The 'careful codger' soon after tells his mother that 'a more agreeable turn has taken place lately in affairs, and his disagreeable restrictions are taken off. He treats us with more affability, and is all at once so polite as to beg of my only companion, Mr Harris, and self, whenever we come to camp, to let him have our company, and I am to-morrow (having been a long stranger) to wait upon him by particular invitation.'
Next follows a long and tedious account of the hardships he has endured, 'dragged round the world, made shake in our shoes off Tasman's Head, and at length deprived of our poor old bark at Norfolk Island,'—pitiful stuff from a young seaman.
When he said good-bye to the colony and to Governor Phillip, he tells his mother that 'the Governor, at leave-taking, after a few encomiums on my prudent deportment, good sense, parts, etc., lamenting it had not been in his power effectually to serve me, etc., concluded with recommending it to me to quit the service. … I gave him no reason to think that I felt myself obliged by that part of the story, and only answered him by begging he would recollect my time lost in the service, my connection by no means affluent, and other difficulties. In reply, I had a repetition of stale compliments, abilities very equal to something respectable in some other way, and [he] wound all up by saying with some warmth (it may be genuine) that should
