86 A TRUE FRIEND.

and broke through all his good advice; nay, I was coming into
the very middle station, or upper degree of low life, which my
father advised me to before, and which, if I resolved to go on with,
T might as well have stayed at home, and never have fatigued myself
in the world as Thad done. And I used often to say to myself, I
could have done this as well in England amang my friends as have
gone five thousand miles off to do it among strangers and savages
in a wilderness, and at such a distance qs never to hear from any
part of the world that had the least knowledge of me.

In this manner I used to look upon my condition with the
utmost regret. I had nobody to converse with but now and then
this neighbour—no work to be done but by the labour of my
hands ; and I used to say I lived just like a man cast away upon
some desolate island that had nobody there but himself. But how
just has it been, and how should all men reflect that when they
compare their present conditions with others that are worse,
Heaven may oblige them to make the exchange, and be convinced
of their former felicity by their experience, —I say how just has it
been that the truly solitary life I reflected on. in an island of mere
desolation, should be my lot, who had so often unjustly compared
it with the life which I then led; in which, had I continued, I
had in all probability been exceeding prosperous and rich !

Iwas in some degree settled in my measures for carrying on
the plantation, before my kind friend, the captain of the ship that
took me up at sea, went back—for the ship remained there in
providing his loading and preparing for his voyage near three
months—when, telling him what little stock I had left behind
me in London, he gave me this friendly and sincere advice.
“ Seignor Inglese,” says he,—for so he always called me,—“ if you
will give me letters, and a procuration here in form to me, with
orders to the person who has your money in London, to send your
effects to Lisbon to such persons as I shall direct, and in such
goods as are proper for this country, I will bring you the produce
of them, God willing, at my return. But since human affairs are
all subject to changes and disasters, I would have you give orders
but for one hundred pounds sterling, which you say is half your
stock, and let the hazard be run for the first; so that if it come