much. There were few things which I could not do, from
handing, reefing, and steering, to turning in a dead-eye, and setting up
the rigging; and few situations in which the fickle winds and waves were
likely to place a ship with which I was not prepared to contend. Blow
high or blow low, I felt myself at home on the ocean. My father had
objected to my becoming a sailor, and had placed me in his
counting-house. The sedentary life of a clerk was, however, not to my
taste, and I was very glad to abdicate my seat on the high stool on
every decent pretext. Still I had done my duty when there, and my
conscience was at rest on that score. Misfortunes overtook my father's
house; speculations were entered into which proved unsuccessful; and his
long-established and highly-esteemed firm got into inextricable
difficulties. In vain he and his partners struggled to maintain their
credit. The final crash came, and although my mother's marriage
settlement saved the family from penury, he had no capital with which to
recommence business. I was too young to take his place. One of his
partners died broken-hearted, and he had not the energy left to
undertake the onerous duties he would have been called upon to perform.
He and my mother and sisters retired to a modest cottage in Cheshire;
while his boys, of whom I was the third, had to seek their fortunes in
the world. He had done his duty by us. He had given us a good
education, and ever striven to instil into our minds the principles of
true religion and honour. I shall never forget his parting advice when
I started on my first expedition. "Ever trust in God, Andrew," he said.
"Recollect that you were `bought with a price,' and `are not your own.'
You have no business to follow your own fancies, or to gratify any of
the propensities fallen nature possesses, even though we do possess
them, notwithstanding what the devil and the world may say to the
contrary. God has given you a body, but ever remember that he has given
you a mind to regulate that body. To the animals he has given bodies,
and indued them with instincts which we may say are unerring; whereas
man's mind, in consequence of sin, is prone to err; but then again, in
his mercy, he has enabled man to seek for strength from above to
counteract the effects of sin, and so to regulate his mind that it may
properly guide the body. I have no faith in high principles, unless
those high principles are kept in order by a hig