Notwithstanding the earnestness of my mother’s spirit, breathed out so ardently for my return in this letter, I dared not risk myself on British soil. Her expression of sorrow, if bad consequences should ensue, had its weight in determining me to remain; but a conversation with the celebrated Lorenzo Dow, who had recently returned from his English tour, settled the question. He said he had seen four men hung, who, like me, had been in the service of some other country, after deserting from their own. This was quite sufficient; for, much as I longed to visit the homes of my childhood, I had no disposition to do it with a gallows suspended over my head. I therefore wrote my mother, that, not having a regular discharge from the navy, it would be best for me to continue where I was; but I begged them to seriously think of emigrating themselves; since my father-in-law, being an excellent carpenter, could do well in New England. Alas! it was not for him ever to consider of this proposition; for, when my letter arrived, they were performing the sad obsequies of death over his breathless corpse. A prevailing fever had terminated a life of fifty-seven years, after a sickness of two weeks. My mother, now a widow the second time, after twelve years of pleasant union with her last husband, thought it unfitting, at her time of life, to venture across the ocean; and therefore all my plans for collecting my relatives on American soil, were blasted in the bud. Perhaps, after following me through the changes of my life at sea, the reader may feel a little interest in knowing how I succeeded as landsman. He has seen me escaping the breakers that met me on my first approach to the shore; and now, if his patience be not entirely exhausted, he may pursue my fortunes a little further. He left me, when my episode about home led him away from the thread of the narrative, busily at work as a filer of steel-yards, at Mansfield, Conn. From thence, I returned to Ashford, where I continued a year or two. At last, doubting the stability of my employer, and fearing lest what he owed me might be lost, I took up the whole in the shape of a wagon and a stock of steel-yards; then, purchasing a horse, I travelled from place to place to sell them; and in this manner got into a business which I have followed more or less ever since. After acquiring, by economy and diligence, a few hundred dollars, I opened a small store in Mansfield, with the intention of leading a still more settled life; though about that time my mind was strongly exercised with a desire to devote myself to the religious benefit of seamen. My sense of unfitness for so great a work, at last prevailed; and I proceeded with my plans of worldly business.