the poor man arrived at St. Kitts, he was, according to custom, staked to the ground with four pins through a cord, two on his wrists, and two on his ancles, was cut and flogged most unmercifully, and afterwards loaded cruelly with irons about his neck.  I had two very moving letters from him, while he was in this situation; and also was told of it by some very respectable families now in London, who saw him in St. Kitts, in the same state in which he remained till kind death released him out of the hands of his tyrants.  During this disagreeable business I was under strong convictions of sin, and thought that my state was worse than any man’s; my mind was unaccountably disturbed; I often wished for death, though at the same time convinced I was altogether unprepared for that awful summons.  Suffering much by villains in the late cause, and being much concerned about the state of my soul, these things (but particularly the latter) brought me very low; so that I became a burden to myself, and viewed all things around me as emptiness and vanity, which could give no satisfaction to a troubled conscience.  I was again determined to go to Turkey, and resolved, at that time, never more to return to England.  I engaged as steward on board a Turkeyman (the Wester Hall, Capt.  Linna); but was prevented by means of my late captain, Mr. Hughes, and others.  All this appeared to be against me, and the only comfort I then experienced was, in reading the holy scriptures, where I saw that ‘there is no new thing under the sun,’ Eccles. i. 9; and what was appointed for me I must submit to.  Thus I continued to travel in much heaviness, and frequently murmured against the Almighty, particularly in his providential dealings; and, awful to think!  I began to blaspheme, and wished often to be any thing but a human being.  In these severe conflicts the Lord answered me by awful ’visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed,’ Job xxxiii. 15.  He was pleased, in much mercy, to give me to see, and in some measure to understand, the great and awful scene of the judgment-day, that ’no unclean person, no unholy thing, can enter into the kingdom of God,’ Eph. v. 5.  I would then, if it had been possible, have changed my nature with the meanest worm on the earth; and was ready to say to the mountains and rocks ‘fall on me,’ Rev. vi. 16; but all in vain.  I then requested the divine Creator that he would grant me a small space of time to repent of my follies and vile iniquities, which I felt were grievous.  The Lord, in his manifold mercies, was pleased to grant my request, and being yet in a state of time, the sense of God’s mercies was so great on my mind when I awoke, that my strength entirely failed me for many minutes, and I was exceedingly weak.  This was the first spiritual mercy I ever was sensible of, and being on praying ground, as soon as I recovered a little strength, and got out of bed and dressed myself, I invoked Heaven from my inmost