With all due respect to LR, I must now attempt to defend the poor suitor :-) While it seems ridiculous to LR that CW would stand on his own determination and confidence, the truth is that he had been "lucky in his profession" and his situation of "spending freely, what had come freely, had realized nothing" would be corrected once he got serious about having a dependent (i.e. Anne) to support.

Further, Anne's levelheadedness would help reign in his spendthrift nature as he continued on his path to success. "He had always been lucky; he knew he should be so still. Such confidence, powerful in its own warmth, and bewitching in the wit which often expressed it..."

Truth be told, there was not an overwhelming reason to break off the engagement, as Anne had experienced when "she had to encounter all the additional pain of opinions, on his side, totally unconvinced and unbending, and of his feeling himself ill-used by so forced a relinquishment."

For example, they could remain engaged when he went out to sea to pursue the furtherance of his career. They needn't have broken it off.

IMO it was a tragedy that CW wasn't given a chance to prove himself at all, and that LR's ill advice, while contemporary and cultural, had done nothing but punish Anne:

"Her attachment and regrets had, for a long time, clouded every enjoyment of youth; and an early loss of bloom and spirits had been their lasting effect."

And also, "No one had ever come within the Kellynch circle, who could bear a comparison with Frederick Wentworth, as he stood in her memory."

Having said all that, I want to add that it was impossible for Anne to know at the time of advising that LR was wrong about CW. Without anyone else to turn to, Anne must rely heavily on LR.

One could also argue that the opposite could've been true. Had Anne remained engaged to CW, and had CW failed miserably in his career, then LR would've been right all along.

Fortunately for Anne, CW "had distinguished himself, and early gained the other step in rank, and must now, by successive captures, have made a handsome fortune."