while he was gaining practical skill in a new profession: and, if the
latter might be considered as a substitute for the school studies so
lately quitted at North Walsham; the former amply compensated the loss
of those hours of vacation amusements, the enjoyment of which he might
now recollect without any regret. The enervating influence of the torrid
climes had no ill effect on his constitution; which was radically good,
though partaking of his mother's slightness and delicacy: and he had
been too virtuously educated, hastily to indulge that rash and dangerous
intemperance which proves so often fatal to inconsiderate Europeans, on
their first visiting the West Indies. With a considerable store of local
and professional information, he returned to England about the middle of
the year 1772.

It has been said that, at this period, his mind had acquired, without
any apparent cause, an entire horror of the royal navy; that Captain
Suckling, who beheld with anxiety the critical situation of his nephew,
was soon convinced, by the sentiment he appeared to indulge in--"Aft,
the most honour; but forward, the better man!"--his too credulous nephew
had acquired a bias utterly foreign to his real character; and that it
was many weeks before all the firmness of the captain, assisted by his
thorough knowledge of the human heart, could overcome these prejudices
in his nephew, and reconcile him to the service on board a king's ship.

Admitting the truth of this relation, it would be natural to suppose
that Mr. Rathbone, who was probably a worthy but disappointed man, had
inspired the youth with his own aversions to serving in the royal navy,
without a due consideration being made for the differences of their
respective interests. This gentleman, with the utmost purity of design,
might wish to prepare the nephew of his friend for mortifications and
disappointments to be expected in the profession he had just embraced;