as large as that he had lost, yet sufficient for all the purposes of life. His project was to employ whatever sum he could collect, in business, which he expected would increase by degrees, till his imagination flattered him, his ships should visit every part of the world. Many of these debts he found were unfortunately due from correspondents at distant places, and he was soon convinced that he should have a much greater chance of success, if he were to go in person to claim his own. He accordingly sold his father’s gold watch, the only remains of his inheritance to enable him to buy a horse which was to carry him into the world under the title of a Bremen merchant.
The only regret he felt, was occasioned by the separation from his beloved Mela. “What will she think of my sudden disappearance?” he said to himself, “I shall meet her no longer on her way home from church: will she not think me faithless, and banish me from her heart?” This idea made him very uneasy, and, for some time, he could discover no means to inform her of his intentions. Inventive love, however, soon
