Personal reminiscences
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| Robert Bennet Forbes |
Since publishing the foregoing Reminiscences, it has been suggested that some account of those with whom I have been intimately associated in China, and especially a sketch of the history of Russell & Co., with the tragedies and comedies which are now fast passing away from memory, may be useful as a record, as well as interesting to many of their and my friends, and tliat some further details of political events growing out of the Opium War may be valuable.
I have accordingly prepared and added some rambling recollections of old China friends and incidents, together with a few memoranda indicating the changes worked by commerce, electricity, and steam, which I offer for what they may be worth. Boston, Sept. 1, 18S2.
Genealogical — Early Childhood — My First Voyage — Captured — At School in France — A Sea Fight — Captured Again — Rough Weather at Sea — Capture the Third — Home Again — SchoolLife.
Autobiography undertaken at the age of nearly three-score and eleven cannot be considered as anything short of laborious (especially if it be undertaken as is this, in June 1875, with the thermometer at 80°). Nevertheless, I feel that it is a duty I owe to my children and grandchildren.
A man who has from the early age of six and a half (when I first crossed the Atlantic) to my time of life, been engaged until quite recently in active business, cannot but have met with some incidents worthy of being put on record. Sometimes the smallest incidents have an important bearing on a man's life.
A kind word of encouragement, spoken at the right time by those whom we have been accustomed to look up to in early life, may be of very great importance; and, on the other hand, a word spoken
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Biography and Memoirs