Where tempests never beat, nor billows roar

My own efforts were of little avail to combat the difficulties that I had to encounter. My father’s friends and acquaintances, remembering all my childish follies, and the greater number of them being dull, thorough-paced men of business, whose blood had glided through its icy channel in the same even current from the time they came into the world, could not believe that a warm imagination might lead a boy astray from the path of prudence, without his heart being depraved. They saw nothing in me but the blackguard boy, who had ran away from his parents; and they rung eternal cautions in my ears, accompanied by wise shakes of the head, and doubts lavishly expressed of my steadiness. They could ill dissemble the thorough contempt they had for my capacity for business: no wonder, they had all outstripped me in the necessary qualifications of chicanery and selfishness—I acted from natural impulse, and often wrong; but it was myself that suffered—they acted systematically, their eyes fixed steadily on their own interest, ready to take advantage of the follies of those around them. I speak from experience. I have found individuals who hypocritically deplored my want of wisdom, while in the act of taking advantage of my folly: while others, on the pretence of caring for my soul’s salvation, wished to embue my mind with their religious prejudices, and cramp my conscience within the narrow bounds marked out by their particular sect; and when I claimed a right to think for myself on these matters, they shunned me as a reprobate, or decried me as an infidel. I have found many things to disgust me in my passage through life; but never anything equal to the hypocritical cant of many professing sectarians.

Thus, as it were, cut off from society, and my place filled up in it, I did not possess the necessary courage to force through these difficulties, and I remained in an undecided state for some time. My manners had not been framed in the world’s school, and I felt all that mauvaise honte that people of a sensitive mind generally feel in such a situation, which, along with a proud feeling that caught fire at the slightest look, or word indicative of contempt, rendered my progress in the world almost a thing impossible.

This feeling induced me to decline the assistance of those who wished to afford me an opportunity of mixing with it, and I retired within myself, unknowing and unknown, affecting to feel contempt for those whom I was afraid to mix with. I was in danger of sinking into a complete misanthrope, and I confined myself so much to the house and my books, that my health began to be impaired. My mother, seeing the apathy and torpid state into which I was fast sinking, endeavoured to arouse me to some exertion, and her arguments had so much effect, that it made me resolve to try some business; but nothing could induce me to do so in Glasgow. I accordingly set about removing to a different part of the country—embarked in a business that I knew nothing about—neglected all the necessary caution which a more intimate knowledge of the world would have taught me—became the dupe of those who chose to take the trouble to deceive me—looked forward to results without calculating the intermediate steps, and in a short time had the pleasure of being as poor as ever. But here let me pay a tribute of gratitude to individuals, who, in a strange place, came generously forward with their advice and purse to assist me, when I needed assistance—who, though truly religious people, did not ask me, before they offered it, what church I sat in, or what my early life had been.—The effects of my ignorance of business could not then be rectified; but I shall ever retain a grateful remembrance of their disinterested goodness.

It is useless to go through all the circumstances that induced me to resume the uniform of a soldier; suffice it to say, that it was the result. My only consolation now is, that in spite of my folly, and the untoward circumstances which have occasionally thwarted my passage through life, I can look back on my errors with a conviction that they were more of the head than the heart.

GLASGOW:
PRINTED BY S. AND T. DUNN.

Transcriber’s Notes