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Samuel Leech
Being the Experience of Samuel Leech
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The inhabitants of Bladen were very social in their habits. They held an annual feast, called Bladen feast, to which they invited their friends from other towns; it commenced on Sabbath and continued three days. Eating, drinking, talking, fortune-telling, gambling, occupied three days of wassail and jollity; after which the visitors returned to their respective towns, and the people to their occupations. The neighboring villages gave similar feasts in their turn. They were occasions of much evil and folly.
My time flew very rapidly and pleasantly away for two or three years, until, like most children, I began to sigh for deliverance from the restraints of home. I had already left school, and for some time, being now about thirteen years of age, had been employed in the pleasure-grounds of Blenheim Palace. This, however, was too tame a business for a lad of my spirits. I had heard tales of the sea from my cousins; my mother had filled my mind with the exploits of my grandfather; my imagination painted a life on the great deep in the most glowing colors; my mind grew uneasy; every day, my ordinary pursuits became more and more irksome, and I was continually talking about going to sea; indeed, I had made myself unhappy by being so discontented.
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