The scenes young Neal saw at the houses whither his father carried him, filled him with such a liking to debauchery and such an irreclaimable passion for sensual pleasures, as was the source from whence his following misfortunes flowed.  For what, as he himself complained, first gave him occasion to repine at his condition, and filled him with wandering inclinations of pursuing an idle and extravagant life, was the forcing of him to go apprentice to a tailor, a trade for which he had always the greatest aversion, and contempt.  No sooner, therefore, was he placed out apprentice, but the young fellows of that occupation whom he had before derided and despised, now ridiculed him in their turns, and laughed at the uneasiness which they saw his new employment caused him.  However, he lived about four years with his master, being especially induced thereto by the company of a young man who worked there, and who used to amuse him with stories of intrigues in London, to which Neal listened with a very attentive ear.

This London companion more and more inclined him to vice, and the history he gave of his living with a woman—­who cheated her other cullies to maintain him, and at last for the sake of a new sweetheart, stripped him of all he had one night while he slept, and left him so much in debt that he was obliged to fly into the country—­the relation, I say, of these adventures made such an impression on young Neal that he was never at rest until he fell into a method of copying them.  And as ill-design seldom waits long for an opportunity, so the death of his first master, and his being turned over to a second, much less careful and diligent to his business, furnished Neal with the occasion he wanted.  This master he both cheated of his money and defrauded of his goods, letting in loose and disorderly persons in the night, and finding a way for their going out again in the morning before his master was awake, and consequently without the least suspicion.

These practices quickly broke the man with whom he lived, and his breaking turned Edmund upon the wide world, equally destitute of money, friends and capacity, not knowing what to do, and having but two shillings in his pocket.  He took a solitary walk to that end of the town which went out upon the London Road, and there by chance he met a woman who asked him to go with her to London.  He not knowing what to do with himself accepted her offer, and without any more words to the bargain they set out together.  The woman was very kind to him on the road, and poor Edmund flattered himself that money was so plentiful in London as to render it impossible for him to remain without it.  But he was miserably mistaken when he arrived there.  He went to certain public-houses of persons whom he had known in the country, who instead of using him civilly, in a day or two’s time were thrusting him out of doors.  Some common whores, also, finding him to be a poor country fellow, easily seduced him and kept him amongst them for a stallion, until, between their lust and their diseases, they had put him in a fair road to the grave.