It is not my intention, as is common among writers of travels, to entertain my readers with an account of my birth, parentage, and education. For what is it to them, whether I was born in the north or south of England, whether my father was a fat man or a lean one, a cobler or a person of an independent fortune; or whether I was born on a Sunday or a Monday? when at the same time, perhaps, it does not signify whether I had ever been born at all. However, it will be necessary to say thus much of myself; that I was born a younger brother, and met with the same fate that those gentry generally do, viz. to starve for want; while he that has the good luck to come into the world first, is riding in his coach and six.

’Tis true, I had a small fortune, about the quarter of one year's income of the estate, but it did not last long; and when that was gone, by being burthensome to my relations, they soon grew tired of me; and ill-natured things being told them, such as, that if I had not been extravagant, I might have lived comfortably upon the interest of my fortune; that if a person cannot live within his circumstances, he ought to starve; and many others of the same kind: I say, through these means I was entirely deserted by them, and misery soon followed.