This was not the only disagreeable incident I met with while I was in this place; for, one day, while I was a little way out of the town of Savannah, I was beset by two white men, who meant to play their usual tricks with me in the way of kidnapping.  As soon as these men accosted me, one of them said to the other, ’This is the very fellow we are looking for that you lost:’  and the other swore immediately that I was the identical person.  On this they made up to me, and were about to handle me; but I told them to be still and keep off; for I had seen those kind of tricks played upon other free blacks, and they must not think to serve me so.  At this they paused a little, and one said to the other—­it will not do; and the other answered that I talked too good English.  I replied, I believed I did; and I had also with me a revengeful stick equal to the occasion; and my mind was likewise good.  Happily however it was not used; and, after we had talked together a little in this manner, the rogues left me.  I stayed in Savannah some time, anxiously trying to get to Montserrat once more to see Mr. King, my old master, and then to take a final farewell of the American quarter of the globe.  At last I met with a sloop called the Speedwell, Captain John Bunton, which belonged to Grenada, and was bound to Martinico, a French island, with a cargo of rice, and I shipped myself on board of her.  Before I left Georgia a black woman, who had a child lying dead, being very tenacious of the church burial service, and not able to get any white person to perform it, applied to me for that purpose.  I told her I was no parson; and besides, that the service over the dead did not affect the soul.  This however did not satisfy her; she still urged me very hard:  I therefore complied with her earnest entreaties, and at last consented to act the parson for the first time in my life.  As she was much respected, there was a great company both of white and black people at the grave.  I then accordingly assumed my new vocation, and performed the funeral ceremony to the satisfaction of all present; after which I bade adieu to Georgia, and sailed for Martinico.

CHAP.  IX

The author arrives at Martinico—­Meets with new difficulties—­Gets to Montserrat, where he takes leave of his old master, and sails for England—­Meets Capt.  Pascal—­Learns the French horn—­Hires himself with Doctor Irving, where he learns to freshen sea water—­Leaves the doctor, and goes a voyage to Turkey and Portugal; and afterwards goes a voyage to Grenada, and another to Jamaica—­Returns to the Doctor, and they embark together on a voyage to the North Pole, with the Hon. Capt.  Phipps—­Some account of that voyage, and the dangers the author was in—­He returns to England.

I thus took a final leave of Georgia; for the treatment I had received in it disgusted me very much against the place; and when I left it and sailed for Martinico