Status Updates From Colonel Jack

I began indeed to see that the cruelty so much talked of, used in Virginia and Barbados, and other colonies, in whipping the negro slaves, was not so much owing to the tyranny and passion and cruelty of the English, as had been reported, the English not being accounted to be of a cruel disposition, and really are not so; but that it is owing to the brutality and obstinate temper of the negroes.

I was provoked at having this boy called captain, and I cried, and told my nurse I would be called captain; for she told me I was a gentleman, and I would be a captain, that I would. The good woman, to keep the peace, told me, ay, ay, I was a gentleman, and therefore I should be above a captain, for I should be a colonel, and that was a great deal better than a captain; “for, my dear,” says she, “every tarpauling, if

On his third marriage now, a good'un too, until...

she first took this Cordial... and from a Drop to a Sup, from a Sup to a Dram, from a Dram to a Glass, and so on to Two, till at last, she took in short, to what we call drinking.

This (1722) is actually pretty good (so far)!
(O.O.P. though)
18 years have passed since that debacle of a debut and blue ruin of boredom which was The Storm (1704)—demonstrating that the answer to the perennial question "What can a poor boy do?" is "Improve thyself"!

https://www.etymonline.com/word/impro...

My penultimate Foe (not including Coetzee's)

I’m about to give up any minute now