This unhappy man was born in London of French parents, who retired into England for the sake of their religion, when Louis XIV began his furious persecution against the Protestants in his dominions. This John Meff was educated with great care, especially as to the principles of religion, by a father who had very just notions of that faith for which in banishment he suffered. When his son John grew up, he put him out apprentice to a weaver, whom he served with great fidelity, and after he came out of his time, married; but finding himself incapable to maintain his family by his labour, he unfortunately addicted himself to ill-courses. In this he was yet more unlucky, for having almost at his first setting out broke open a house, he was discovered, apprehended, tried, convicted, and put in the cart, in order to go to execution within the fortnight; but the hangman being arrested as he was going to Tyburn, he and the rest who were to have suffered with him were transported through the clemency of the Government. On this narrow escape from death, Meff was full of many penitent resolutions, and determined with himself to follow for the future an honest course of life, however hard and laborious, as persons are generally inclined to believe all works in the plantations are. Yet no sooner was he at liberty (that is, on board the transport vessel, where he found means to make the master his friend) than much of these honest intentions were dissolved and laid aside, to which perhaps the behaviour of his companions and of the seamen on board the ship, did not a little contribute. At first their passage was easy, the wind fair and prosperous. They began to comfort one another with the hopes of living easily in the Plantations, greedily enquiring of the seamen how persons in their unhappy condition were treated by their masters, and whether all the terrible relations they had had in England were really facts, or invented only to terrify those who were to undergo that punishment.