Page:Memoirs James Hardy Vaux.djvu/39

16

CHAPTER III.

My Employment in my new Situation.—Seduced by an Apprentice in the House to neglect my Business, and keep irregular Hours.—Become a Frequenter of the Cockpit.—Repeated Losses at this Place induce me to recruit my Finances by embezzling my Employers' Money.—Remonstrances on my Misconduct producing no effect, am seriously admonished, and sent back to my Friends.

I WAS, now turned of fourteen; my health and constitution good, my spirits elevated, and I felt all those pleasing sensations, which naturally arise in a youthful mind, happy in conscious innocence, and flattered by the prospect of rising to honourable independence. The gaiety and bustle of this beautiful and improving borough at once charmed and amused me; I spent a week in viewing the public buildings, the environs, &c.; but above all, my admiration was excited by the numerous and capacious docks, by which ships of large burden are admitted, as it were, into the heart of the town, and discharge their rich and varied cargoes with surprising facility, which are deposited in spacious warehouses, of amazing extent, and from twelve