“ His return journey was embarrassed by sickness (at Resht) , by attacks from pirates, and by six weeks’ quarantine; and he only reappeared at St Petersburg on the 1st of January 1745. He again left the Russian capital on the 9th of July 1750 and travelled through Germany and Holland to England (28th of October) . The rest of his life was mostly spent in London, where the narrative of his travels (published in 1753) soon made him a man of note, and where he devoted himself to philanthropy and good citizenship. In 1756 he founded the Marine Society, to keep up the supply of British seamen ”

“ While still a child, his father, a victualler, died, and the family moved to London. In 1729 Jonas was apprenticed to a merchant in Lisbon. In 1743, after he had been some time in business for himself in London, he became a partner with Mr Dingley, a merchant in St Petersburg, and in this way was led to travel in Russia and Persia. Leaving St Petersburg on the 10th of September 1743, and passing south by Moscow, Tsaritsyn and Astrakhan, he embarked on the Caspian on the 22nd of November, and arrived at Astrabad on the 18th of December. ”

“ He died, unmarried, on the 5th of September 1786. He was the first Londoner, it is said, to carry an umbrella, and he lived to triumph over all the hackney coachmen who tried to hoot and hustle him down. ”