the dress of a seaman, and fortunately finding an American ship bound for London, I offered myself as a shipwrecked Englishman, willing to work my passage _home_. Something in my voice and manner betrayed my feelings, when I pronounced the word _home_. The captain had the heart of a man, and I was told, to take my _birth_ “on board” that very evening, and that it should be a warm one; for he pitied me. During the voyage my quiet melancholy and some accidental discourses of “_my learning_,” to use the worthy captain’s word, so augmented the interest his benevolence had excited in my behalf, that, on reaching our port, he asked me what were my intentions respecting my future employment. I replied that my first care would be to seek out a _friend_, who, if found, would determine my fate, and probably place me beyond the reach of penury. “But you may not find him,” replied he, viewing with attention emotions which I was unable to check. “Let me advise you to keep where you are, till you can do better. I like you, and will retain you as ship steward; you are a good seaman and an honest capable man; and may be the maker of your own fortune.” I rejected this offer, saying, that I knew not whether my private concerns would permit me to leave England so soon as he would. “Well,” replied he, “I will not press you into my service; but I must pay for what you have done. I was on the look-out for a hand to supply one who had left me when we met. You have more than done that fellow’s duty, and you are justly entitled to your wages.” He placed ten guineas in my hand, and added, that whilst the ship was at her moorings, he thought I might as well make her my “head quarters,” as she would give me a bed and board until a better hammock was found; “and in order to make this offer sit easy on your mind,” continued he, taking my trembling hand, “You may keep a clear reckoning, by being useful to me with your pen, and your sobriety.” He instantly left me, and at his return I thanked him, and entered on my office of clerkship. My approach to England had opened those wounds which time and religion had in part closed; but I mean not to place before you the condition of a mind torn by the anguish of reflecting on you, and corroded by the feelings of resentment, and the purposes of vengeance, which alternately governed my soul. At the sight of London my spirits forsook me, my heart ceased to beat, and I was conveyed to my bed in a state of insensibility. Would to God! I had found in this respite from misery, my final dismissal from sense and sorrow! But returning recollection only restored me to the contemplation of my wretched state. Forlorn and friendless; cut off from the sweet ties of affinity; blasted in fame; stamped with ignominy, and marked for justice! Deprived of the only comfort, the only hope of my life! my wife, my Harriet! who had been either destroyed in the wreck of my fortune, or lived to despise and to curse me as her undoer—Oh! let me pause!