News of the intended alliance coming to the knowledge of his father and of his uncle, the latter directly hastened to Waltham, to prevent a union, which would have produced consequences of the worst character to the contracting parties, and having apprised the friends of the young lady with the condition and situation of the intended bridegroom, their consent was withdrawn, and our hero was with some difficulty induced to rejoin his ship. Restless, however, in his new employment, he had scarcely reached Jamaica, when he determined that he would desert and return to England; and the sailing of the Sheerness man-of-war for that place afforded him an opportunity of carrying his design into execution, of which he lost no time in availing himself. A new effort to obtain the hand of his former love was as unsuccessful as that which he had first made; and his uncle having ascertained the fact of his presence in England, induced him at once to go back to the residence of his father, with promises of future amendment. For a time his determination to alter his course of life was obeyed; but soon again launching forth into habits of irregularity, he was despatched as midshipman on board the _Romney_, for the coast of Newfoundland. On his revisiting England, after an absence of some years, he was mortified to learn that the Duchess of Northumberland, to whom he was distantly related, had revoked a will in his favour, which she had made, and had bequeathed to his sister the fortune which, he knew, had been intended for him; and now, finding himself spurned by his friends, he was soon reduced to a condition of absolute necessity. Through the friendly intervention of a Mr. Bailey, however, he procured an engagement at James Fort, on the river Gambia, but here, as in all other situations unfortunate, he contrived to engage himself in a quarrel, in consequence of which he was compelled to return to Europe--a step, however, which he was alone enabled to take by setting at defiance the commands of the Governor Aufleur, that he should not quit the colony--and take his passage under an assumed name on board a homeward-bound trader.