I was now in, I had room for all the happy things to have yet befallen
me, for which my father so earnestly recommended a quiet, retired life,
and which he had so sensibly described the middle station of life to be
full of: but other things attended me, and I was still to be the wilful
agent of all my own miseries; and, particularly, to increase my fault,
and double the reflections upon myself, which in my future sorrows I
should have leisure to make, all these miscarriages were procured by my
apparent obstinate adhering to my foolish inclination, of wandering
about, and pursuing that inclination, in contradiction to the clearest
views of doing myself good in a fair and plain pursuit of those
prospects, and those measures of life, which nature and Providence
concurred to present me with, and to make my duty.

As I had once done thus in breaking away from my parents, so I could not
be content now, but I must go and leave the happy view I had of being a
rich and thriving man in my new plantation, only to pursue a rash and
immoderate desire of rising faster than the nature of the thing
admitted; and thus I cast myself down again into the deepest gulph of
human misery that ever man fell into, or perhaps could be consistent
with life, and a state of health in the world.

To come, then, by just degrees, to the particulars of this part of my
story:--You may suppose, that having now lived almost four years in the
Brazils, and beginning to thrive and prosper very well upon my
plantation, I had not only learned the language, but had contracted an
acquaintance and friendship among my fellow-planters, as well as among
the merchants at St. Salvador, which was our port; and that, in my
discourses among them, I had frequently given them an account of my two
voyages to the coast of Guinea, the manner of trading with the Negroes
there, and how easy it was to purchase on the coast for trifles--such