Before his father's departure from England, he had paid a visit in Kent, and given his consent to the union that had been so long talked of,

Mr. N. arrived at Liverpool the latter end of May 1748, about the same day that his father sailed from the Nore. He found, however, another father in the gentleman whose ship had brought him home. This friend received him with great tenderness, and the strongest assurances of assistance; yet not stronger than he afterward fulfilled, for to this instrument of God's goodness he felt he owed every thing. "Yet," as Mr. N. justly observes, "it would not have been in the power even of this friend, to have served me effectually, if the Lord had not met me on my way home, as I have related. Till then I was like the man possessed with the Legion. No arguments, no persuasion, no views of interest, no remembrance of the past, nor regard to the future, could have restrained me within the bounds of common prudence; but now I was, in some measure, restored to my

This friend immediately offered Mr. N. the command of a ship, which, upon mature consideration, he, for the present, declined. He prudently considered, that, hitherto, he had been unsettled and careless; and that he had better, therefore, make another voyage, and learn obedience, and acquire further experience in business, before he ventured to undertake such a charge. The mate of the vessel, in which he came home, was preferred, to the command of a new ship, and Mr. N. engaged to go in the station of mate with him.

There was something so peculiar in Mr. N.'s case, after this extraordinary deliverance, and because others in like circumstances might be tempted to despair, that I think it proper to make another extract from his "Narrative;" as such accounts cannot be well conveyed but in his own words. 30*

VOL. I.

"We must not make the experience of others in all respects a rule to ourselves, nor our own a rule to others yet these are common mistakes, and productive of many more. As to myself, every part o. my case has been extraordinary—I have hardly met a single instance resembling it. Few, very few, have been recovered from such a dreadful state: and the few, that have been thus favoured, have generally passed through the most severe convictions; and, after the Lord has given them peace, their future lives have been usually more zealous, bright, and exemplary than common. Now, as, on the one hand, my convictions were very moderate, and far below what might have been expected from the dreadful review I had to make; so, on the other, my first beginnings in a religious course were as faint as can be well imagined. I never knew that season alluded to, Jer. ii, 2. Rev. ii, 4, usually called the time of the first love. Who would not expect to hear, that, after such a wonderful and unhoped-for deliverance as I had received, and after my eyes were in some measure enlightened to see things aright, I should immediately cleave to the Lord and his ways with full purpose of heart, and consult no more with flesh and blood? But alas! it was far otherwise with me. I had learned to pray : : I set some value upon the word of God; and was no longer a libertine: but my soul still cleaved to the dust. Soon after my departure from Liverpool, I began to intermit and grow slack in waiting upon the Lord I grew vain and trifling in my conversation; and, though my heart smote me often, yet my armour was gone, and I declined fast: and, by the time we arrived at Guinea, I seemed to have forgotten all the Lord's mercies and my own engagements; and was, profaneness excepted, almost as bad as before. The enemy prepared a train of temptations, and I became his easy prey for about a month he lulled me asleep in a course of evil, of which, a few months before, I

could not have supposed myself any longer capable. How much propriety is there in the Apostle's advice, Take heed lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin!"""

In this voyage Mr. N.'s business, while upon the coast, was to sail in the long-boat from place to place, in order to purchase slaves. The ship, at this time, was at Sierra Leone, and he at the Plantanes, the scene of his former captivity, and where every thing he saw tended to remind him of his present ingratitude. He was now in easy circumstances, and courted by those who had once despised him. The lime-trees he had formerly planted were growing tall, and promised fruit upon his expected return with a ship of his own. Unaffected, however, with these things, he needed another providential interposition to rouse him; and, accordingly, he was visited with a violent fever, which broke the fatal chain, and once more brought him to himself. Alarmed at the prospect before him, he thought himself now summoned away. The dangers and deliverances through which he had passed-his earnest prayers in the time of trouble-his solemn vows before the Lord at his table -and his ungrateful returns for all his goodness, were present, at once, to his mind. He began then to wish that he had sunk in the ocean when he first cried for mercy. For a short time, he concluded that the door of hope was quite shut. Weak, and almost delirious, he arose from his bed, crept to a retired part of the island, and here found a renewed liberty in prayer: daring to make no more resolves, he cast himself upon the Lord, to do with him as he should please. It does not appear that any thing new was presented to his mind, but, that, in general, he was enabled to hope and believe in a crucified Saviour.

After this, the burden was removed from his conscience; and not only his peace, but his health, was gradually restored when he returned to the ship: and,

though subject to the effects and conflicts of sin dwelling in him, yet he was ever after delivered from its power and dominion.

His leisure hours, in this voyage, were chiefly employed in acquiring Latin, which he had now almost forgotten. This desire took place from an imitation he had seen of one of Horace's Odes in a Magazine. In this attempt at one of the most difficult of the poets, he had no other help than an old English translation, with Castalio's Latin Bible. He had the edition in usum Delphini; and, by comparing the Odes with the interpretation, and tracing such words as he understood from place to place by the index, together with what assistance he could get from the Latin Bible, he thus, by dint of hard industry, made some progress. He not only understood the sense of many Odes, and some of the Epistles, but "I began," says he, "to relish the beauties of the composition; acquired a spice of what Mr. Law calls classical enthusiasm; and, indeed, by this means, I had Horace more ad unguem, than some who are masters of the Latin tongue: for my helps were so few; that I generally had the passage fixed in my memory before I could fully understand its meaning."

During the eight months they were employed upon the coast, Mr. N.'s business exposed him to innumerable dangers, from burning suns, chilling dews, winds, rains, and thunder-storms, in an open boat: and, on shore, from long journies through the woods; and from the natives, who in many places, are cruel, treacherous, and watchful of opportunities for mischief. Several boats, during this time, were cut off: several white men were poisoned: and, from his own boat, he buried six or seven people with fevers. When going on shore, or returning, he was more than once overset by the violence of the surf, and brought to land half dead, as he could not swim. Among a

number of such escapes, which remained upon his memory, the following will mark the singular providence that was over him.

On finishing their trade, and being about to sail to the West Indies, the only service Mr. N. had to perform in the boat was to assist in bringing the wood and water from the shore. They were then at Rio Cestors. He used to go into the river, in the afternoon, with the sea-breeze, to procure his lading in the evening, in order to return on board in the morning with the land-wind. Several of these little voyages he had made; but the boat was grown old, and almost unfit for use. This service, likewise was almost completed. One day, having dined on board, he was preparing to return to the river as formerly: he had taken leave of the captain, received his orders, was ready in the boat, and just going to put off. In that instant the captain came up from the cabin, and called him on board again. Mr. N. went, expecting further orders, but the captain said he had taken it into his head (as he phrased it) that Mr. N. should remain that day in the ship, and accordingly ordered another man to go in his room. Mr. N. was surprised at this, as the boat had never been sent away without him before. He asked the captain the reason of this resolution, but none was assigned, except, as above, that so he would have it. The boat, therefore, went without Mr. N. but returned no more: it sunk that night in the river; and the person who supplied Mr. N.'s place was drowned! Mr. N. was much struck, when news of the event was received the next morning. The captain himself, though quite a stranger to religion, even to the denying of a particular Providence, could not help being affected: but declared that he had no other reason for countermanding Mr. N. at that time, but that it came suddenly into his mind to detain him.

A short time after he was thus surprisingly pre