cely any other
chance, than to expire in poverty or infamy. Its entrance into life is
marked with the presage of its fate; and until this is remedied, it is
in vain to punish.

Civil government does not exist in executions; but in making such
provision for the instruction of youth and the support of age, as to
exclude, as much as possible, profligacy from the one and despair from
the other. Instead of this, the resources of a country are lavished upon
kings, upon courts, upon hirelings, impostors and prostitutes; and even
the poor themselves, with all their wants upon them, are compelled to
support the fraud that oppresses them.

Why is it that scarcely any are executed but the poor? The fact is a
proof, among other things, of a wretchedness in their condition. Bred up
without morals, and cast upon the world without a prospect, they are
the exposed sacrifice of vice and legal barbarity. The millions that are
superfluously wasted upon governments are more than sufficient to reform
those evils, and to benefit the condition of every man in a nation, not
included within the purlieus of a court. This I hope to make appear in
the progress of this work.

It is the nature of compassion to associate with misfortune. In taking
up this subject I seek no recompense--I fear no consequence. Fortified
with that proud integrity, that disdains to triumph or to yield, I will
advocate the Rights of Man.

It is to my advantage that I have served an apprenticeship to life. I
know the value of moral instruction, and I have seen the danger of the
contrary.

At an early period--little more than sixteen years of age, raw and
adventurous, and heated with the false heroism of a master*[27] who
had served in a man-of-war--I began the carver of my own fortune,
and entered on board the Terrible Privateer, Captain Death. From
this adventure I was happily prevented by the affectionate and moral
remonstrance of a good father, who, from his own habits of life, being
of the Quaker profession, must begin to look upon me as lost. But the
impression, much as it effected at the time, began to wear away, and I
entered afterwards in the King of Prussia Privateer, Captain Mendez,
and went with her to sea. Yet, from such a beginning, and with all the
inconvenience of early life against me, I am proud to say, that with
a perseverance undismayed by difficulties, a disinterestedness that
compelled respect, I have not only contributed to raise a new empire in