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should certainly run away from my Master before my Time was out, and go to Sea; and if she would speak to my Father to let me go one Voyage abroad, if I came home again and did not like it, I would go no more, and I would promise by a double Diligence to recover that Time I had lost.
This put my Mother into a great Passion: She told me, she knew it would be to no Purpose to speak to my Father upon any such Subject; that he knew too well what was my Interest to give his Consent to any such Thing so much for my Hurt, and that she wondered how I could think of any such Thing after such a Discourse as I had had with my Father, and such kind and tender Expressions as she knew my Father had us'd to me; and that in short, if I would ruin my self, there was no Help for me; but I might depend I should never have their Consent to it: That for her Part she would not have so much Hand in my Destruction; and I should never have it to say, that my Mother was willing when my Father was not.
Tho' my Mother refused to move it to my Father, yet as I have heard afterwards, she reported all the Discourse to him, and that my Father, after shewing a great Concern at it, said to her with a Sigh, That Boy might be happy if he would stay at home, but if he goes abroad, he will be the most miserablest Wretch that ever was born: I can give no Consent to it.
It was not till almost a Year after this that I broke loose, tho' in the mean time I continued obstinately deaf to all Proposals of settling to Business, and frequently expostulating with my Father and Mother, about their being so positively determined against what they knew my Inclinations prompted me to. But being one Day at Hull, where I went casually, and without any Purpose of making an Elopementthat
