowledged by the powers of the old world. This event, which re echoed throughout Europe, and awakened ideas almost as new as itself, inspired M. Van-Braam with the desire of inhabiting a country which had been represented to him in the most enthusiastic terms.

Of all the United States he gave the preference to South Carolina; and in 1783 became a merchant, and a cultivator of rice in that State. He was even naturalized as a citizen of the United States in 1784; and was living there in peace and happiness, when one of those dreadful fatalities of which the climate of that province affords but too many examples, deprived him, in the course of a single month, of four of his children.

This loss, for which a paternal heart has never been able to console itself, together with that of his fortune occasioned by a false friend, were the motives that induced M. Van-Braam to listen to the propositions transmitted to him by one of his brothers in the name of the Dutch East-India Company, who wished him to undertake