ABSTRACT
CONCERNING the personal history of the author of the following narrative nothing has been discovered. Presumably he was on his way to India; yet no trace of him occurs in the lists of servants of the East India Company, nor is there any record of his applying to the Directors for permission to visit that country. A Captain William Beawes was in the eastern seas in 1701-2, commanding the English East India Company’s ship Albemarle 1 ; but inasmuch as he must have been at that time a man of mature age, it is scarcely possible that he would have been travelling in Mesopotamia more than forty years later. On the other hand, the identity of their names suggests that the traveller may have been the son of the sea captain. Whether he was in any way related to Wyndham Beawes, of the consular service, author of Lex Mercatoria Rediviva, has not been ascertained.
