Nor has he now the least doubt that he
deserves their admiration, and will have it. In 1817, an edition of
Franklin's Autobiography was issued in Scotland. It was his perusal of
that little book that first directed his thoughts toward America, and
which finally decided him to try his fortune in the New World. In May,
1819, being then about twenty years of age, he landed at Halifax, with
less than five pounds in his purse, without a friend on the Western
Continent, and knowing no vocation except that of book-keeper.
Between his landing at Halifax and the appearance of the first number
of the Herald sixteen years elapsed; during most of which he was a
very poor, laborious, under-valued, roving writer for the daily press.
At Halifax, he gave lessons in book-keeping for a few weeks, with
little profit, then made his way along the coast to Portland, whence a
schooner conveyed him to Boston. He was then, it appears, a soft,
romantic youth, alive to the historic associations of the place, and
susceptible to the varied, enchanting loveliness of the scenes
adjacent, on land and sea.
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