The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves Part 6

The disaster of Mr. Vanderpelft was soon repaired by the a.s.siduity of his friends, who disengaged him from the barrel in a trice, hoisted him on the shoulders of four strong weavers, and, resenting the unmannerly exultation of their antagonists, began to form themselves in order of battle.

An obstinate fray would have undoubtedly ensued, had not their mutual indignation given way to their curiosity, at the motion of our knight, who had advanced into the middle between the two fronts, and waving his hand as a signal for them to give attention, addressed himself to them, with graceful demeanour, in these words:--"Countrymen, friends, and fellow-citizens, you are this day a.s.sembled to determine a point of the utmost consequence to yourselves and your posterity; a point that ought to be determined by far other weapons than brutal force and factious clamour. You, the freemen of England, are the basis of that excellent const.i.tution which hath long flourished the object of envy and admiration. To you belongs the inestimable privilege of choosing a delegate properly qualified to represent you in the High Court of Parliament. This is your birthright,--inherited from your ancestors, obtained by their courage, and sealed with their blood. It is not only your birthright, which you should maintain in defiance of all danger, but also a sacred trust, to be executed with the most scrupulous care and fidelity. The person whom you trust ought not only to be endued with the most inflexible integrity, but should likewise possess a fund of knowledge that may enable him to act as a part of the legislature. He must be well acquainted with the history, the const.i.tution, and the laws of his country; he must understand the forms of business, the extent of the royal prerogative, the privilege of parliament, the detail of government, the nature and regulation of the finances, the different branches of commerce, the politics that prevail, and the connexions that subsist among the different powers of Europe; for on all these subjects the deliberations of a House of Commons occasionally turn.

"But these great purposes will never be answered by electing an illiterate savage, scarce qualified, in point of understanding, to act as a country justice of peace, a man who has scarce ever travelled beyond the excursion of a fox-chase, whose conversation never rambles farther than his stable, his kennel, and the barnyard; who rejects decorum as degeneracy, mistakes rusticity for independence, ascertains his courage by leaping over gates and ditches, and founds his triumph on feats of drinking; who holds his estate by a factious tenure, professes himself the blind slave of a party, without knowing the principles that gave it birth, or the motives by which it is actuated, and thinks that all patriotism consists in railing indiscriminately at ministers, and obstinately opposing every measure of the administration. Such a man, with no evil intentions of his own, might be used as a dangerous tool in the hands of a desperate faction, by scattering the seeds of disaffection, embarra.s.sing the wheels of government, and reducing the whole kingdom to anarchy."

Here the knight was interrupted by the shouts and acclamations of the Vanderpelfites, who cried aloud, "Hear him! hear him! long life to the iron-cased orator." This clamour subsiding, he prosecuted his harangue to the following effect:--

"Such a man as I have described may be dangerous from ignorance, but is neither so mischievous, nor so detestable as the wretch who knowingly betrays his trust, and sues to be the hireling and prost.i.tute of a weak and worthless minister; a sordid knave, without honour or principle, who belongs to no family whose example can reproach him with degeneracy, who has no country to command his respect, no friend to engage his affection, no religion to regulate his morals, no conscience to restrain his iniquity, and who wors.h.i.+ps no G.o.d but Mammon; an insinuating miscreant, who undertakes for the dirtiest work of the vilest administration; who practises national usury, receiving by wholesale the rewards of venality, and distributing the wages of corruption by retail."

In this place our adventurer's speech was drowned in the acclamations of the fox-hunters, who now triumphed in their turn, and hoicksed the speaker, exclaiming, "Well opened, Jowler--to' un, to' un again, Sweetlips! hey, Merry, Whitefoot!" After a short interruption, he thus resumed his discourse:--

"When such a caitiff presents himself to you, like the devil, with a temptation in his hand, avoid him as if he were in fact the devil--it is not the offering of disinterested love, for what should induce him, who has no affections, to love you, to whose persons he is an utter stranger?

alas! it is not a benevolence, but a bribe. He wants to buy you at one market that he may sell you at another. Without doubt his intention is to make an advantage of his purchase, and this aim he cannot accomplish but by sacrificing, in some sort, your interest, your independency, to the wicked designs of a minister, as he can expect no gratification for the faithful discharge of his duty. But, even if he should not find an opportunity of selling you to advantage, the crime, the shame, the infamy, will still be the same in you, who, baser than the most abandoned prost.i.tutes, have sold yourselves and your posterity for hire--for a paltry price, to be refunded with interest by some minister, who will indemnify himself out of your own pockets; for, after all, you are bought and sold with your own money--the miserable pittance you may now receive is no more than a pitcher full of water thrown in to moisten the sucker of that pump which will drain you to the bottom. Let me therefore advise and exhort you, my countrymen, to avoid the opposite extremes of the ignorant clown and the designing courtier, and choose a man of honesty, intelligence, and moderation, who will"----

The doctrine of moderation was a very unpopular subject in such an a.s.sembly; and, accordingly, they rejected it as one man. They began to think the stranger wanted to set up for himself; a supposition that could not fail to incense both sides equally, as they were both zealously engaged in their respective causes. The Whigs and the Tories joined against this intruder, who, being neither, was treated like a monster, or chimera in politics. They hissed, they hooted, and they hallooed; they annoyed him with missiles of dirt, sticks, and stones; they cursed, they threatened and reviled, till, at length, his patience was exhausted.

"Ungrateful and abandoned miscreants!" he cried, "I spoke to you as men and Christians--as free-born Britons and fellow-citizens; but I perceive you are a pack of venal, infamous scoundrels, and I will treat you accordingly." So saying, he brandished his lance, and riding into the thickest of the concourse, laid about him with such dexterity and effect, that the mult.i.tude was immediately dispersed, and he retired without further molestation.

The same good fortune did not attend squire Crabshaw in his retreat. The ludicrous singularity of his features, and the half-mown crop of hair that bristled from one side of his countenance, invited some wags to make merry at his expense; one of them clapped a furze-bush under the tail of Gilbert, who, feeling himself thus stimulated a posteriori, kicked and plunged, and capered in such a manner, that Timothy could hardly keep the saddle. In this commotion he lost his cap and his periwig, while the rabble pelted him in such a manner, that, before he could join his master, he looked like a pillar, or rather a pillory of mud.

CHAPTER TEN

WHICH SHOWETH THAT HE WHO PLAYS AT BOWLS, WILL SOMETIMES MEET WITH RUBBERS.

Sir Launcelot, boiling with indignation at the venality and faction of the electors, whom he had harangued to so little purpose, retired with the most deliberate disdain towards one of the gates of the town, on the outside of which his curiosity was attracted by a concourse of people, in the midst of whom stood Mr. Ferret, mounted upon a stool, with a kind of satchel hanging round his neck, and a phial displayed in his right hand, while he held forth to the audience in a very vehement strain of elocution.

Crabshaw thought himself happily delivered when he reached the suburbs, and proceeded without halting; but his master mingled with the crowd, and heard the orator express himself to this effect:--

"Very likely you may undervalue me and my medicine, because I don't appear upon a stage of rotten boards, in a shabby velvet coat, and tie-periwig, with a foolish fellow in a motley coat, to make you laugh, by making wry faces; but I scorn to use these dirty arts for engaging your attention. These paltry tricks, ad captandum vulgus, can have no effect but on idiots; and if you are idiots, I don't desire you should be my customers. Take notice, I don't address you in the style of a mountebank, or a High German doctor; and yet the kingdom is full of mountebanks, empirics, and quacks. We have quacks in religion, quacks in physic, quacks in law, quacks in politics, quacks in patriotism, quacks in government--High German quacks, that have blistered, sweated, bled, and purged the nation into an atrophy. But this is not all; they have not only evacuated her into a consumption, but they have intoxicated her brain, until she is become delirious; she can no longer pursue her own interest, or, indeed, rightly distinguish it. Like the people of Nineveh, she can hardly tell her right hand from her left; but, as a changeling, is dazzled and delighted by an ignis fatuus, a Will-o'-the-wisp, an exhalation from the vilest materials in nature, that leads her astray through Westphalian bogs and deserts, and will one day break her neck over some barren rocks, or leave her sticking in some H----n pit, or quagmire.

"For my part, if you have a mind to betray your country, I have no objection. In selling yourselves and your fellow-citizens, you only dispose of a pack of rascals who deserve to be sold. If you sell one another, why should not I sell this here Elixir of Long Life, which, if properly used, will protract your days till you shall have seen your country ruined. I shall not pretend to disturb your understandings, which are none of the strongest, with a hotchpotch of unintelligible terms, such as Aristotle's four principles of generation, unformed matter, privation, efficient, and final causes. Aristotle was a pedantic blockhead, and still more knave than fool. The same censure we may safely put on that wiseacre, Dioscorides, with his faculties of simples-- his seminal, specific, and princ.i.p.al virtues; and that crazy commentator, Galen, with his four elements, elementary qualities, his eight complexions, his harmonies and discords. Nor shall I expatiate on the alkahest of that mad scoundrel, Paracelsus, with which he pretended to reduce flints into salt; nor archaeus or spiritus rector of that visionary Van Helmont, his simple, elementary water, his gas, ferments, and trans.m.u.tations; nor shall I enlarge upon the salt, sulphur, and oil, the acidum vagum, the mercury of metals, and the volatilised vitriol of other modern chemists, a pack of ignorant, conceited, knavish rascals, that puzzle your weak heads with such jargon, just as a Germanised m----r throws dust in your eyes, by lugging in and ringing the changes on the balance of power, the Protestant religion, and your allies on the continent; acting like the juggler, who picks your pockets while he dazzles your eyes and amuses your fancy with twirling his fingers and reciting the gibberish of hocus pocus; for, in fact, the balance of power is a mere chimera. As for the Protestant religion, n.o.body gives himself any trouble about it; and allies on the continent, we have none, or, at least, none that would raise an hundred men to save us from perdition, unless we paid an extravagant price for their a.s.sistance.

"But, to return to this here Elixir of Long Life, I might embellish it with a great many high-sounding epithets; but I disdain to follow the example of every illiterate vagabond, that, from idleness, turns quack, and advertises his nostrum in the public papers. I am neither a felonious drysalter returned from exile, an hospital stump-turner, a decayed staymaker, a bankrupt printer, or insolvent debtor, released by act of parliament. I do not pretend to administer medicines without the least tincture of letters, or suborn wretches to perjure themselves in false affidavits of cures that were never performed; nor employ a set of led captains to harangue in my praise at all public places. I was bred regularly to the profession of chemistry, and have tried all the processes of alchemy; and I may venture to say, that this here elixir is, in fact, the chruseon pepuromenon ek puros, the visible, glorious, spiritual body, from whence all other beings derive their existence, as proceeding from their father the sun, and their mother the moon; from the sun, as from a living and spiritual gold, which is mere fire; consequently, the common and universal first-created mover, from whence all moveable things have their distinct and particular motions; and also from the moon, as from the wife of the sun, and the common mother of all sublunary things.

"And forasmuch as man is, and must be, the comprehensive end of all creatures, and the microcosm, he is counselled in the Revelation to buy gold that is thoroughly fired, or rather pure fire, that he may become rich and like the sun; as, on the contrary, he becomes poor, when he abuses the a.r.s.enical poison; so that, his silver, by the fire, must be calcined to a caput mortuum, which happens when he will hold and retain the menstruum, out of which he partly exists, for his own property, and doth not daily offer up the same in the fire of the sun, that the woman may be clothed with the sun, and become a sun, and thereby rule over the moon; that is to say, that he may get the moon under his feet. Now, this here elixir, sold for no more than sixpence a phial, contains the essence of the alkahest, the archaeus, the catholicon, the menstruum, the sun, the moon, and, to sum up all in one word, is the true, genuine, unadulterated, unchangeable, immaculate, and specific chruseon pepuromenon ek puros."

The audience were variously affected by this learned oration. Some of those who favoured the pretensions of the Whig candidate, were of opinion, that he ought to be punished for his presumption, in reflecting so scurrilously on ministers and measures. Of this sentiment was our adventurer, though he could not help admiring the courage of the orator, and owning within himself, that he had mixed some melancholy truths with his scurrility.

Mr. Ferret would not have stood so long in his rostrum unmolested, had not he cunningly chosen his station immediately without the jurisdiction of the town, whose magistrates therefore could not take cognisance of his conduct; but application was made to the constable of the other parish, while our nostrum-monger proceeded in his speech, the conclusion of which produced such an effect upon his hearers, that his whole cargo was immediately exhausted. He had just stepped down from his stool, when the constable with his staff arrived, and took him under his guidance. Mr.

Ferret, on this occasion, attempted to interest the people in his behalf, by exhorting them to vindicate the liberty of the subject against such an act of oppression; but finding them deaf to the tropes and figures of his elocution, he addressed himself to our knight, reminding him of his duty to protect the helpless and the injured, and earnestly soliciting his interposition.

Sir Launcelot, without making the least reply to his entreaties, resolved to see the end of this adventure; and, being joined by his squire, followed the prisoner at a distance, measuring back the ground he had travelled the day before, until he reached another small borough, where Ferret was housed in the common prison.

While he sat a-horseback, deliberating on the next step he should take, he was accosted by the voice of Tom Clarke, who called, in a whimpering tone, through a window grated with iron, "For the love of G.o.d, Sir Launcelot, do, dear sir, be so good as to take the trouble to alight, and come upstairs; I have something to communicate, of consequence to the community in general, and you in particular. Pray do, dear Sir Knight.

I beg a boon in the name of St. Michael and St. George for England."

Our adventurer, not a little surprised at this address, dismounted without hesitation, and, being admitted to the common jail, there found not only his old friend Tom, but also the uncle, sitting on a bench, with a woollen night-cap on his head, and a pair of spectacles on his nose, reading very earnestly in a book, which he afterwards understood was ent.i.tled, The Life and Adventures of Valentine and Orson. The captain no sooner saw his great pattern enter, than he rose, and received him with the salutation of, "What cheer, brother?" and before the knight could answer, added these words: "You see how the land lies--here have Tom and I been fast ash.o.r.e these four-and-twenty hours; and this berth we have got by attempting to tow your galley, brother, from the enemy's harbour.

Adds bobs! if we had this here fellow w---eson for a consort, with all our tackle in order, brother, we'd soon show 'em the topsail, slip our cable, and down with their barricadoes. But, howsomever, it don't signify talking--patience is a good stream-anchor, and will hold, as the saying is--but, d--n my--as for the matter of my boltsprit.--Harkye, harkye, brother, d--ned hard to engage with three at a time, one upon my bow, one upon my quarter, and one right a-head, rubbing and drubbing, lying athwart hawse, raking fore and aft, battering and grappling, and las.h.i.+ng and clas.h.i.+ng--adds heart, brother; crash went the bolt-sprit-- down came the round-top--up with the deadlights--I saw nothing but the stars at noon, lost the helm of my seven senses, and down I broached upon my broadside."

As Mr. Clarke rightly conceived that his uncle would need an interpreter, he began to explain these hints, by giving a circ.u.mstantial detail of his own and the captain's disaster.

He told Sir Launcelot, that, notwithstanding all his persuasion and remonstrances, Captain Crowe insisted upon appearing in the character of a knight errant; and, with that view, had set out from the public-house on the morning that succeeded his vigil in the church. That upon the highway they had met with a coach, containing two ladies, one of whom seemed to be under great agitation; for, as they pa.s.sed, she struggled with the other, thrust out her head at the window, and said something which he could not distinctly hear. That Captain Crowe was struck with admiration of her unequalled beauty; and he, Tom, no sooner informed him who she was, than he resolved to set her at liberty, on the supposition that she was under restraint, and in distress. That he accordingly unsheathed his cutla.s.s, and, riding after the coach, commanded the driver to bring to, on pain of death. That one of the servants, believing the captain to be a highwayman, presented a blunderbuss, and in all probability would have shot him on the spot, had not he, the nephew, rode up, and a.s.sured them the gentleman was non compos. That, notwithstanding his intimation, all the three attacked him with the b.u.t.t-ends of their horsewhips, while the coach drove on, and although he laid about him with great fury, at last brought him to the ground, by a stroke on the temple.

That Mr. Clarke himself then interposed in defence of his kinsman, and was also severely beaten. That two of the servants, upon application to a justice of the peace, residing near the field of battle, had granted a warrant against the captain and his nephew, and, without examination, committed them as idle vagrants, after having seized their horses and their money, on pretence of their being suspected for highwaymen.

"But, as there was no just cause of suspicion," added he, "I am of opinion, the justice is guilty of a trespa.s.s, and may be sued for falsum imprisonamentum, and considerable damages obtained; for you will please to observe, sir, no justice has a right to commit any person till after due examination; besides, we were not committed for an a.s.sault and battery, audita querela, nor as wandering lunatics by the statute, who, to be sure, may be apprehended by a justice's warrant, and locked up and chained, if necessary, or to be sent to their last legal settlement; but we were committed as vagrants and suspected highwaymen. Now we do not fall under the description of vagrants; nor did any circ.u.mstance appear to support the suspicion of robbery; for, to const.i.tute robbery, there must be something taken; but here nothing was taken but blows, and they were upon compulsion. Even an attempt to rob, without any taking, is not felony, but a misdemeanour. To be sure, there is a taking in deed, and a taking in law. But still the robber must be in possession of a thing stolen; and we attempted to steal ourselves away. My uncle, indeed, would have released the young lady vi et armis, had his strength been equal to his inclination; and in so doing, I would have willingly lent my a.s.sistance, both from a desire to serve such a beautiful young creature, and also in regard to your honour, for I thought I heard her call upon your name."

"Ha! how! what! whose name? say, speak--Heaven and earth!" cried the knight, with marks of the most violent emotion.--Clarke, terrified at his looks, replied, "I beg your pardon a thousand times; I did not say positively she did speak those words; but I apprehended she did speak them. Words, which may be taken or interpreted by law in a general or common sense, ought not to receive a strained or unusual construction; and ambiguous words"--"Speak, or be dumb for ever!" exclaimed Sir Launcelot, in a terrific tone, laying his hand on his sword. "What young lady, ha? What name did she call upon?"--Clarke, falling on his knees, answered, not without stammering, "Miss Aurelia Darnel; to the best of my recollection, she called upon Sir Launcelot Greaves."--"Sacred powers!"

cried our adventurer, "which way did the carriage proceed?"

When Tom told him that the coach quitted the post-road, and struck away to the right at full speed, Sir Launcelot was seized with a pensive fit; his head sunk upon his breast, and he mused in silence for several minutes, with the most melancholy expression on his countenance; then recollecting himself, he a.s.sumed a more composed and cheerful air, and asked several questions with respect to the arms on the coach, and the liveries worn by the servants? It was in the course of this interrogation, that he discovered he had actually conversed with one of the footmen, who had brought back Crabshaw's horse. A circ.u.mstance that filled him with anxiety and chagrin, as he had omitted to inquire the name of his master, and the place to which the coach was travelling; though, in all probability, had he made these inquiries, he would have received very little satisfaction, there being reason to think the servants were enjoined secrecy.

The knight, in order to meditate on this unexpected adventure, sat down by his old friend, and entered into a reverie, which lasted about a quarter of an hour, and might have continued longer had it not been interrupted by the voice of Crabshaw, who bawled aloud, "Look to it, my masters--as you brew you must drink--this shall be a dear day's work to some of you; for my part, I say nothing--the braying a.s.s eats little gra.s.s--one barber shaves not so close, but another finds a few stubble-- you wanted to catch a capon, and you've stole a cat--he that takes up his lodgings in a stable, must be contented to lie upon litter."

The knight, desirous of knowing the cause that prompted Timothy to apothegmatise in this manner, looked through the grate, and perceived the squire fairly set in the stocks, surrounded by a mob of people. When he called to him, and asked the reason of this disgraceful restraint, Crabshaw replied, "There's no cake, but there's another of the same make --who never climbed, never fell--after clouds comes clear weather. 'T is all along of your honour, I've met with this preferment; no deservings of my own, but the interest of my master. Sir Knight, if you will slay the justice, hang the constable, release your squire, and burn the town, your name will be famous in story; but, if you are content, I am thankful.

Two hours are soon spent in such good company; in the meantime, look to 'un, jailor, there's a frog in the stocks."

Sir Launcelot, incensed at this affront offered to his servant, advanced to the prison door, but found it fast locked; and when he called to the turnkey, he was given to understand, that he himself was prisoner.

Enraged at this intimation, he demanded at whose suit, and was answered through the wicket, "At the suit of the King, in whose name I will hold you fast, with G.o.d's a.s.sistance."

The knight's looks now began to lighten; he rolled his eyes around; and s.n.a.t.c.hing up an oaken bench, which three ordinary men could scarce have lifted from the ground, he, in all likelihood, would have shattered the door in pieces, had not he been restrained by the interposition of Mr.

Clarke, who entreated him to have a little patience, a.s.suring him he would suggest a plan that would avenge himself amply on the justice, without any breach of the peace. "I say the justice," added Tom, "because it must be his doing. He is a little petulant sort of a fellow, ignorant of the law, guilty of numberless irregularities, and if properly managed, may, for this here act of arbitrary power, be not only cast in a swingeing sum, but even turned out of the commission with disgrace."

This was a very seasonable hint, in consequence of which the bench was softly replaced, and Captain Crowe deposited the poker, with which he had armed himself, to second the efforts of Sir Launcelot. They now, for the first time, perceived that Ferret had disappeared; and, upon inquiry, found that he was in fact the occasion of the knight's detention and the squire's disgrace.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

DESCRIPTION OF A MODERN MAGISTRATE.

Before the knight would take any resolution for extricating himself from his present embarra.s.sment, he desired to be better acquainted with the character and circ.u.mstances of the justice by whom he had been confined, and likewise to understand the meaning of his own detention. To be informed in this last particular, he renewed his dialogue with the turnkey, who told him through the grate, that Ferret no sooner perceived him in the jail without his offensive arms, which he had left below, than he desired to be carried before the justice, where he had given information against the knight, as a violator of the public peace, who strolled about the country with unlawful arms, rendering the highways unsafe, encroaching upon the freedom of elections, putting his majesty's liege subjects in fear of their lives, and, in all probability, harbouring more dangerous designs under an affected cloak of lunacy.

Ferret, upon this information, had been released, and entertained as an evidence for the King; and Crabshaw was put into the stocks, as an idle stroller.

Sir Launcelot, being satisfied in these particulars, addressed himself to his fellow-prisoners, and begged they would communicate what they knew respecting the worthy magistrate, who had been so premature in the execution of his office. This request was no sooner signified, than a crew of naked wretches crowded around him, and, like a congregation of rooks, opened their throats all at once, in accusation of Justice Gobble.

The knight was moved at this scene, which he could not help comparing, in his own mind, to what would appear upon a much more awful occasion, when the cries of the widow and the orphan, the injured and oppressed, would be uttered at the tribunal of an unerring Judge, against the villanous and insolent authors of their calamity.

When he had, with some difficulty, quieted their clamours, and confined his interrogation to one person of a tolerably decent appearance, he learned, that Justice Gobble, whose father was a tailor, had for some time served as a journeyman hosier in London, where he had picked up some law terms, by conversing with hackney writers and attorneys' clerks of the lowest order; that, upon the death of his master, he had insinuated himself into the good graces of the widow, who took him for her husband, so that he became a person of some consideration, and saved money apace; that his pride, increasing with his substance, was reinforced by the vanity of his wife, who persuaded him to retire from business, that they might live genteelly in the country; that his father dying, and leaving a couple of houses in this town, Mr. Gobble had come down with his lady to take possession, and liked the place so well, as to make a more considerable purchase in the neighbourhood; that a certain peer being indebted to him in the large way of his business, and either unable or unwilling to pay the money, had compounded the debt, by inserting his name in the commission; since which period his own insolence, and his wife's ostentation, had exceeded all bounds; that, in the execution of his authority, he had committed a thousand acts of cruelty and injustice against the poorer sort of people, who were unable to call him to a proper account; that his wife domineered with a more ridiculous, though less pernicious usurpation, among the females of the place; that, in a word, she was the subject of continual mirth, and he the object of universal detestation.

Our adventurer, though extremely well disposed to believe what was said to the prejudice of Gobble, would not give entire credit to this description, without first inquiring into the particulars of his conduct.

He therefore asked the speaker, what was the cause of his particular complaint. "For my own part, sir," said he, "I lived in repute, and kept a shop in this here town, well furnished with a great variety of articles. All the people in the place were my customers; but what I and many others chiefly depended upon, was the extraordinary sale at two annual customary fairs, to which all the country people in the neighbourhood resorted to lay out their money. I had employed all my stock, and even engaged my credit, to procure a large a.s.sortment of goods for the Lammas market; but, having given my vote in the election of a vestry-clerk, contrary to the interest of Justice Gobble, he resolved to work my ruin. He suppressed the annual fairs, by which a great many people, especially publicans, earned the best part of their subsistence.

The country people resorted to another town. I was overstocked with a load of perishable commodities, and found myself deprived of the best part of my home customers, by the ill-nature and revenge of the justice, who employed all his influence among the common people, making use of threats and promises, to make them desert my shop, and give their custom to another person, whom he settled in the same business under my nose.

Being thus disabled from making punctual payments, my commodities spoiling, and my wife breaking her heart, I grew negligent and careless, took to drinking, and my affairs went to wreck. Being one day in liquor, and provoked by the fleers and taunts of the man who had set up against me, I struck him at his own door; upon which I was carried before the justice, who treated me with such insolence, that I became desperate, and not only abused him in the execution of his office, but also made an attempt to lay violent hands upon his person. You know, sir, when a man is both drunk and desperate, he cannot be supposed to have any command of himself. I was sent hither to jail. My creditors immediately seized my effects; and, as they were not sufficient to discharge my debts, a statute of bankruptcy was taken out against me; so that here I must lie, until they think proper to sign my certificate, or the parliament shall please to pa.s.s an act for the relief of insolvent debtors."