Chapter 2

My father, a wise and grave man, gave me serious and excellent counsel
against what he foresaw was my design. He called me one morning into his
chamber, where he was confined by the gout, and expostulated very warmly
with me upon this subject. He asked me what reasons more than a mere
wandering inclination I had for leaving my father’s house and my native
country, where I might be well introduced, and had a prospect of raising
my fortunes by application and industry, with a life of ease and
pleasure. He told me it was for men of desperate fortunes on one hand,
or of aspiring, superior fortunes on the other, who went abroad upon
adventures, to rise by enterprise, and make themselves famous in
undertakings of a nature out of the common road; that these things were
all either too far above me, or too far below me; that mine was the
middle state or what might be called the upper station of low life,
which he had found by long experience was the best state in the world,
the most suited to human happiness, not exposed to the miseries and
hardships, the labour and sufferings, of the mechanic part of mankind,
and not embarrassed with the pride, luxury, ambition, and envy of the
upper part of mankind. He told me I might judge of the happiness of this
state by this one thing, viz., that this was the state of life which all
other people envied; that kings have frequently lamented the miserable
consequences of being born to great things, and wished they had been
placed in the middle of the two extremes, between the mean and the
great; that the wise man gave his testimony to this as the just
standard of true felicity, when he prayed to have neither poverty nor
riches.

He bid me observe it, and I should always find, that the calamities of
life were shared among the upper and lower part of mankind; but that the
middle station had the fewest disasters, and was not exposed to so many
vicissitudes as the higher or lower part of mankind. Nay, they were not
subjected to so many distempers and uneasiness either of body or mind as
those were who, by vicious living, luxury, and extravagances on one
hand, or by hard labour, want of necessaries, and mean or insufficient
diet on the other hand, bring distempers upon themselves by the natural
consequences of their way of living; that the middle station of life was
calculated for all kind of virtues and all kind of enjoyments; that
peace and plenty were the handmaids of a middle fortune; that
temperance, moderation, quietness, health, society, all agreeable
diversions, and all desirable pleasures, were the blessings attending
the middle station of life; that this way men went silently and smoothly
through the world, and comfortably out of it, not embarrassed with the
labours of the hands or of the head, not sold to the life of slavery for
daily bread, or harassed with perplexed circumstances, which rob the
soul of peace, and the body of rest; not enraged with the passion of
envy, or secret burning lust of ambition for great things; but in easy
circumstances sliding gently through the world, and sensibly tasting the
sweets of living, without the bitter, feeling that they are happy, and
learning by every day’s experience to know it more sensibly.

After this, he pressed me earnestly, and in the most affectionate
manner, not to play the young man, not to precipitate myself into
miseries which Nature and the station of life I was born in seemed to
have provided against; that I was under no necessity of seeking my
bread; that he would do well for me, and endeavour to enter me fairly
into the station of life which he had been just recommending to me; and
that if I was not very easy and happy in the world it must be my mere
fate or fault that must hinder it, and that he should have nothing to
answer for, having thus discharged his duty in warning me against
measures which he knew would be to my hurt; in a word, that as he would
do very kind things for me if I would stay and settle at home as he
directed, so he would not have so much hand in my misfortunes, as to
give me any encouragement to go away. And to close all, he told me I had
my elder brother for an example, to whom he had used the same earnest
persuasions to keep him from going into the Low Country wars, but could
not prevail, his young desires prompting him to run into the army, where
he was killed; and though he said he would not cease to pray for me, yet
he would venture to say to me, that if I did take this foolish step, God
would not bless me, and I would have leisure hereafter to reflect upon
having neglected his counsel when there might be none to assist in my
recovery.

I observed in this last part of his discourse, which was truly
prophetic, though I suppose my father did not know it to be so
himself–I say, I observed the tears run down his face very plentifully,
and especially when he spoke of my brother who was killed; and that when
he spoke of my having leisure to repent, and none to assist me, he was
so moved, that he broke off the discourse, and told me, his heart was so
full he could say no more to me.

I was sincerely affected with this discourse, as, indeed, who could be
otherwise; and I resolved not to think of going abroad any more, but to
settle at home according to my father’s desire. But alas! a few days
wore it all off; and, in short, to prevent any of my father’s farther
importunities, in a few weeks after I resolved to run quite away from
him. However, I did not act so hastily neither as my first heat of
resolution prompted, but I took my mother, at a time when I thought her
a little pleasanter than ordinary, and told her, that my thoughts were
so entirely bent upon seeing the world, that I should never settle to
anything with resolution enough to go through with it, and my father had
better give me his consent than force me to go without it; that I was
now eighteen years old, which was too late to go apprentice to a trade,
or clerk to an attorney; that I was sure if I did, I should never serve
out my time, and I should certainly run away from my master before my
time was out, and go to sea; and if she would speak to my father to let
me go but one voyage abroad, if I came home again and did not like it, I
would go no more, and I would promise by a double diligence to recover
that time I had lost.