 as are indeed
often the Ruine of the best Heads in Business.
    Had I continued in the Station I was now in, I had room for all the happy
things to have yet befallen me, for which my Father so earnestly recommended a
quiet retired Life, and of which he had so sensibly describ'd the middle Station
of Life to be full of; but other things attended me, and I was still to be the
wilful Agent of all my own Miseries; and particularly to encrease my Fault and
double the Reflections upon my self, which in my future Sorrows I should have
leisure to make; all these Miscarriages were procured by my apparent obstinate
adhering to my foolish inclination of wandring abroad and pursuing that
Inclination, in contradiction to the clearest Views of doing my self good in a
fair and plain pursuit of those Prospects and those measures of Life, which
Nature and Providence concurred to present me with, and to make my Duty.
    As I had once done thus in my breaking away from my Parents, so I could not
be content now, but I must go and leave the happy View I had of being a rich and
thriving Man in my new Plantation, only to pursue a rash and immoderate Desire
of rising faster than the Nature of the Thing admitted; and thus I cast my self
down again into the deepest Gulph of human Misery that ever Man fell into, or
perhaps could be consistent with Life and a State of Health in the World.
    To come then by the just Degrees, to the Particulars of this Part of my
Story; you may suppose, that having now lived almost four Years in the Brasils,
and beginning to thrive and prosper very well upon my Plantation; I had not only
learn'd the language, but had contracted Acquaintance and Friendship among my
Fellow-Planters, as well as among the Merchants at St. Salvadore, which was our
Port; and that in my Discourses among them, I had frequently given them an
Account of my two Voyages to the Coast of Guinea, the manner of Trading with the
Negroes there, and how easy it was to purchase upon the Coast, for Trifles, such
as Beads, Toys, Knives, Scissars, Hatchets, bits of Glass, and the like; not
only Gold Dust, Guinea Grains, Elephants Teeth, etc. but Negroes, for the
Service of the Brasils, in great Numbers.
    They listened always very attentively to my Discourses on these Heads, but
especially to that Part which related to the buying Negroes, which was a Trade
at that time not only not far entred into, but as
