habits were checked by the novelty of my situation, and my affections
were gained by the high accomplishments of my patron. To novelty and its
influence, curiosity had succeeded: curiosity, so long as it lasted, was
a principle stronger in my bosom than even the love of independence. To
that I would have sacrificed my liberty or my life; to gratify it, I
would have submitted to the condition of a West Indian negro, or to the
tortures inflicted by North American savages. But the turbulence of
curiosity had now subsided.

As long as the threats of Mr. Falkland had been confined to generals, I
endured it. I was conscious of the unbecoming action I had committed,
and this rendered me humble. But, when he went further, and undertook to
prescribe to every article of my conduct, my patience was at an end. My
mind, before sufficiently sensible to the unfortunate situation to which
my imprudence had reduced me, now took a nearer and a more alarming view
of the circumstances of the case. Mr. Falkland was not an old man; he
had in him the principles of vigour, however they might seem to be
shaken; he might live as long as I should. I was his prisoner; and what
a prisoner! All my actions observed; all my gestures marked. I could
move neither to the right nor the left, but the eye of my keeper was
upon me. He watched me; and his vigilance was a sickness to my heart.
For me there was no more freedom, no more of hilarity, of
thoughtlessness, or of youth. Was this the life upon which I had entered
with such warm and sanguine expectation? Were my days to be wasted in
this cheerless gloom; a galley-slave in the hands of the system of
nature, whom death only, the death of myself or my inexorable superior,
could free?

I had been adventurous in the gratification of an infantine and
unreasonable curiosity; and I resolved not to be less adventurous, if