as a young gentleman of the highest family in the land, related to
all the principal nobility, a cousin of Captain Fitzsimons, and heir
to L10,000 a year. Fitzsimons said he had ridden over every inch of
my estate; and 'faith, as he chose to tell these stories for me, I
let him have his way--indeed, was not a little pleased (as youth is)
to be made much of, and to pass for a great personage. I had little
notion then that I had got among a set of impostors--that Captain
Fitzsimons was only an adventurer, and his lady a person of no
credit; but such are the dangers to which youth is perpetually
subject, and hence let young men take warning by me.

I purposely hurry over the description of my life in which the
incidents were painful, of no great interest except to my unlucky
self, and of which my companions were certainly not of a kind
befitting my quality. The fact was, a young man could hardly have
fallen into worse hands than those in which I now found myself. I
have been to Donegal since, and have never seen the famous Castle of
Fitzsimonsburgh, which is, likewise, unknown to the oldest
inhabitants of that county; nor are the Granby Somersets much better
known in Worcestershire. The couple into whose hands I had fallen
were of a sort much more common then than at present, for the vast
wars of later days have rendered it very difficult for noblemen's
footmen or hangers-on to procure commissions; and such, in fact, had
been the original station of Captain Fitzsimons. Had I known his
origin, of course I would have died rather than have associated with
him: but in those simple days of youth I took his tales for truth,
and fancied myself in high luck at being, at my outset into life,
introduced into such a family. Alas! we are the sport of destiny.
When I consider upon what small circumstances all the great events
of my life have turned, I can hardly believe myself to have been