“All these circumstances,” he writes in the sketches before us, “laid the foundation for an invincible prejudice against the acquisition of that useful language;--useful because much of the English tongue is derived from it. Also it disciplines the mind, corrects desultory habits, and forms a taste to imitate in oratory and composition, classical authors. I think it highly necessary for those, who aim at common education, to memorize a Latin vocabulary. Study mathematics to discipline the mind, and study well our English classic writers. But my early and deep-rooted aversion to the dead languages prevented me from receiving much advantage from Latin and Greek authors, so that I acquired but a smattering knowledge of those languages.” When his father learned his aversion to classical studies he sent him to an excellent school in the parish of Nairn, to learn arithmetic, book-keeping, mathematics and natural philosophy. The purpose of his father was to qualify him to join his brother in the mercantile business in the island of Jamaica. At this school he studied geometry, trigonometry, mensuration, surveying, astronomy, and navigation in all its branches. Two objects occupied his youthful mind, and which he craved in all his studies. They engaged his thoughts by day and flitted through his dreams by night. They were the only airy castles his fancy ever built. First, to spend about eight years on ship-board, and visit foreign countries and see the manners and customs of other nations. And, secondly, then to settle for life in one of the American colonies. With his mind fixed on these objects, with a steadiness of purpose that never tired, he entered on those studies connected with navigation with an eagerness and zest rarely equalled in youth. He could not divest himself of this propensity to a sea-faring life for the period proposed. He had no inclination to be a mere sailor, or to spend his days with the profane and drunken of that class of men. He saw enough of such specimens of degraded humanity in the port of Inverness to excite feelings of disgust and sympathy. In all his longings to be on ship-board, his benevolent nature sympathised with the heedless and wicked sailors. He would often retire and weep over their miseries, and think of plans for their reform and relief, when he should attain the command of a ship.