industry would amply make amends for such a trifling pleasure as he
wished then to enjoy; he called for his punch, and the first glass
banished all his former qualms, little thinking that such a conduct
would, by insensible degrees, open a way to his ruin. The next day he
recollected the pleasures of the former glass, and found it easy to
reconcile his conscience to the spending of another sixpence. He knew he
should still have a hundred pounds left, all but one shilling.

The love of liquor had at last completely conquered him, and every
succeeding day he constantly returned to his favourite alehouse, and
gradually increased his quantity, till he spent two shillings and
sixpence at each sitting. Here he seemed to make a stand; and every time
he went he consoled himself, with saying, that he was spending only
half-a-crown, and that he need not fear but he should have enough to
carry on his trade.

By this delusive way of reasoning, he silenced the prudent whispers of
conscience, which would sometimes, in spite even of liquor, break in
upon him, and remind him, that the proper use of money consisted in
prudently applying every part of it to advantageous purposes.

Thus you see how the human mind is led into destructive extravagances by
insensible degrees. Industry had no longer any charms to allure him,
being blindly persuaded, that the money he had borrowed would prove an
inexhaustible source for all its extravagance. He was at last convinced,
and his conviction suddenly fell on him like a clap of thunder that he
could not recover the effects of his preceding dissipation, and that his
generous benefactor would have little inclination to lend another
hundred pounds to a man who had so shamefully abused his kindness in the
first instance.

Entirely overcome with shame and confusion, his recourse to hard
drinking, merely to quiet his conscience and reflections, served only to
bring on his ruin the sooner. At last the fatal moment arrived, when,
quite disgusted at the thoughts of industry, and becoming an object of
horror even to himself, life became insupportable, and nothing presented
themselves to him but scenes of poverty, desolation, and remorse.

Overtaken by despair, he fled from his country, and joined a gang of
smugglers, whose ravages were dreaded through every town and village on
the coast. Heaven, however, did not permit these iniquities to have a
long reign, for a disgraceful death soon put a period to th