And here let me hint, that having now, as it were, received my life at the hands of King George, and in a manner so satisfying as it was to me, it made a generous convert of me, and I became sincerely given in to the interest of King George; and this from a principle of gratitude and a sense of my obligation to his Majesty for my life; and it has continued ever since, and will certainly remain with me as long as any sense of honour and of the debt of gratitude remains with me. I mention this to hint how far in such cases justice and duty to ourselves commands us; namely, that to those who graciously give us our lives when it is in their power to take them away, those lives are a debt ever after, and ought to be set apart for their service and interest as long as any of the powers of life remain, for gratitude is a debt that never ceases while the benefit received remains; and if my prince has given me my life, I can never pay the debt fully, unless such a circumstance as this should happen, that the prince’s life should be in my power, and I as generously preserved it. And yet neither would the obligation be paid then, because the cases would differ; thus, that my preserving the life of my prince was my natural duty, whereas the prince on his side, my life being forfeited to him, had no motive but mere clemency and beneficence. Perhaps this principle may not please all that read it; but as I have resolved to guide my actions in things of such a nature by the rules of strict virtue and principles of honour, so I must lay it down as a rule of honour, that a man having once forfeited his life to the justice of his prince and to the laws of his country, and receiving it back as a bounty from the grace of his sovereign, such a man can never lift up his hand again against that prince without a forfeiture of his virtue and an irreparable breach of his honour and duty, and deserves no pardon after it either from God or man. But all this is a digression: I leave it as a sketch of the laws of honour, printed by the laws of nature in the breast of a soldier or a man of honour, and which, I believe, all impartial persons who understand what honour means will subscribe to. But I return now to my present circumstances. My wife was gone, and with her all my good fortune and success in business seemed to have forsaken me; and I had another scene of misery to go through, after I had thought that all my misfortunes were over and at an end. My sloop, as I have told you, arrived, but having met with a pirate rogue in the Gulf of Florida, they took her first; then finding her cargo to be all eatables, which they always want, they gutted her of all her loading, except, as I have said, about a hundred sacks of malt, which they really knew not what to do with; and, which was still worse, they took away all the men except the master and two boys, who they left on board just to run the vessel into Antigua, where they said they were bound.