other children since dead, were kept at home till we became intolerable.
My father and mother had a visible dislike to each other, continually
displayed; the servants were of the depraved kind usually found in the
houses of people of fortune. My brothers and parents all dying, I was
left to the care of guardians; and sent to Eton. I never knew the sweets
of domestic affection, but I felt the want of indulgence and frivolous
respect at school. I will not disgust you with a recital of the vices of
my youth, which can scarcely be comprehended by female delicacy. I was
taught to love by a creature I am ashamed to mention; and the other
women with whom I afterwards became intimate, were of a class of which
you can have no knowledge. I formed my acquaintance with them at the
theaters; and, when vivacity danced in their eyes, I was not easily
disgusted by the vulgarity which flowed from their lips. Having spent,
a few years after I was of age, [the whole of] a considerable patrimony,
excepting a few hundreds, I had no resource but to purchase a commission
in a new-raised regiment, destined to subjugate America. The regret
I felt to renounce a life of pleasure, was counter-balanced by the
curiosity I had to see America, or rather to travel; [nor had any
of those circumstances occurred to my youth, which might have been
calculated] to bind my country to my heart. I shall not trouble you with
the details of a military life. My blood was still kept in motion; till,
towards the close of the contest, I was wounded and taken prisoner.

"Confined to my bed, or chair, by a lingering cure, my only refuge from
the preying activity of my mind, was books, which I read with great
avidity, profiting by the conversation of my host, a man of sound
understanding. My political sentiments now underwent a total change;
and, dazzled by the hospitality of the Americans, I determined to take
up my abode with freedom. I, therefore, with my usual impetuosity, sold
my commission, and travelled into the interior parts of the country, to