A., managed to capture gudgeons, roach, dace, and
chub ; from him I learned the qualities of gut, hair,
and hooks, how to make my own floats, and other
tackle, tie on hooks, &c., and the advantage of ground



HSHss Aim FiSHjore. 27

baiting;. All my pocket money was expended npoii
these objects, but I had to encounter the opposition
of my father, who haying been unsuccessful himself
as an angler, and being devoted to his garden, looked
on angling in a very unfavourable point of view, and
what with my attendance at school, and my father's
discouragement, my pursuit of piscatorial knowledge
was enveloped in difficulties. My mother having
given my &ther another son, never angled but once,
and that was on the occasion of a visit of a friend
£rom town, when I went with him and her in a punt
gudgeon fishing in the Thames, I being occasionally
allowed to hold one or other of the rods.
In 1780, the No-Popery riots took place in London,

and a Mr. L , whose house and furniture were

burned, and he himself escaped with difficulty, he
being a Catholic, was sent by the firm in town
in which my father was a partner, for shelter in
our house. Hy mother dispatched me to my father,
who was at the works, I took with me my bow,
which was a most excellent one, and some sharp,
steel-pointed, and feathered arrows. I had crossed
more than half the first enclosure of the paddock,
when a bull who was there grazing, espied me and
gave chase« I ran for my life, and reached a high
stile over which I was in the habit of pitching a sum-
mersault, throwing my bow and arrows first over ;



28 nsBots An> nBHiire.
