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the deceptions of the designing part of mankind and enabled to avoid or defeat them. My beloved parents, indeed, suspected not the errors to which I was becoming daily a stronger proselyte. My grandfather, whom I believe to have been as perfect a character and as good a christian as nature ever formed, inculcated both by precept and example, the love and practice of piety and virtue; and, above all, an inflexible adherence to honesty. He possessed many peculiarities of habit as well as principle, several of which I inherit from him;—would to Heaven I inherited his virtues!
My volatile disposition was early manifested by my want of stability or steady application to any particular employment or pursuit. Like Robinson Crusoe, I felt a strong predilection for rambling into foreign countries, and had a longing desire to go to sea. This Arose from perusing the Voyages of Cooke, Anson, and other circumnavigators; so enraptured was I with their profession, that before I was twelve years old I had a pretty just notion of nautical manoeuvres, without having ever seen a ship, and had most sea-terms at my tongue's end. This rising inclination was, however, checked for a time by the dissuasions of my friends, who were alarmed at the bare thought of it, and by the inland situation of the county we resided in. Among my domestic amusements I practised drawing, for which I had a good natural genius; but happening to be
