Every circumstance attending this new situation at Lynn was most detestable to me till I effected an improvement. This was done by hiring a lodging, surrounding myself with books, and making the acquaintance of Miss Robertson, daughter of my employer’s partner. She was of a pleasing figure, with fine black expressive eyes, danced well, and also sang and performed well on the harpsichord; no wonder, as she received instructions from Mr. Burney.[12] He was a person held in the highest estimation for his powers of conversation and agreeable manners, which made his company much sought after by all the principal nobility and gentry of the neighbourhood. Here I must reflect, as I have done many times before, on the unfortunate idea of making me a merchant. The immediate expense absolutely thrown away differently invested would have kept me four years at the University, enabling my father to make me a clergyman and Rector of Bradfield. This living he actually gave to my Lavenham schoolmaster. The whole course of my life would in such a case have been changed. I should have known nothing of Lynn, and have taken a wife from a different quarter. I should probably have been free from all attraction to agriculture, and that circumstance alone would have changed the whole colour of my existence. I might never have been of any use to the public, but my years would have passed in a far more tranquil current, escaping so many storms and vicissitudes which blew me into a tempest of activity and involved me in great errors, great vice, and perpetual anxiety. This was not to be the case, and what I thought an evil star sent me to Lynn. In this place monthly assemblies were held, a mayor’s feast and ball in the evening, a dancing master’s ball and assemblies at the Mart. It was not common, I was told, for merchants’ clerks to frequent these, a suggestion I spurned, and attended them, dancing with the principal belles. I was complimented by the dancing master, who assured me that he pointed out my minuet as an example to his scholars. But pleasure alone would not satisfy me; I was by nature studious, and from my earliest years discovered a thirst for learning and books. These, the smallness of my allowance (I think not more than 30_l._ per annum), with my great foppery in dress for the balls, would not permit me to purchase and supply me with what I so much needed. Accordingly in 1758 I compiled a political pamphlet named ‘The Theatre of the Present War in North America,’ for which a bookseller allowed me ten pounds’ worth of books; as he urged me to another undertaking I wrote three or four more political tracts, each of which procured me an addition to my little library. My first year’s apprenticeship had not expired before the death of my sister overthrew the whole plan which had sent me to Lynn. As 400_l._ had been paid for the agreed period of three years, I was kept there from no other motive. Under such circumstances