While in Africa he felt that the chain of slavery still hovered round his neck.

He could not feel himself once more a freeborn Briton till he was indeed on the bounding ocean.
Once on the way to Europe, there was hope, even though that way was by America.

He parted from his former master, now his friend, with a feeling of regret; but the fresh breezes, the consciousness he stood on deck free as the wind, free as the ocean that bore him onward to his native land, removed from his mind all lingering dread, and filled his soul with joy; but the human heart is not now in a state to feel for any length of time unchecked happiness.

Four-and-twenty years had elapsed since Mordaunt had been imagined dead; six-and-twenty since he had departed from his native land, and had last beheld his friends he so dearly loved.

He might return, and be by all considered an intruder, perhaps not recognised, his tale not believed; he might see his family scattered, all of them with new ties, new joys, and with no place for the long-absent exile.