ABSTRACT
It was in consequence of my acquaintance with Mr. Mac Gowan that I became an author. At first I ventured no farther than an epigram or a sonnet in the provincial paper. From the applause they met with I was encouraged to try a pamphlet, which, though there was not much solidity in the arguments, was so fortunately adapted to the public taste, that it had a very unusual degree of success. Mac Gowan puffed it for me in a paper with which he was concerned, and praised it in a review of which he was the principal proprietor; and he sold it for me to a bookseller in London, who, in consequence of its success, seemed disposed to engage with me farther. Mac Gowan was by this time returned to London; and thither he urged me to remove, representing to me, that I could not fail to succeed in my literary pursuits, and might hope, by managing my talents properly, to procure a handsome provision for my family; for that ministry were in want of able pens, and he was sure I might enlist mine in their service. – Self-love did not allow me to doubt of his being right; but I was too well known as Captain Warwick to appear among my old acquaintance as a party writer under the assumed name I then bore. I hoped however, without enlisting under the banner of ministry or that of opposition, to succeed among the booksellers: and as it was absolutely necessary for me to do something, and I knew not how to do better, I at length determined to become an author by profession, and to conceal myself, in some remote part of London, as far as possible from the former scenes of splendour and fashion where I had appeared as the presumptive heir of General Tracy, and a young man of the very first world. The profits of my successful pamphlet were considerable enough to furnish me and my family with the means of making our journey, which we pursued however in the cheapest manner possible; and we arrived in London, where my friend Mac Gowan had provided us a lodging.
