After remaining with his parents a few days, and leaving all the money he could spare, for their use, he gave them the parting hand, and in accordance with a promise made with one of the owners of the privateer, he entered as mate one of the prize ships taken, called the Hero, for a voyage to the West Indies. There he intended to join his brother, and engage in business with him. Little did he anticipate this was the last parting time with his parents, but let him tell the story. “I shall never forget the morning I left them. My mother, who loved me most tenderly, when we parted, expressed, with the greatest confidence, without shedding a tear, that God would preserve me by land and by sea, from every danger. My father walked with me about one mile to a small river where I had appointed to meet a young man with a horse for me to ride to Port Glasgow, near Greenock, where the ship was to fit out; and as we parted, my dear old father wept like a child. Very likely he had forebodings he would never again fix his paternal eyes on me, for he was infirm, and his constitution much broken by intemperate habits. This was in May, 1779, and he died in the autumn following. I left my friends mourning, while I went away rejoicing; for though I intended to follow a sea-faring life for a few years, I fancied it was in my own power to see them whenever I pleased. I little imagined that man may appoint, but God may disappoint. “I went on my way merrily, without the least thought that Unerring Wisdom had set the day of adversity over against the day of prosperity, to the end that man should find nothing after him.[5] According to my engagement, I shipped with my friend, the owner’s son, on the Hero as second mate, from Port Glasgow, to the Cove of Cork in Ireland, where we waited for a convoy. There we were joined by a large fleet of victuallers, store ships, and transports, with one or two regiments of Hessians, for the port of New York. Our vessel and some others was bound for the West Indies. We set sail under convoy[6] of the frigate Roebuck, of forty-four guns. The convoy and transports were destined for New York, and we that were bound to the West Indies sailed in company to a certain latitude, when we parted, and were then under convoy of the Leviathan, of seventy guns, and a sloop of war of sixteen guns. Then I began to notice and examine God’s marvellous works in the boisterous deep. Nothing transpired during the passage worth relating until we got to Barbadoes, and there I was pressed on board the Tobago, a British war vessel of eighteen guns. Here ended my prosperity and adversity came. Or shall I say this seeming affliction was a blessing in disguise, intended by Infinite Wisdom for my everlasting good?