guilty of.

But I, that was born to be my own destroyer, could no more resist the
offer, than I could restrain my first rambling designs, when my father's
good counsel was lost upon me. In a word, I told them I would go with
all my heart, if they would undertake to look alter my plantation in my
absence, and would dispose of it to such as I should direct if I
miscarried. This they all engaged to do, and entered into writings or
covenants to do so; and I made a formal will, disposing of my plantation
and effects, in case of my death, making the captain of the ship that
had saved my life as before, my universal heir, but obliging him to
dispose of my effects as I had directed in my will, one half of the
produce being to himself, and the other to be shipped to England.

In short, I took all possible caution to preserve my effects, and keep
up my plantation: had I used half as much prudence to have looked into
my own interest, and have made a judgment of what I ought to have done,
and not to have done, I had certainly never gone away from so prosperous
an undertaking, leaving all the probable views of a thriving
circumstance, and gone upon a voyage to sea, attended with all its
common hazards; to say nothing of the reasons I had to expect particular
misfortunes to myself.

But I was hurried on, and obeyed blindly the dictates of my fancy rather
than my reason: and accordingly the ship being fitted out, and the cargo
furnished, and all things done as by agreement, by my partners in the
voyage, I went on board in an evil hour, the 1st of September, 1650,
being the same day eight years that I went from my father and mother at
Hull, in order to act the rebel to their authority, and the fool to my
own interest.