Having, with his usual incaution in such matters, become security for a fellow-student, he would not have been able to quit Edinburgh had it not been for Macleane and Dr. Joseph Fenn Sleigh, a Quaker, and afterward a popular physician at Cork. Saved from arrest by their kindness, he embarked for Bordeaux, but was driven into Newcastle-on-Tyne, where, the ship proving to be engaged in enlisting soldiers for the French army, he was seized and cast into prison for a fortnight before he could prove his innocence. In the mean time the ship had escaped out of the harbor. He had lost his passage, and his passage-money and luggage, but saved his life, for the ship was wrecked, and every soul perished. He then went over to Rotterdam, studied at Leyden for a year, but, as far as appears, took no degree; and thence set off, on foot, on that tour of which so much has always been said in connection with his name. With his usual good-natured thoughtlessness, when about to set forward from Leyden, provided with a small fund by his uncle Contarine, being struck, in the garden of a florist, with some beautiful bulbous flowers, and recollecting in his gratitude his uncle Contarine's admiration of those flowers, he spent most of the money in purchasing a quantity of them to ship to Ireland for him, as the most welcome present he could think of, and then set out, almost penniless, on his journey. His tour extended through Flanders; and France, at Paris attending the chemical lectures of Rouelle, and being introduced to Voltaire; a small portion of Germany; thence through Switzerland, visiting some of its most celebrated scenes, and climbing some of its highest mountains, as the Jura, into Italy, where he extended his journey to most of the northern cities, Mantua, Milan, Padua, Florence, Verona, Venice, and the wilds of Carinthia, but never reached Rome or Naples. His necessities became too great to permit him to go farther. In France his flute was, among the peasantry, as represented in his Traveler, a never-failing resource; not so in Italy. There the higher taste for music made his rude skill useless; but he found many of his countrymen residents in the monasteries, and these were always ready to relieve his wants. He found also another resource, which he relates in his Philosophic Vagabond: "My skill in music could avail me nothing in Italy, where every peasant was a better musician than I; but by this time I had acquired another talent, which answered my purpose as well, and this was a skill in disputation. In all the foreign universities and convents, there are, upon certain days, philosophical theses maintained against every adventitious disputant; for which, if the champion opposes with any dexterity, he can claim a gratuity in money, a dinner, and a bed for one night. In this manner, then, I fought my way toward England; walked along from city to city, examined mankind more closely, and, if I may so express it, saw both sides of the picture."