myself in assisting my mother in her
affairs. In a month we found a purchaser of the stock and good-will,
and when the sum paid was added to my mother's former accumulations, she
found herself possessed of 12,000 pounds in the Three per Cents, the
interest of which, 360 pounds, was more than sufficient for her living
comfortably in Devonshire, especially as my grandmother had still
remaining an income very nearly amounting to 200 pounds per annum.

In another month everything was arranged, and my mother bade farewell to
her sister and all her friends, and left Chatham, after having resided
there more than seventeen years.

Long before my mother had removed from Chatham I received a letter from
young Vangilt, announcing his safe arrival in Amsterdam, and enclosing
an order to receive the money advanced, from a house in London. His
letter was very grateful, but, as I had cautioned him, not one word was
in it which could implicate me, had it fallen into other hands.

I may as well here observe, that in the hurry of paying off the ship,
Vangilt was never missed, and although it did occur to the commanding
officer after he had gone on shore that Mr Vangilt had not been sent to
prison, he thought it just as well not to raise a question which might
get himself into a scrape; in short, nothing was thought or said about
it by anybody.

A few days before my mother quitted Chatham I went up to London to
receive the money, and then went to Portsmouth to repay the portion
belonging to Bob Cross. I found that Bob had made good use of his time,
and that the old smuggler now received him as a suitor to his niece.

As however, Mary was still very young--not yet seventeen--and Bob had
acknowledged that he had not laid by much money as yet, the old man had
insisted that Bob Cross should get another ship, and try a voyage or two
more before he was spliced; and to this arrangement both the mother and
Mary persuaded him to consent. I went to call upon them with Bob, and
did all I could, without stating what was not true, to give the old man
a favourable opinion of Cross. I even went so far as to say that if he
could not procure another vessel, I was ready to put down a sum of money
to assist him; and so I was; and had it been requisite, I have no doubt
but that my mother would have advanced it; but Bob, a fine seaman, not
yet thirty years old, was always sure of a ship--that is, a man-of-war.
To save himself from impressment, Cross