ir families. The grand-daughter with whom the writer was more
directly connected, had been courted and married by an honest and
industrious but somewhat gay young tradesman, but she proved, under God,
the means of his conversion; and their children, of whom eight grew up
to be men and women, were reared in decent frugality, and the exercise
of honest principles carefully instilled. Her husband's family had, like
that of my paternal ancestors, been a seafaring one. His father, after
serving for many years on shipboard, passed the latter part of his life
as one of the armed boatmen that, during the last century, guarded the
coasts in behalf of the revenue; and his only brother, the boatman's
son, an adventurous young sailor had engaged in Admiral Vernon's
unfortunate expedition, and left his bones under the walls of
Carthagena; but he himself pursued the peaceful occupation of a
shoemaker, and, in carrying on his trade, usually employed a few
journeymen, and kept a few apprentices. In course of time the elder
daughters of the family married, and got households of their own; but
the two sons, my uncles, remained under the roof of their parents, and
at the time when my father perished, they were both in middle life. And,
deeming themselves called on to take his place in the work of
instruction and discipline, I owed to them much more of my real
education than to any of the teachers whose schools I afterwards
attended. They both bore a marked individuality of character, and were
much the reverse of commonplace or vulgar men.

My elder uncle, James, added to a clear head and much native sagacity, a
singularly retentive memory, and great thirst of information. He was a
harness-maker, and wrought for the farmers of an extensive district of
country; and as he never engaged either journeyman or apprentice, but
executed all his work with his own hands, his hours of labour, save that
he indulged in a brief pause as the twilight came on, and took a mile's
walk or so, were usually protracted from six o'clock in the morning till
ten at night. Such incessant occupation left him little time for
reading; but he often found some one to read beside him during the day;
and in the winter evenings his portable bench used to be brought from
his shop at the other end of the dwelling, into the family sitting-room,
and placed beside the circle round the hearth, where his brother
Alexander, my younger uncle, whose occupation left his evenings free,