At seventeen Jonas was sent to Lisbon to be
apprenticed to a merchant, where his close attention to business,
his punctuality, and his strict honour and integrity, gained for
him the respect and esteem of all who knew him. Returning to
London in 1743, he accepted the offer of a partnership in an
English mercantile house at St. Petersburg engaged in the Caspian
trade, then in its infancy. Hanway went to Russia for the purpose
of extending the business; and shortly after his arrival at the
capital he set out for Persia, with a caravan of English bales of
cloth making twenty carriage loads. At Astracan he sailed for
Astrabad, on the south-eastern shore of the Caspian; but he had
scarcely landed his bales, when an insurrection broke out, his
goods were seized, and though he afterwards recovered the principal
part of them, the fruits of his enterprise were in a great measure
lost. A plot was set on foot to seize himself and his party; so he
took to sea and, after encountering great perils, reached Ghilan in
safety. His escape on this occasion gave him the first idea of the
words which he afterwards adopted as the motto of his life--"NEVER
DESPAIR." He afterwards resided in St. Petersburg for five years,
carrying on a prosperous business.
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