My grandfather was on ill terms with him: I believe not without sufficient reason, for he was extravagant and dissipated. My father never mentioned his name, but my mother would sometimes tell me that he had ruined the family. That he spent much I know; but I am inclined to think that his undutiful conduct occasioned my great-grandfather to bequeath a part of his property from him. My father, I fear, revenged in some measure the cause of my great-grandfather. He was, as I have heard my mother say, "a very wild young man, who could be kept to nothing." He was sent to the grammar-school at Exeter; from which he made his escape, and entered on board a man of war. He was soon reclaimed from this situation by my grandfather, and left his school, a second time, to wander in some vagabond society.[A] He was now probably given up, for he was, on his return from this notable adventure, reduced to article himself to a plumber and glazier, with whom he luckily staid long enough to learn the business. I suppose his father was now dead, for he became possessed of two small estates, married my mother,[B] the daughter of a carpenter at Ashburton, and thought himself rich enough to set up for himself; which he did with some credit, at South Molton. Why he chose to fix there, I never inquired; but I learned from my mother, that after a residence of four or five years he was again thoughtless enough to engage in a dangerous frolic, which drove him once more to sea. This was an attempt to excite a riot in a methodist chapel; for which his companions were prosecuted, and he fled, as I have mentioned. My father was a good seaman, and was soon made second in command in the Lyon, a large armed transport in the service of government: while my mother (then with child of me) returned to her native place, Ashburton, where I was born, in April, 1757. The resources of my mother were very scanty. They arose from the rent of three or four small fields, which yet remained unsold. With these, however, she did what she could for me; and as soon as I was old enough to be trusted out of her sight, sent me to a school-mistress of the name of Parret, from whom I learned in due time to read. I cannot boast much of my acquisitions at this school; they consisted merely of the contents of the "Child's Spelling Book;" but from my mother, who had stored up the literature of a country town, which about half a century ago, amounted to little more than what was disseminated by itinerant ballad-singers, or rather, readers, I had acquired much curious knowledge of Catskin, and the Golden Bull, and the Bloody Gardener, and many other histories equally instructive and amusing.