 third Son of the Family, and not bred to any Trade, my Head began
to be fill'd very early with rambling Thoughts: My Father, who was very ancient,
had given me a competent Share of Learning, as far as House-Education, and a
Country Free-School generally goes, and design'd me for the Law; but I would be
satisfied with nothing but going to Sea, and my Inclination to this led me so
strongly against the Will, nay, the Commands of my Father, and against all the
Entreaties and Perswasions of my Mother, and other Friends, that there seem'd to
be something fatal in that Propension of Nature tending directly to the Life of
Misery which was to befal me.
    My Father, a wise and grave Man, gave me serious and excellent Counsel
against what he foresaw was my Design. He call'd me one Morning into his
Chamber, where he was confined by the Gout, and expostulated very warmly with me
upon this Subject: He ask'd me what Reasons more than a meer wandring
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 Fortune 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 Fortune on
the other, who went abroad upon Adventures, to rise by Enterprize, 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 mechanick Part of Mankind, and not embarass'd 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 wish'd 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 or Riches.
    He bid
