In short, I pressed him so to it, that he almost agreed to it, but
still something or other broke it off again; till at last he turned the
tables, and he began to talk almost to the same purpose of Ireland.
He told me that a man that could confine himself to country life, and
that could find but stock to enter upon any land, should have farms
there for #50 a year, as good as were here let for #200 a year; that
the produce was such, and so rich the land, that if much was not laid
up, we were sure to live as handsomely upon it as a gentleman of #3000
a year could do in England and that he had laid a scheme to leave me in
London, and go over and try; and if he found he could lay a handsome
foundation of living suitable to the respect he had for me, as he
doubted not he should do, he would come over and fetch me.
I was dreadfully afraid that upon such a proposal he would have taken
me at my word, viz. to sell my little income as I called it, and turn
it into money, and let him carry it over into Ireland and try his
experiment with it; but he was too just to desire it, or to have
accepted it if I had offered it; and he anticipated me in that, for he
added, that he would go and try his fortune that way, and if he found
he could do anything at it to live, then, by adding mine to it when I
went over, we should live like ourselves; but that he would not hazard
a shilling of mine till he had made the experiment with a little, and
he assured me that if he found nothing to be done in Ireland, he would
then come to me and join in my project for Virginia.
He was so earnest upon his project being to be tried first, that I
could not withstand him; however, he promised to let me hear from him
in a very little time after his arriving there, to let me know whether
his prospect answered his design, that if there was not a possibility
of success, I might take the occasion to prepare for our other voyage,
and then, he assured me, he would go with me to America with all his
heart.
I could bring him to nothing further than this. However, those
consultations entertained us near a month, during which I enjoyed his
company, which indeed was the most entertaining that ever I met in my
life before. In this time he let me into the whole story of his own
life, which was indeed surprising, and full of an infinite variety
sufficient to fill up a much brighter history, for its adventures and
incidents, than any I ever say in print; but I shall have occasion to
say more of him hereafter.