considerable
noisy mirth of my brother and sisters, gave me pain. I felt as if, in
the sad news of my mother's death, I had over-acted my part in the
feeling I had shown, and the sacrifice I had made in quitting my ship.
On explaining to my father, in private, the motives of my conduct, I was
not successful. He could not believe that my mother's death was the
sole cause of my return to England. I stood many firm and angry
interrogations as to the possible good which could accrue to me by
quitting my ship. I showed him the captain's handsome certificate,
which only mortified him the more. In vain did I plead my excess of
feeling. He replied with an argument that I feel to have been
unanswerable--that I had quitted the ship when on the very pinnacle of
favour, and in the road to fortune. "And what," said he, "is to become
of the navy and the country, if every officer is to return home when he
receives the news of the death of a relation?"

In proportion as my father's arguments carried conviction, they did
away, at the same time, with all the good impressions of my mother's
dying injunction. If her death was a matter of so little importance,
her last words were equally so; and from that moment I ceased to think
of either. My father's treatment of me was now very different from what
it had ever been during my mother's lifetime. My requests were harshly
refused, and I was lectured more as a child than as a lad of _eighteen_,
who had seen much of the world. Coldness on his part was met by a
spirit of resistance on mine. Pride came in to my assistance. A
dispute arose one evening, at the finale of which I gave him to
understand that if I could not live quietly under his roof, I would quit
it. He calmly recommended me to do so. Little supposing that I should
have taken his advice, I left the room, banging the door after me,
packed up a few changes of linen, and took my departure, unperceived by
any one, with my bundle on my shoulder, and about sixteen shillings in
my pocket.

Here was a great mismanagement on the part of my father, and still
greater on mine. He was anxious to get me afloat again, and I had no
sort of objection to going; but his impatience and my pride spoiled all.
Reflection soon came to me, but came too late. Night was fast
approaching: I had no house over my head, and my exchequer was in no
very flourishing condition. I had walked six miles from my father's
house, when I began to tire. I