relative, against his inclination, to take me with him as a cabin
boy.

With emotions of delight I turned my back on the home of my
childhood, and gayly started off to seek my fortune in the world,
with no other foundation to build upon than a slender frame, an
imperfect education, a vivid imagination, ever picturing charming
castles in the air, and a goodly share of quiet energy and
perseverance, modified by an excess of diffidence, which to this
day I have never been able to overcome.

I had already found in a taste for reading a valuable and never-
failing source of information and amusement. This attachment to
books has attended me through life, and been a comfort and solace
in difficulties, perplexities, and perils. My parents, also,
early ingrafted on my mind strict moral principles; taught me to
distinguish between right and wrong; to cherish a love of truth,
and even a chivalric sense of honor and honesty. To this,
perhaps, more than to any other circumstance, may be attributed
whatever success and respectability has attended my career
through life. It has enabled me to resist temptations to evil
with which I was often surrounded, and to grapple with and
triumph over obstacles that might otherwise have overwhelmed me.

When I reached Portsmouth, my kinsman, Captain Tilton, gave me an
ungracious reception. He rebuked me severely for expressing a
determination to go to sea.

"Go to sea!" he exclaimed in a tone of the most sovereign
contempt. "Ridiculous! You are a noodle for thinking of such a