During the period of youth, Clark was singularly amiable, moral, kind-hearted and generous. He lost no time by idleness, had no inclination to the vain amusements and frivolities of youth, and sustained an estimable character for personal sobriety, good order and morality. The unfortunate example of his father excited pity and disgust; the devoutly religious character of his mother confirmed and deepened the impressions of childhood. There was more of puritanical strictness, form, and rigid orthodoxy, than active piety and the outpourings of the religious emotions, in the Church of Scotland at that period, and young Clark neither felt nor manifested those feelings of ardent love to the Redeemer, and comfortings of the Holy Spirit, that had been awakened in his young heart at the early age of eight years, or which distinctly marked his religious character in after life. Our youthful friend became an enthusiastic lover of liberty and of the rights of man, at an early age, and which continued the ruling passion during life. In the period of old age he records these facts. “When I was very young, I deeply imbibed the spirit of war--owing chiefly from hearing much of the success that attended the British arms by land and sea, during the war in Canada. When in the seventeenth year of my age, the Revolutionary war between Great Britain and her Colonies commenced, and I soon found myself as much opposed to the spirit of war as I was formerly in favor of it.” This feeling remained after he became connected with the navy, and caused him to desert the service, into which he had been forced by the press-gang. And yet, as if to show us that a young man so amiable, kind-hearted, and philanthropic as Clark, was far from perfection, or even consistency of character, he engaged in the business of privateering; a business now regarded by civilized nations as barbarous and immoral. CHAPTER II. Clark becomes a Sailor.--Privateering.--His Subsequent Reflections.--Last Visit to his Parents.--Sails as Mate to the West Indies.--Pressed on Board the Man-of-War Tobago.--A Fight, and Death of the Gunner.--Admiral Rodney.--Escapes from the Tobago.--Visits his Brother.--Ships for England.--Taken by the Spaniards.--Obtains his Freedom, and again Pressed on Board the Narcissus.--Deserts a Second Time, and Swims Ashore on James’ Island, off Charleston, at Great Risk.