My father welcomed me with surprise; asked where my ship was, and what had brought her home. The fact was, that in my sudden determination to return to England, I had spared myself the trouble of writing to make known my intentions; and, indeed, if I had written, I should have arrived as soon as my letter, unless (which I ought to have done) I had written on my arrival at Portsmouth, instead of throwing away my time in the very worst species of dissipation. Unable, therefore, in the presence of many witnesses, to give my father that explanation which he had a right to expect, I suffered greatly for a time in his opinion. He very naturally supposed that some disgraceful conduct on my part was the cause of my sudden return. His brow became clouded and his mind seemed occupied with deep reflection. This behaviour of my father, together with the continued considerable noisy mirth of my brother and sisters, gave me pain. I felt as if, in the sad news of my mother's death, I had over-acted my part in the feeling I had shown, and the sacrifice I had made in quitting my ship. On explaining to my father, in private, the motives of my conduct, I was not successful. He could not believe that my mother's death was the sole cause of my return to England. I stood many firm and angry interrogations as to the possible good which could accrue to me by quitting my ship. I showed him the captain's handsome certificate, which only mortified him the more. In vain did I plead my excess of feeling. He replied with an argument that I feel to have been unanswerable--that I had quitted the ship when on the very pinnacle of favour, and in the road to fortune. "And what," said he, "is to become of the navy and the country, if every officer is to return home when he receives the news of the death of a relation?" In proportion as my father's arguments carried conviction, they did away, at the same time, with all the good impressions of my mother's dying injunction. If her death was a matter of so little importance, her last words were equally so; and from that moment I ceased to think of either. My father's treatment of me was now very different from what it had ever been during my mother's lifetime. My requests were harshly refused, and I was lectured more as a child than as a lad of _eighteen_, who had seen much of the world. Coldness on his part was met by a spirit of resistance on mine. Pride came in to my assistance. A dispute arose one evening, at the finale of which I gave him to understand that if I could not live quietly under his roof, I would quit it. He calmly recommended me to do so. Little supposing that I should have taken his advice, I left the room, banging the door after me, packed up a few changes of linen, and took my departure, unperceived by any one, with my bundle on my shoulder, and about sixteen shillings in my pocket.