Page:An account of the natives of the Tonga Islands.djvu/41

Rh Academy, at Ware, in Hertfordshire. After remaining there five or six years, with the exception of the vacations, he returned home at the age of thirteen, in consequence of the death of Mr. Mitchel. The advantages he had already derived from his education were considerable: besides the common acquisitions of reading, writing, and arithmetic, he had made much progress in his knowledge of history, geography, and the French language, and also some advance in the first rudiments of the Latin. His father being of opinion that his education was already sufficient for the line of life he meant him to pursue, i. e. the sea, resolved to keep him at home till something suitable and advantageous should offer. William, however, was not very anxious for a mere maritime life, and his mother being wholly averse to it, his father was at length dissuaded from his intention, and placed him in the office of a friend of his, Mr. Harrison, a respectable attorney, with whom he was to remain a few months previous to articles being