the neighbourhood taking him under his patronage, gave him a genteel
education, with a view of bettering his situation in life. The patron
dying just as he was ready to launch out into the world, the poor
fellow in despair went to sea; where, after a variety of good and ill
fortune, a little before I was acquainted with him he had been set on
shore by an American privateer, on the wild coast of Connaught,
stripped of everything. I cannot quit this poor fellow's story without
adding that he is at this time master of a large West Indiaman
belonging to the Thames.

His mind was fraught with independence, magnanimity, and every manly
virtue. I loved and admired him to a degree of enthusiasm, and of
course strove to imitate him. In some measure I succeeded; I had pride
before, but he taught it to flow in proper channels. His knowledge of
the world was vastly superior to mine, and I was all attention to
learn. . . . My reading only increased while in this town by two stray
volumes of "Pamela," and one of "Ferdinand Count Fathom," which gave me
some idea of novels. Rhyme, except some religious pieces that are in
print, I had given up; but meeting with Fergusson's Scottish Poems, I
strung anew my wildly sounding lyre with emulating vigour. When my
father died his all went among the hell-hounds that growl in the kennel
of justice; but we made a shift to collect a little money in the family
amongst us, with which to keep us together; my brother and I took a
neighbouring farm. My brother wanted my hare-brained imagination, as
well as my social and amorous madness; but in good sense, and every
sober qualification, he was far my superior.

I entered on this farm with a full resolution, "come, go to, I will be
wise!" I read farming books, I calculated crops; I attended markets;
and, in short, in spite of the devil, and the world, and the flesh, I