62 IMPRESSIONS 



but to bow, as I did then, to the decrees of Providence 

 and to agree with the philosophic bard that " Whatever 

 is, is right." With it ended the first stage or epoch of 

 my life. 



I returned to the l)osom of my family, it is true, 

 unsullied by the deceits, untainted by the follies, and 

 unacquainted with the artifices of the world — uncon- 

 taminated, too, by those vices to which a sailor's life is 

 inevitably exposed ; but upon a careful retrospect I think 

 I can descry the germ of those feelings and motives of 

 action that afterwards brought no fruit to perfection : in 

 other words, the impressions I received and the notions 

 I imbibed were incompatible with success in any other 

 sphere of life. 



