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Ch.18: The Pitt or Regent Diamond

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170 THE GREAT DIAMONDS OF THE WORLD.
bandages. As the stone weighed 410 carats before it was cut, the last version of the method of conceal­ment is, no doubt, the correct one. The slave escaped to the coast with his property. Unfortunately for himself, and also for the peace of mind of his confi­dant, he met with an English skipper, whom he trusted with his secret. It is said he offered to give the diamond to the mariner, in return for his liberty, which was to be secured by the skipper carrying him to a free country. But it seems probable that he supplemented this with a money condition as well, otherwise the skipper's treatment of the poor creature is as devoid of reason as it is of humanity. The English skipper, professing to accept the slave's pro­posals, took him on board his ship, and having obtained possession of the jewel, flung the slave into the sea. He afterwards, so this first version of the narrative goes, sold the diamond to Mr. Thomas Pitt, governor of Fort St. George, for £1,000, squandered the money in dissipation, and finally, in a fit of delirium tremens and remorse, hanged himself.
There is no reason to doubt the substantial accuracy of this characteristic beginning of the ad­ventures of the great diamond, with a trifling exception. The English sea captain sold it in all probability for £1,000, not to Mr. Pitt, but to Jamchund, at that time the largest diamond merchant in the East, who, it will be seen in the course of our history, sold it to Mr. Pitt for £20,400. The circumstances connected with his purchase of the gem, are fully related by Pitt himself, who, on his return to Europe in 1710, was suspected, and even openly accused, of having
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