the market, had not yet broken bulk, nor even taken off the hatchways.  Our captain arrived on a Saturday.  Advertisements and handbills were immediately issued, and on the Wednesday morning following, as the custom then was, the auction sale of the tea began on the wharf,—­two barrels of punch contributing to the eclat and hilarity of the occasion.  The cargo was sold to good advantage, and the market was glutted.  Astor lost in consequence the entire profits of the voyage, not less than the sum named above.  Meeting the captain some time after in Broadway, he said,—­

“I had better have paid for that chronometer of yours.”

Without ever acknowledging that he had been in the wrong, he was glad enough to engage the captain’s future services.  This anecdote we received from the worthy captain’s own lips.

On one occasion the same officer had the opportunity of rendering the great merchant a most signal service.  The agent of Mr. Astor in China suddenly died at a time when the property in his charge amounted to about seven hundred thousand dollars.  Our captain, who was not then in Astor’s employ, was perfectly aware that if this immense property fell into official hands, as the law required, not one dollar of it would ever again find its way to the coffers of its proprietor.  By a series of bold, prompt, and skilful measures, he rescued it from the official maw, and made it yield a profit to the owner.  Mr. Astor acknowledged the service.  He acknowledged it with emphasis and a great show of gratitude.  He said many times:—­

“If you had not done just as you did, I should never have seen one dollar of my money; no, not one dollar of it.”

But he not only did not compensate him for his services, but he did not even reimburse the small sum of money which the captain had expended in performing those services.  Astor was then worth ten millions, and the captain had his hundred dollars a month and a family of young children.

Thus the great merchant recompensed great services.  He was not more just in rewarding small ones.  On one occasion a ship of his arrived from China, which he found necessary to dispatch at once to Amsterdam, the market in New York being depressed by an over-supply of China merchandise.  But on board this ship, under a mountain of tea-chests, the owner had two pipes of precious Madeira wine, which had been sent on a voyage for the improvement of its constitution.

“Can you get out that wine,” asked the owner, “without discharging the tea?”

The captain thought he could.

“Well, then,” said Mr. Astor, “you get it out, and I’ll give you a demijohn of it.  You’ll say it’s the best wine you ever tasted.”

It required the labor of the whole ship’s crew for two days to get out those two pipes of wine.  They were sent to the house of Mr. Astor.  A year passed.  The captain had been to Amsterdam and back, but he had received no tidings of his demijohn of Madeira.  One day, when Mr. Astor was on board the ship, the captain ventured to remind the great man, in a jocular manner, that he had not received the wine.