The people of the Knocknalling district were very poor. The greater part of them were unable to support the younger members, whose custom it was to move off elsewhere in search of a living when they arrived at working years,--some to America, some to the West Indies, and some to the manufacturing districts of the south. Whole families took their departure in this way, and the few friendships which Kennedy formed amongst those of his own age were thus suddenly snapped, and only a great blank remained. But he too could follow their example, and enter upon that wider world in which so many others had ventured and succeeded. As early as eight years of age, his mother still impressing upon her boys the necessity of learning to work, John gathered courage to say to her that he wished to leave home and apprentice himself to some handicraft business. Having seen some carpenters working in the neighbourhood, with good clothes on their backs, and hearing the men's characters well spoken of, he thought it would be a fine thing to be a carpenter too, particularly as the occupation would enable him to move from place to place and see the world. He was as yet, however, of too tender an age to set out on the journey of life; but when he was about eleven years old, Adam Murray, one of his most intimate acquaintances, having gone off to serve an apprenticeship in Lancashire with Mr. Cannan of Chowbent, himself a native of the district, the event again awakened in him a strong desire to migrate from Knocknalling. Others had gone after Murray, James MacConnel and two or three more; and at length, at about fourteen years of age, Kennedy himself left his native home for Lancashire. About the time that he set out, Paul Jones was ravaging the coasts of Galloway, and producing general consternation throughout the district. Great excitement also prevailed through the occurrence of the Gordon riots in London, which extended into remote country places; and Kennedy remembered being nearly frightened out of his wits on one occasion by a poor dominie whose school he attended, who preached to his boys about the horrors that were coming upon the land through the introduction of Popery. The boy set out for England on the 2nd of February, 1784, mounted upon a Galloway, his little package of clothes and necessaries strapped behind him. As he passed along the glen, recognising each familiar spot, his heart was in his mouth, and he dared scarcely trust himself to look back. The ground was covered with snow, and nature quite frozen up. He had the company of his brother Alexander as far as the town of New Galloway, where he slept the first night. The next day, accompanied by one of his future masters, Mr. James Smith, a partner of Mr. Cannan's, who had originally entered his service as a workman, they started on ponyback for Dumfries. After a long day's ride, they entered the town in the evening, and amongst the things which excited the boy's surprise were