“My wages on the Hero were forty-five dollars, for which I sent an order to my mother that she might receive it. Although my mother out-lived my father seven years, I afterwards learned with great satisfaction neither my father nor mother suffered for want of the necessaries or comforts of life while they lived; for many years after I learnt my mother left upwards of sixty dollars of the wages I had sent her.” Mr. Clark was now a sailor, pressed by arbitrary authority on board the British man-of-war, Tobago, and lying in the harbor of Carlisle, in the Island of Barbadoes, to prevent American and French privateers from plundering the plantations in the bays and road-steads of that Island. This business was against all his principles and feelings; for in all his longings for a sea-faring life, it never entered into his calculations to serve on board a man-of-war. Let him give his own views and feelings: “I was continually unhappy while in the navy, and would have ventured my life to have obtained my former liberty. I made an unsuccessful attempt to escape the night before the ship left Barbadoes, but was detected, and both my feet put in irons, and a sentinel placed over me, with a candle and a drawn sword, the whole night. Next morning the ship weighed anchor, and steered on our course. Great Britain was then at war with three maritime nations, and we suspected every ship that passed, especially if alone, to be a cruiser and an enemy. “Before night we espied a ship bearing down towards us, when our ship prepared for action. The boatswain blew his pipe, and hoarsely bawled, ‘All hands to quarters, ahoy!’ My irons were taken off, and after a severe reprimand, I was ordered to my post. When we came within hailing distance, we found the ship to be the Venus, a British frigate, and passed, after giving and exchanging three cheers.”