In the eleventh year of my age, the second of the reign of our late Sovereign Lord King George the First, and of our Lord Christ 1715, I being at the Latin School in Penryn, in the county of Cornwall, and John Pellow, my uncle, being about to proceed on a voyage from Falmouth to Fowey, and thence for Genoa with pilchards, in the good ship, Francis, Valentine Enes (then of Penryn), merchant, the owner; and I by no means liking my so early rising, and (as I then thought) most severe discipline of the school, so far insinuated myself into my uncle's favour as to get his promise to obtain the consent of my parents for me to go along with him; and which indeed he did, though not without much difficulty, they urging the hardships which probably I might, in my so tender years, undergo thereby, and their ominous fears of our falling into the hands of the Moors, who were then at open war with us, and had, as they saw by the newspapers, very lately taken some of our ships; so that it was with the greatest reluctance and regret that I obtained their consent, which at last I did, and was soon rigged in my sailor's dress; and after taking (as it proved) my so long, long farewell of my friends, our ship sailed from Falmouth to Fowey, where in a few days we completed our cargo; and as soon as all other our necessary business was dispatched, we set sail for our desired port.