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Untitled Article
pondered by day , and lay awake half the night , in reflecting on the degrading- communion into which I had thrown myself . I endeavoured to scan the probabilities of the future ; and though a light of hope did occasionally flash , my mind ' s inquiries always closed with a dread that my lot was cast irrevocably ; if I remained at sea , these , or worse , those wretches in the hold , would be my comates . I have told you , reader , that I was a day-dreamer ; t iat is enough to show that I was
not without ambition , that I could soar in fancy , if not in reality . I had a notion that I should not pass through life without doing something—that I should burst through obscurity , and humble poverty would not , for ever , be my portion ; but now I could not flap my wings , they were torn from their sockets . But one other circumstance in the whole of my varied life , has goaded me with such moral anguish , as my reflections did when I had been a few days on board that Tender : my mind must become a desert , or the whole of its scanty
vegetation would be thorns to prick the dull machine of body out of inertness only to be sensible of pain and punishment . I despaired , and wished to die : for the thought of declaring my penitence , and asking pardon at home , and praying for release , did not yet enter rny mind ; to that worst of extremities I was not yet driven , or rather I had not acquired the tone of reflection and feeling which could blunt the edge of that pang . Besides , my thoughts were not confined to myself : perhaps the daily increasing distress of my friend somewhat lightened—it did , I am sure , suspend—the full and intense action of my own . He proposed to attempt escape , which I seconded ; but his entreaties did not prevail on me to join him . in it . I resolved on remaining almost entirely hopeless as I was .
We both thought that the distance from the ship to the shore rendered escape by swimming any thing but difficult ; the only obstacle was the fear of being caught in the act ; for he and I had frequently crossed and recrossed a sheet of water which seemed to be of little less extent—this was the great mistake : we were unskilled in calculating distances as we looked along the water from an elevation—I learnt this some time after . The supposed four or five hundred yards , was more than a mile and a half—and the tide-set we did not take into account . We whispered our arrangements ; he was to drop into the water a little before daybreak , and I would remain below , seemingly asleep—he came to me—wrung my hand without speaking , and was gone . I lay still for half an hour perhaps ; then , unable to endure the suspense , I went on deck , and looked towards the land > but
did not see him , and my heart leaped with joy—he was safe—a cough arrested my attention—I turned , and there stood an old seaman on the forecastle , who glanced at me significantly , and then turned his eyes upon the water , which direction mine followed , and there , not one fourth of the distance from the ship to the shore , 1 could just
perceive a hat , and the action of the arms in the water as they struck out in swimming ; he was buffeting against the influence of the tide , but this I did not then understand—I was dismayed at the little progress he had made . I knew he had been discovered by the seaman , but the old man never mentioned the fact to me , or to any one on board , I believe . He saw it was a victim escaping , and would not betray him .
Untitled Article
Autobiography of Pel . Verjuice . 703
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1833, page 703, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2624/page/43/
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