plantation, Wedderburn signed on with the Royal Navy at the age of 16. On the ships, the quality of food and living conditions were abysmal, and it was during this time that Wedderburn became increasingly opposed to the method of punishments used by the Royal Navy. Arrival in Britain Robert Wedderburn arrived in Britain aged 17 and settled down in St. Giles, London, an ethnically diverse district of the city which was inhabited by numerous free people of colour, Jews, Indian sailors and Irish immigrants. During this period, Wedderburn found employment as a tailor, becoming trained in the profession; though he was also reported to have been involved in occasional incidents of petty theft as well. Through means that remain unclear (it is possible that he had been an apprentice in Jamaica or had learned while in the Navy), Wedderburn eventually became a journeyman tailor. As he referred to himself as a "flint" tailor, this suggests he was registered in the book of trades and shared values typical of other artisans - including pride in his craft and a belief in economic independence. Unfortunately, the instability of his career made him increasingly susceptible to the effects of a trade recession, inflation and food shortages, and he was soon reduced to part-time mending work on the outskirts of town. By now married and desperate for money during one of his wife's pregnancies, Wedderburn visited his father's family at Inveresk near Edinburgh. He recalled that his father did not deny him to be his son "but called me a lazy fellow, and said he would do nothing for me. From his cook I had one draught of small beer, and his footman gave me a cracked sixpence". Wedderburn thereafter dabbled in petty theft and keeping a bawdy house. In 1824, Bell's Life in London published a letter from Robert Wedderburn addressed to William Wilberforce giving an account of his origins and his father's failure to provide for him. It also published his alleged half-brother, Andrew Colvile's, reply citing his father's denial of paternity and threatening to sue the paper if it published any further slanders. Radicalism and activity In 1786, Wedderburn stopped to listen to a Wesleyan preacher he heard in Seven Dials. Influenced by a mixture of Arminian, millenarian, Calvinist, and Unitarian ideas, he converted to be a Methodist, and soon published a small theological tract called Truth Self Supported: or,