“We children went very irregularly to school, but began to earn a few coppers, or to pick up odds and ends of food for ourselves in any way that offered. I liked the quay better than any place, and used to spend whole days there, and at last a captain who was going to sea offered to take me. I ran home to ask my father and mother if I might go. ‘I don’t care where you go,’ said my mother; ‘go where you like, only don’t bother me.’ My father went back with me to the captain, and talked with him, telling him I had no clothes excepting those I wore, and that my mother was not very strong and could not see to me, and asking the man to treat me well; then he patted my head and told me to be a good boy, and gave me a penny. “That was the last I saw of them for several years. Then I came back with the ship, and went to see my people. Two of my brothers and a sister had died, and my mother looked more miserable and dirty than ever. I gave her some money but was sorry afterward, for the money was worse than wasted, and my father was angry, and bade me, when I came home again, give the money to him and not to my mother. I stayed a few days at home, but there was no room for me, and after the first day I felt that no one wanted me; and when the ship sailed again my heart was hard and bitter, and I had resolved never to trouble my people with my presence again. “That is more than fifty years ago. I am not going to inflict upon you a detailed biography, nor to tell you how it has come about that the son of a Bristol bricklayer’s labourer has become a rich man, and is alone in the world without a single living relative. But so it is. I have been in England five years; but though I have spared no pains or endeavours, I can find no trace of my brothers or sisters other than the registers of their deaths. They seem to have left no children behind them.