I went home and broke the news to my mother, and she told me
then what I didn't know before, that she was very poorly provided
for. I will say this, that I made her a good son; and likewise, that
I never had no luck till I struck the Treasure.
I was born in the year 1750. My father's death happened 1766.
From that time till my twenty-seventh year, I supported my mother.
She died of a seizure in 1777, and is buried by St. Mary's Redclyf--
we having moved across the water to that parish. Married next year,
Elizabeth Porter, in service with Soames Rennalls, Esquire, Alderman
of the City. She had been brought up an orphan by the Colston
Charity; a good pious woman, and bore me one child, a daughter,
christened Ann--a dear little one. She lived and throve up to the
year 1787, me all the time coming and going on voyages, mostly
coasting, too numerous to mention. Then the small-pox carried her
off with my affectionate wife, the both in one week. At which I
cursed all things, and for several years ran riot, not caring what I
said or did.
Was employed, from 1790 on, in the slave trade, by W. S., merchant of
Bristol. Must have made as many as a dozen passages before leaving
him and shipping on the _Mary Pynsent_, Pink, Bristol-owned by a new
company of adventurers.
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