of friends, the fortune of the dice, or the favours of the sex.  A continual round of sensual delights employed his time, and he was so far from endeavouring to attain any other commission or employment in order to support him, that there was nothing he so much feared as his being obliged to quit that life he loved; for old Stanley was continually soliciting for him, and as he had very good interest, nothing but his son’s notorious misbehaviour made him not prevail.  In the current of his extravagancies Jack fixed himself often upon young men coming into the world, and under pretence of being their tutor in the fashionable vices of the town, shared in their pleasures and helped them squander their estates.

Of this stamp was a gay young Yorkshire squire, who by the death of an uncle and by the loss of his father while a boy, had had so little education as not to know how to use it.  Him Stanley got hold of, and persuaded him that nothing was so advantageous to a young gentleman as travel, and drew him to make a tour of Flanders and Holland in his company.  Though a very wild young fellow, Stanley gave a very tolerable account of the places, especially the fortifications which he had seen, and sufficiently demonstrated how capable he might have been of making an exalted figure in the world, if due care had been taken to furnish him with any principles in his youth.  But the neglect of that undid him, and every opportunity which he afterwards had of acquiring anything, instead of making him an accomplished gentleman, did him mischief.  Thus his journey to Paris in company with the afore-mentioned gentleman helped him to an opportunity of learning to fence to the greatest perfection, so that the skill he was sensible he had in the sword made him ever ready to quarrel and seek occasions to use it.

Amongst the multitude of his amours he became acquainted and passionately fond of one Mrs. Maycock, whose husband was once an eminent tradesman upon Ludgate Hill.  By her he had a child of which also he was very fond.  This woman was the source of the far greater part of his misfortunes, for when his father had procured him a handsome commission in the service of the African Company, and he had received a considerable sum of money for his voyage, appearing perfectly satisfied himself, and behaving in so grave and decent a manner as filled his family and relations with very agreeable hopes, they were all blasted by Mrs. Maycock’s coming with her child to Portsmouth, where he was to embark.  She so far prevailed upon his inclinations as to get him to give her one half of the Company’s money and to return to town with the other half himself.  On his coming up to London he avoided going to his father’s, who no sooner heard how dishonourably his son had behaved, but laying it more to heart than all the rest of his misfortunes, grief in a short time put an end to them all by his death.