but
made it, for perfection of shape as well as for purity of water, the
first Diamond in the world; as it still continues. After a long
negotiation, the Regent Orleans concluded the purchase of it for 135,000l.
: a price considered very much below its value ; for in the inventory
of the Eegalia, it is entered at twelve millions of francs, or 480.000l.
Uffenbach,
a German traveller who visited this country in the year 1712, states in
his most amusing account of his sojourn in London· (where with true
Teutonic conscientiousness he made a point of seeing all the sights
from " Cupid's Garden " on the Thames to Woodward's fossils) that he
made many fruitless attempts to obtain a view of this Diamond, then
recently brought home by Governor Pitt, and the fame of which had
already been spread all over Europe. But there was no obtaining an
interview with the far from enviable possessor, so fearful was he of
robbery (and not without cause in those unpoliced days) that he never
let be known beforehand the day of his coming to town, nor slept twice
consecutively in the same house. During the next five years— that is,
until the Eegent relieved him of its custody in 1717, Pitt must have
felt his too-precious stone almost as harrassing a possession as did
its first finder : the slave who, as the story goes, concealed it in a
gash made for its reception in the calf of his leg, until he had the
opportunity of escaping to Madras. There the poor wretch fell in with
an English skipper, who, by promising to find a purchaser for the
stone, on condition of halving the proceeds, lured him on board his
ship, and there disposed of his claims by pitching him overboard. The
rogue obtained from Jamchund no more for this wonderful piece than the
paltry sum of 1000/., which he speedily ran through in debauchery, and
when all was
