Drew's apprenticeship life was well-nigh as miserable and unprofitable as it could be. In an account of the hardships he endured at this time he himself says: "My new abode at St. Blazey and new engagements were far from being agreeable. To any of the comforts and conveniences of life I was an entire stranger, and by every member of the family was viewed as an underling, come thither to subserve their wishes, or obey their mandates. To his trade of shoemaker my master added that of farmer. He had a few acres of ground under his care, and was a sober, industrious man; but, unfortunately for me, nearly one half of my time was taken up in agricultural pursuits. On this account I made no proficiency in my business, and felt no solicitude to rise above the farmers' boys with whom I daily associated. While in this place I suffered many hardships. When, after having been in the fields all day, I came home with cold feet, and damp and dirty stockings, I was permitted, if the oven had been heated during the day, to throw them into it, that they might dry against the following morning; but frequently have I had to put them on in precisely the same state in which I had left them the preceding evening. To mend my stockings I had no one, and frequently have I wept at the holes which I could not conceal; though, when fortunate enough to procure a needle and some worsted, I have drawn the outlines of the holes together, and made, what I thought, a tolerable job." "During my apprenticeship," he continues, "many bickerings and unpleasant occurrences took place. Some of these preyed so much on my mind, that several times I had determined to run away and enlist on board a privateer or man-of-war." He seems to have had little inclination for reading during these unhappy days; and if he had been disposed for study there were but few books within his reach. Accident put into his hands a few odd numbers of a publication circulated in the West of England called _The Weekly Entertainer_. He read and re-read the histories of "Paul Jones," "The Serapis," and "Bon Homme Richard," until his imagination was inflamed with the thought of joining a pirate, and leading the jolly abandoned life of a sea-rover. Such reading as this did very little good for him. The only other book he seems to have met with during these days of servitude was "an odd number of the 'History of England' about the time of the Commonwealth." But this spell of reading lasted only a short time. The odd volume of history, which charmed him at first, soon grew monotonous and wearisome, and was thrown aside. "With this," he says, "I lost not only a _disposition_ for reading, but almost the _ability_ to read. The clamor of my companions and others engrossed nearly the whole of my attention, and, so far as my slender means would allow, carried me onward toward the vortex of dissipation."