However, I did not act quite so hastily as the first heat of my resolution prompted; but I took my mother at a time when I thought her a little more pleasant than ordinary, and told her that my thoughts were so entirely bent upon seeing the world that I should never settle to anything with resolution enough to go through with it, and my father had better give me his consent than force me to go without it; that I was now eighteen years old, which was too late to go apprentice to a trade or clerk to an attorney; that I was sure if I did I should never serve out my time, but I should certainly run away from my master before my time was out, and go to sea; and if she would speak to my father to let me go one voyage abroad, if I came home again, and did not like it, I would go no more; and I would promise, by a double diligence, to recover the time that I had lost.
Biztosan megszöknék onnan, még tanulóéveim kitelte előtt. Bárcsak rá tudná bírni édesapámat, mondtam, hogy egyetlen tengeri utazásra adjon engedélyt, ami után, ha a hajósélet nem tetszene meg, ígérem, fokozott erővel pótolnám az elvesztegetett időt.