Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 011.djvu/20

delightful reveries which then occupied my mind. It was my first essay in what I may call politics, and my disappointment made such an impression on me as is not yet quite obliterated. In my anger I made something like a vow, that if ever I had an opportunity, I would make Mr. Pitt sorry, and perhaps fortune may yet enable me to fulfill my resolution. It was about this time that I had a very narrow escape. My affairs were exceedingly embarrassed; and just at a moment when my mind was harassed and sore with my own vexations, I received a letter from my father, filled with complaints, and a description of the ruin of his circumstances. In a transport of rage, I determined to enlist as a soldier in the India Company's service, to quit Europe for ever, and to leave my wife and child to the mercy of her family, who might, I hoped, be perhaps kinder to her when I was removed. My brother combated this desperate resolution by every argument in his power; but at length, when he saw me determined, declared that I should not go alone, and that he would share my fate to the last extremity. In this gloomy state of mind, deserted as we thought by Gods and men, we set out together for the India House in Leadenhall-street, to offer ourselves as volunteers; but on our arrival there we were informed that the season was past, that no more ships would be sent out that year, but that, if we returned about the month of March following, we might be received. The commis to whom we addressed ourselves seemed not a little surprised at two young fellows of our appearance presenting ourselves on such a business; for we were extremely well dressed and Will, who was the spokesman for us both, had an admirable address. Thus were we stopped; and I believe we were the single instance, since the beginning of the world, of two men absolutely bent on ruining themselves, who could not find the means. We returned to my chambers, and, desperate as were our fortunes, we could not help laughing at the circumstance that India, the great gulf of all undone beings, should be shut against us alone. Had it been the month of March instead of September, we should most infallibly have gone off; and in that case I should most probably at this hour be carrying a brown musket on the coast of Coromandel. Providence, however, decreed it otherwise, and reserved me, as I hope, for better things."

"In consequence I packed up directly, and set off with my brother for Ireland. We landed in Dublin the 23d December, and on Christmas-day, 1788 arrived at my father's house at Blackhall, where I had the satisfaction to find all my family in health, except my wife, who was grown delicate principally from the anxiety of her mind on the uncertainty of her situation. Our little girl was now between two and three years old, and was charming. After remaining a few days at Blackhall, we came up to Dublin, and were received as at first, in Grafton-street, by my wife's family. Mr. Fanning paid me punctually the sum he had promised, and my wife and I flattered ourselves that all past animosities were forgotten. I now took lodgings in Clarendon-street, purchased about a hundred pounds worth of law-books, and determined in earnest to begin and study the profession to which I was doomed. In pursuance of this resolution, I commenced Bachelor of Laws in February 1789, and was called to the Bar in due form the Trinity Term fol- lowing; shortly after which I went my first (the Leinster) circuit, having been previously elected a member of the law club. On this circuit, notwithstanding my ignorance, I pretty nearly cleared my expenses, and I cannot doubt, if I had continued to apply sedulously to the law, that I might have risen to some eminence; but, whether it was my incorrigible habit of idleness, or the sincere dislike I had to the profession, which the little insight I was beginning to get into it did not tend to remove, or whether it was a controlling