The pseudo _Joseph Atterley_, the hero of the narrative, was born in Huntingdon, Long-Island, on the 11th of May, 1786. He was the son of a seafaring individual, who, by means of the portion he received by his wife, together with his own earnings, was enabled to quit that laborious occupation, and to enter into trade; and, after the death of his father-in-law, by whose will he received a handsome accession to his property, he sought, in the city of New-York, a theatre better adapted to his enlarged capital. "He here engaged in foreign trade, and partaking of the prosperity which then attended American commerce, gradually extended his business, and finally embarked in the then new branch of traffic to the East Indies and China; he was now generally respected both for his wealth and fair dealing; was several years a director in one of the insurance offices; was president of the society for relieving the widows and orphans of distressed seamen; and, it is said, might have been chosen alderman, if he had not refused, on the ground that he did not think himself qualified."
Our hero was, at an early age, put to a grammar school of good repute, in his native village, and, at seventeen, was sent to Princeton, to prepare himself for some profession; during his third year at that place, in one of his excursions to Philadelphia, he became enamoured "with one of those faces and forms, which, in a youth of twenty, to see, admire, and love, is one and the same thing;" and was united to the object of his affections, on the anniversary of his twenty-first year. This event gave him a distaste for serious study; and, long before this, he had felt a sentiment, bordering on contempt, for mercantile pursuits; he therefore prevailed upon his father to purchase him a neat country seat in the vicinity of Huntingdon. Here, seventeen happy years glided away swiftly and imperceptibly, when death, by depriving him of the partner of his felicity, prostrated all his hopes and enjoyments. For the purpose of seeking for that relief to the feelings, which variety can best afford, he now determined to make a voyage; and, as one of his father's vessels was about to sail for Canton, embarked on board of her, and left Sandyhook on the 5th day of June, 1822. From this period, until the 24th of October, their voyage was comparatively agreeable; but when off the mouths of the Ganges, one of those hurricanes, well known to the experienced navigators of the eastern seas, struck the ship, and rendered her so leaky, that the captain considered it advisable to make for the nearest port; the leak, however, increasing rapidly, and finding themselves off a coast, which the captain, by his charts, pronounced to be a part of the Burman empire, and in the neighbourhood of Mergui, on the Martaban coast, they hastily threw their clothes, papers, and eight casks of silver, into the long-boat; and, before they were fifty yards from the ship, had the melancholy satisfaction to see her go down.