But I, that was born to be my own destroyer, could no more resist
the offer than I could restrain my first rambling designs when my
father' good counsel was lost upon me. In a word, I told them I
would go with all my heart, if they would undertake to look after
my plantation in my absence, and would dispose of it to such as I
should direct, if I miscarried. This they all engaged to do, and
entered into writings or covenants to do so; and I made a formal
will, disposing of my plantation and effects in case of my death,
making the captain of the ship that had saved my life, as before,
my universal heir, but obliging him to dispose of my effects as I
had directed in my will; one half of the produce being to himself,
and the other to be shipped to England.
In short, I took all possible caution to preserve my effects and to
keep up my plantation. Had I used half as much prudence to have
looked into my own interest, and have made a judgment of what I
ought to have done and not to have done, I had certainly never gone
away from so prosperous an undertaking, leaving all the probable
views of a thriving circumstance, and gone upon a voyage to sea,
attended with all its common hazards, to say nothing of the reasons
I had to expect particular misfortunes to myself.
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