My best friends at school were Howard Pemberton and Martin Venables. I loved them at the first with all the enthusiasm a boy feels when he thinks he has found his ideal friends. They supplied to me the lack of brothers; they were true, manly, high-minded friends. But as soon as I began to drift away from the good I had ceased to strive after, I loosened my hold on them. It was about a year before I left Blackrock school when my aversion to study and to all restraint became almost uncontrollable. During my holidays I once fell in with a young man, James Williams, who led a wild, reckless life. He had run away from home, had crossed the seas, and had raised money in various ways, which enabled him to indulge freely his wild fancies. His yarns about the sea, and the adventures he had met and dangers encountered, fired me with a mania to follow a similar career. The constant reading by stealth of pernicious books, of which smugglers and pirates were the heroes, stimulated the desire, and undermined the principle in which I had been educated; until, at length, when you informed me that I was to study under Mr. Vickers for the law, I determined to run away from school and seek my living by adventure. James Williams fostered the resolve, and often urged me to it; but my great difficulty was how to obtain money. By an accidental circumstance, Howard Pemberton became aware of my passion for the sea, and he upbraided me about it, kindly and honestly, but I could not brook it; my old friendship with him ceased, and I grew to hate him. About this time, the reception was given at Dr. Brier's of which you have heard. But you have not heard, and never can know, what that evening was to me. Satan seemed to have entered into me as he did into Judas. I took the miniature and snuff-box from the cabinet in which they were placed by Mrs. Brier, and resolved to cast the suspicion of the theft upon Howard. That night I placed the miniature in the hands of Williams, who gave me twenty pounds for it, and the snuff-box I placed in the ticking of Howard's bed. Need I tell you all the catalogue of wrong? You can almost guess the rest. Williams procured for me a suit of clothes which would disguise me, and these were placed ready for me by arrangement with him. The early morning was very cold, and as I intended to travel far I thought I would take my great coat. In the hurry and excitement of the moment, I mistook Howard's for mine. I left my clothes upon the river bank, and that afternoon I set sail for America.