56 CRUSOE GOES TO SEA.

discourse as 1 had had with my father, and such kind and tenda
expressions as she knew my father had used to me; and that, in
short, if I would ruin myself, there was no help for me; but I
might depend I should never have their consent to it. That, for
her part, she would not have so much hand in my destruction;
and I should never have it to say that my mother was willing
when my father was not.

Though my mother refused to move it to my father, yet, as I
have heard afterwards, she reported all the discourse to him, and
that my father, after showing a great concern at it, said to her
with a sigh,—“ That boy might be happy if he would stay at
home; but if he goes abroad he will be the miserablest wretch
that was ever born. I can give no consent to it.”’

It was not till almost a year after this that I broke loose,
though in the meantime I continued obstinately deaf to all pro-
posals of settling to business, and frequently expostulating with
my father and mother about their being so positively determined
against what they knew my inclinations prompted me to. But
being one day at Hull, where I went casually, and without any
purpose of making an elopement that time; but, I say, being
there, and one of my companions being going by sea to London
in his father’s ship, and prompting me to go with them, with the
common allurement of seafaring men—namely, that it should cost
me nothing for my passage—I consulted neither father nor mother
any more, nor so much as sent them word of it; but leaving them
to hear of it as they might, without asking God’s blessing, or my
father’s; without any consideration of circumstances or conse-
quences, and in an ill hour, God knows, on the Ist of September
1651, I went on board a ship bound for London. Never any young
adventurer’s misfortunes, I believe, began sooner, or continued
longer than mine. The ship was no sooner gotten out of the
Humber but the wind began to blow, and the waves to rise in a
most frightful manner; and, as I had never been at sea before, I
was most inexpressibly sick in body, and terrified in my mind. I
began now seriously to reflect upon what I had done, and how
justly I was overtaken by the judgment of Heaven for my wicked
leaving my father’s house, and abandoning my duty; all the good