Transcribed from the 1919 Seeley, Sevice & Co edition byDavid Price,
That homely proverb, used on so many occasions in England,viz. “That what is bred in the bone will not go out of theflesh,” was never more verified than in the story of myLife. Any one would think that after thirty-fiveyears’ affliction, and a variety of unhappy circumstances,which few men, if any, ever went through before, and after nearseven years of peace and enjoyment in the fulness of all things;grown old, and when, if ever, it might be allowed me to have hadexperience of every state of middle life, and to know which wasmost adapted to make a man completely happy; I say, after allthis, any one would have thought that the native propensity torambling which I gave an account of in my first setting out inthe world to have been so predominant in my thoughts, should beworn out, and I might, at sixty one years of age, have been alittle inclined to stay at home, and have done venturing life andfortune any more.
Nay, farther, the common motive of foreign adventures wastaken away in me, for I had no fortune to make; I had nothing toseek: if I had gained ten thousand pounds I had been no richer;for I had already sufficient for me, and for those I had to leaveit to; and what I had was visibly increasing; for, having nogreat family, I could not spend the income of what I had unless Iwould set up for an expensive way of living, such as a greatfamily, servants, equipage, gaiety, and the like, which werethings I had no notion of, or inclination to; so that I hadnothing, indeed, to do but to sit still, and fully enjoy what Ihad got, and see it increase daily upon my hands. Yet allthese things had no effect upon me, or at least not enough toresist the strong inclination I had to go abroad again, whichhung about me like a chronic distemper. In particular, thedesire of seeing my new plantation in the island, and the colonyI left there, ran in my head continually. I dreamed of itall night, and my imagination ran upon it all day: it wasuppermost in all my thoughts, and my fancy worked so steadily andstrongly upon it that I talked of it in my sleep; in short,nothing could remove it out of my mind: it even broke soviolently into all my discourses that it made my conversationtiresome, for I could talk of nothing else; all my discourse raninto it, even to impertinence; and I saw it myself.
I have often heard persons of good judgment say that all thestir that people make in the world about ghosts and apparitionsis owing to the strength of imagination, and the powerfuloperation of fancy in their minds; that there is no such thing asa spirit appearing, or a ghost walking; that people’sporing affectionately upon the past conversation of theirdeceased friends so realises it to them that they are capable offancying, upon some extraordinary circumstances, that they seethem, talk to them, and are answered by them, when, in truth,there is nothing but shadow and vapour in the thing, and theyreally know nothing of the matter.
For my part, I know not to this hour whether there are anysuch things as real apparitions, spectres, or walking of peopleafter they are dead; or whether there is anything in the storiesthey tell us of that kind more than the product of vapours, sickminds, and wandering fancies: but this I know, that myimagination worked up to such a height, and brought me into suchexcess of vapours, or what else I may call it, that I actuallysupposed myself often upon the spot, at my old castle, behind thetrees; saw my old Spaniard, Friday’s father, and thereprobate sailors I left upon the island; nay, I fancied I talkedwith them, and looked at them steadily, though I was broad awake,as at pers