Excerpt from The Life and Curious Adventures of Peter Williamson: Who Was Carried Off From Aberdeen, and Sold for a Slave Know, therefore, that I was born in Hirnlay, in the Parish of Aboyne, and County of Aberdeen, North Britain, if not of rich, yet of reputable parents, who supported me in the best manner they could, as long as they had the happiness of having me under their inspection but fatally for me, and to their great grief, as it afterwards proved, I was sent to live with an aunt at Aberdeen. When under the years of pupillarity, playing on the quay, with others of my companions, being of a stout, robust constitution, I was taken notice of by two fellows belonging to a vessel in the harbour, employed (as the trade then was) by some of the worthy merchants in the town, in that villainous and execrable practice called Kidnapping; that is, stealing young children from their parents, and selling them as slaves in the plantations abroad. Being marked out by these monsters of impiety as their prey, I was cajoled on board the ship by them, where I was no sooner got, than they conducted me between the decks to some others they had kidnapped in the same manner. At that time I had no sense of the fate that was destined for me, and spent the time in childish amusements with my fellow sufferers in the steerage, being never suffered to go upon deck whilst the vessel lay in the harbour, which was until such a time as they had got in their loading, with a complement of unhappy youths for carrying on their wicked commerce. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.