The squire considered the sailor as a rude uncultivated savage, with
little more of human than his form, and diverted himself with his
ignorance of all common objects and affairs; when he could persuade him
to go into the field, he always exposed him to the sportsmen, by sending
him to look for game in improper places; and once prevailed upon him to
be present at the races, only that he might shew the gentlemen how a
sailor sat upon a horse.
The old gentlewoman thought herself wiser than both, for she lived with
no servant but a maid, and saved her money. The others were indeed
sufficiently frugal; but the squire could not live without dogs and
horses, and the sailor never suffered the day to pass but over a bowl of
punch, to which, as he was not critical in the choice of his company,
every man was welcome that could roar out a catch, or tell a story.
All these, however, I was to please; an arduous task; but what will not
youth and avarice undertake? I had an unresisting suppleness of temper,
and an insatiable wish for riches; I was perpetually instigated by the
ambition of my parents, and assisted occasionally by their instructions.
What these advantages enabled me to perform, shall be told in the next
letter of,
Yours, &c.
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