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To hereditary honours or high parentage I have no pretensions. I can look to no higher rank than of being an Englishman, and no merits superior to those of an honest man; and upon these credentials I am satisfied to rest my claims of estimation with the world and my country. I am a native of Newcastle upon Tyne, where my family, for more than a hundred years, have maintained a reputable character. My father, Robert Wilson, was an eminent ship builder there, as will be remembered by several who may probably read this Sketch. He married my mother, Mary Finlay, of a stock equally reputable with his own, and he carried on his business for a long series of time with industry and character; but no man, however laudable his pursuits or his conduct in trade, is proof against misfortunes. From a variety of untoward causes, his business at length became embarrassed, and he was reduced to insolvency, and the consequent wreck of his affairs. The honesty of his character, however, procured for him the appointment of a tide-waiter at the Custom-house of Newcastle, with the scanty emoluments of which he struggled some years to support a numerous family, and he at last died of a broken heart, leaving five children, myself and four sisters, dependent on my mother, who was then pregnant of a sixth, now my only brother. Added to her other embarrassments was a debt of my father's for 200l. due for money lent him, from time to time, by a most worthy and benevolent gentleman of Newcastle, Mr. Wm. Scott, the father of our present venerable Lord Chancellor, and to meet which my mother had no assets but the remnants of her furniture and the scattered
