iled himself of the opportunity which offered of setting his
youthful heart free from bondage, by becoming a volunteer in the
service of his country. Since that period--now upwards of thirty
years--I have never heard of him!

To return to my own Memoirs: now that my brother had left me, I was
desolate indeed! His departure afflicted me most sincerely, and I felt
myself alone in the wide world, a friendless isolated being. But the
spirits of childhood, buoyant and elastic, though they may be depressed
for a time, readily accommodate themselves to all exigencies, and rise
superior to the greatest calamities. Grief, however poignant at first,
will not dwell long with youth; and the ingenuity and curiosity of a boy
ever on the alert to discover some new expedient with which to amuse his
mind and to gratify his fickle fancy, effectually prevent him from
indulging in unavailing despondency. I was naturally a wild dog, of an
active unconquerable spirit; and although the miseries peculiar to my
friendless situation could not but at first severely affect me, yet,
after a short time, I found that, in spite of them all, I had so
contrived it as to have established in the village a character for
mischief infinitely superior to that possessed by any other boy of my
own age. This character, however reverenced by boys of the same genius,
was not, it must be acknowledged, very likely to increase the number of
my real friends; and I therefore cannot speak in very rapturous terms of
the comforts I enjoyed at this period of my youth. I have a recollection
of sundry tricks and misdemeanours in which I was very actively
concerned, and for which I was frequently as deservedly punished; and,
as far as my memory serves me, my time, just at this juncture, was
passed in a pretty even routine of planning and executing mischief, and
receiving its reward.

This, however, was not long to last; for fickle fortune threw an
incident in my way, which diverted my attention from all my former
tricks and frolics, and turned my thoughts into a new channel. One
autumn's morning, in the year 1794, while I was playing marbles in a
lane called Love Lane, and was in the very act of having a shot at the
whole ring with my blood-alley, the shrill notes of a fife, and the
hollow sound of a distant drum, struck on my active ear. I stopped my
shot, bagged my marbles, and scampered off to see the soldiers. On
arriving at the market-place, I found them to be a recruit