As soon as his time of apprenticeship was up he entered as gunner’s server on board the _York_ man-of-war. In 1726 he went with Sir John Jennings to Lisbon and Gibraltar. Next he served on board the _Experiment_ under Captain Radish; but his taste for the sea failed for a while, and he was lured by the superior attractions of a puppet-show to engage with the proprietor, named Churchill, and to play the trumpet at his performances. During four years he travelled with the show, then tiring of dancing dolls, reverted to woolcombing and dyeing at Trowbridge. But a travelling menagerie was too much for him, and he followed that as trumpeter for four years. In 1741, he left the wild beasts and entered as trumpeter on board the _Revenge_ privateer, Captain Wemble, commander, who was going on a cruise against the Spaniards. The privateer fell in with a Spanish vessel from Malaga, and gave chase. She made all the sail she could, but in four or five hours the _Revenge_ came up with her. “We fir’d five times at her. She had made everything ready to fight us, but seeing the number of our hands (which were one hundred in all, though three parts of them were boys) she at length brought to. We brought the captain and mate on board our ship, and put twelve men on board theirs, one of which was the master, and our captain gave him orders to carry her into Plymouth.” Of the prize-money Wyatt got forty shillings. The capture did not prove to be as richly laden as had been anticipated. We need not follow his adventures in the privateer, though they are interesting enough, and give a lively picture of the audacity of these venturers, till we come to his capture. The _Revenge_ was cruising about among the Canary Islands, when a Spanish vessel ran for Teneriffe from Palma, and was at once pursued. She sped for Gomera, but unable to weather the point came to anchor within half a cable’s length of the shore. She was a bark of sixty tons burthen, and as the _Revenge_ drew more water and the captain feared sunken rocks, he ordered the yawl to be hoisted out and to be manned with eleven hands. [Illustration: James Wyat Ætat. 40. _Reproduced from the frontispiece to “The Life and Surprizing Adventures of James Wyatt, Written by Himself,” 1755_]