Now the thought of my present estate brought to me some little comfort, inasmuch as my misfortune was due to no fault of my own, and had, as I hoped, secured the happiness of two much worthier persons. But next my meditations turned upon my past life, and here I found little to console me, for it seemed that since my marvellous deliverance at Goa I had done little but go from bad to worse. And first I considered my temptation at St Thomas, and recalled with shame how easily I had been led by the nose, as we say, by my lord marquis, almost to the betraying my duty and the dishonouring myself. And after this I thought of my life at Amidavat, and of the pain I had caused to my good friend Mr Martin, and likewise his attempts to lead me into a more worthy and Christian course, and my declaration that I was no worse than others. Then that come into my mind which the strange old seaman, Substitution Darrell, had said to me aboard the Boscobel--namely, that where force had failed to rob me of my faith, other measures might succeed--and I perceived at last that this was not far removed from being true with me. I saw, also, how I had come forth from my imprisonment at Goa proud and haughty, reckoning myself one that had suffered great things for God, and counting it only just that God should recompense me by giving me in future all things to my liking, so that that word of the apostle’s might have been wrote with an eye to me, _Though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing_. Then I saw how that, applying this fancy of mine to my mad and presumptuous passion for Madam Heliodora, I had conceived myself defrauded of my due in not obtaining her, and had therefore fallen foul of all around me, both God and men, accusing the first of injustice, and regarding the last with scorn and even hatred. By this means I had wasted, and worse than wasted (not indeed in a material, but a spiritual sense), four of the best years of my life, spending them in peevishness of spirit and in unworthy pleasures, such as might best avail to drown my persuasion of the inequality of my lot to my deserts. Now, when ’twas too late to amend, though not to repent, I perceived my fault, seeing clearly, not only that I had not been fitted for the happiness I sought, but also that it had needed four years to teach me that I had no right to seek happiness at all, but only duty. And this also I saw--viz., that in my repinings after the happiness I could not have, I had lost that which I might have had, as the company of worthy friends, the discourse of ingenious men, the delights of research and discovery, and the like, wherewith many, no better situated than I, have made their lives result not only in good to themselves and solace to their own intimates, but also in great store of elegant observations for the informing of persons in England.