A soul not entirely dead to all good feeling would have been touched by this letter. Mine was affected, but not in the degree required for any permanent good. I folded it up, resolving that I would answer it affectionately, and lay a foundation for better times to come. The morning, however, brought other occupation, and the letter was put into my trunk.
Mr. Arnold took me to breakfast with a gentleman who lived at Bootle, not far from Liverpool, and who had a son just preparing to sail for America. It was soon arranged that the young man and I should go together in the Washington, which was to weigh anchor in a few days; and my shipmate, whose name was Clarke, was invited by Mr. Arnold to return, and dine at his house with us. This youth was about my own age, and we had not interchanged many sentences before I discovered, to my infinite satisfaction, that he was Irish, and a rebel. We cemented a league of the closest amity, mutually attracted by these sympathies, and became inseparable.
I now made the amende honorable to my powers of oratory for the abstinence which they had suffered since my arrival in England, by opening their sluices copiously on my new associate, who, I found, had drank more deeply by far than I had myself done at the poisoned stream, and was quite au fait in all the new doctrines. We discoursed of the persecuted people, of selfishness, and pride, tenacity to old systems, blind prejudices against improvement; abused the old and the experienced as incumbrances and impediments; talked of the clergy, who made traffic of superstition, and kept mind in bondage to serve their secular purposes; of learning as a dead weight on the active energies; and agreed that a democracy and an altar "to the unknown god" comprised our highest ideas of government and religion. All were decreed to be knaves or dunces who dissented from our opinions, and were scoffed at accordingly. Precious specimen of that toleration which we boasted!
The ship in which we were to sail was delayed, but I rejoiced in any circumstances which protracted my stay in Liverpool, where I found many congenial spirits. Clarke introduced me to several of his acquaintances who were of our own stamp, and political sympathy being quite a sufficient bond to friendship, we became as intimate as brothers in a fortnight's intercourse. How gregarious are bad principles! Is it because vice is cowardly, and dares not stand alone, while virtue, in its boldness, finds independence? My mother's letter occasionally disturbed my peace, but each day weakened the impression, and increased the difficulty of an answer, which was at length postponed sine die.
The hour of departure arrived. Mr. Arnold had taken no interest in my choice of companions. His attentions, though full of kindness and civility, were rather of a mercantile than friendly character. He had accepted me like a bill; I was indorsed and negotiated in form; now shipped, invoiced, consigned, and exported like a parcel of hardware. Accompanying me to the wharf, he recommended me to the captain's care, shook hands, wished me a pleasant passage, and, with all the alacrity of a haberdasher, whipped off to his counting-house.
A favouring breeze filled our sails, and we were soon launched on the broad Atlantic. In Europe if you praise a man, you are asked whether you have ever had a money-dealing with him. In India, on like occasion, the inquiry is, "Have you taken a voyage in his company?" To the former interrogatory I should have had no experience to assist my reply, my pecuniary transactions affording me small insight into human character; but I now learned that the Indian test was no bad criterion, and ere many hours elapsed after I left the river Mersey, I began to find that the concentration of a trading vessel brings many qualities into a focus, which had previously been too widely diffused to make one sensible of their existence.
Clarke, who had a keen look out after comfort in the most comfortable sense of that snuggest of English words, had made the most careful provision for mitigating the desagrémens incident to our situation. There was nothing wanted to complete his arrangements for the voyage. Captain Conroy was to supply my necessities by agreement with Mr. Arnold, but my friend Clarke, with a telescopic prescience of ship's fare, had laid in a store of luxuries which, adding the force of contrast to what of its own nature required none to render it abominable, certainly blackened my salt beef into as unpalatable a morsel as I had ever eaten. Clarke had brought new laid eggs, potted cream, sweetmeats of every description, and all varieties of pickles and sauces piquantes, while his well-fed goat chewed the cud contentedly below, and poultry of various sorts gabbled in their coops.
Had my purse been better furnished I should not have profited in this manner by its abundance, for I was a reckless swain, and when politics did not engross my mind, it was given to poetry and romance, while the de quoi vivre seldom presented itself to my attention till urged by necessity; and as we are said to "take no note of time but from its loss," so I never thought of food till I was hungry. Thus, till I saw the delicate cates which were displayed by my messmate, I did not recollect that such things were, and the second thought which crossed my mind was, that they would be common property. "It would be so, were they mine, and of course it will be so, as matters stand," quoth I to myself; but I reckoned without my host, and received my first practical lesson on the difference between savings and doings.
I had hitherto seen Clarke either at his father's house or at the hospitable board of Mr. Arnold; but now that he drew upon his own resources, I found the case considerably altered. We talked politics, indeed, as usual, but my companion suppressed the tirades against worldliness, and calculation, with which he used to interlard his discourse; and muttered a hint that charity begins at home, and that liberality might be carried too far, upon a request for a little goat's milk for a sick sailor. In short, a more narrow minded niggardly being could not exist than Clarke, and I was glad to have discovered his character au fond, before we touched terra firma.