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that time; but I say, being there, and one of my Companions being going by Sea to London, in his Father's Ship, and prompting me to go with them, with the common Allurement of Seafaring Men, viz. That it should cost me nothing for my Passage, I consulted neither Father nor Mother any more, nor so much as sent them Word of it; but leaving them to hear of it as they might, without asking God's Blessing, or my Father's, without any Consideration of Circumstances or Consequences, and in an ill Hour, God knows, on the first of September 1651, I went on Board a Ship bound for London: Never any young Adventurer's Misfortunes, I believe, began sooner, or continued longer than mine. The Ship was no sooner gotten out of the Humber, but the Wind began to blow, and the Sea to rise in a most frightful manner and as I had never been at Sea before, I was most inexpressibly sick in Body, and terrify'd in Mind: I began now seriously to reflect upon what I had done, and how justly I was overtaken by the Judgment of Heaven for my wicked leaving my Father's House, and abandoning my Duty; all the good Counsel of my Parents, my Father's Tears, and my Mother's Entreaties came now fresh into my Mind; and my Conscience, which was not yet come to the Pitch of Hardness to which it has been since, reproach'd me with the Contempt of Advice, and the Breach of my Duty to God and my Father.
All this while the Storm encreas'd, and the Sea, which I had never been upon before, went very high, tho' nothing like what I have seen many times since no, nor like what I saw a few Days after: But it was enough to affect me then, who was but a young Sailor, and had never known any thing of the Matter. I expected every Wave would have swallowed us up, and that every time the Ship fell down, as I thought, in the Trough or Hollowof
