In mere corporal
exertion the hunter perhaps is upon a level with the miserable animal he
pursues! But could it be forgotten by either of us, that at every stage
Gines was to gratify his malignant passions, by disseminating charges of
the most infamous nature, and exciting against me the abhorrence of
every honest bosom, while I was to sustain the still-repeated
annihilation of my peace, my character, and my bread? Could I, by any
refinement of reason, convert this dreadful series into sport? I had no
philosophy that qualified me for so extraordinary an effort. If, under
other circumstances, I could even have entertained so strange an
imagination, I was restrained in the present instance by the necessity
of providing for myself the means of subsistence, and the fetters which,
through that necessity, the forms of human society imposed upon my
exertions.

In one of those changes of residence, to which my miserable fate
repeatedly compelled me, I met, upon a road which I was obliged to
traverse, the friend of my youth, my earliest and best beloved friend,
the venerable Collins. It was one of those misfortunes which served to
accumulate my distress, that this man had quitted the island of Great
Britain only a very few weeks before that fatal reverse of fortune which
had ever since pursued me with unrelenting eagerness. Mr. Falkland, in
addition to the large estate he possessed in England, had a very
valuable plantation in the West Indies. This property had been greatly
mismanaged by the person who had the direction of it on the spot; and,
after various promises and evasions on his part, which, however they
might serve to beguile the patience of Mr. Falkland, had been attended
with no salutary fruits, it was resolved that Mr. Collins should go over
in person, to rectify the abuses which had so long prevailed. There had
even been some idea of his residing several years, if not settling
finally, upon the plantation. From that hour to the present I had never
received the smallest intelligence respecting him.

I had always considered the circumstance of his critical absence as one
of my severest misfortunes. Mr. Collins had been one of the first
persons, even in the period of my infancy, to conceive hopes of me, as
of something above the common standard; and had contributed more than
any other to encourage and assist my juvenile studies. He had been the
executor of the little property of my father, who had fixed upon him for