'"I am ashamed to tell you, Captain," said he, "how I came hither; but in short because I could not live at home. You know I got prize money when I served under your honour. Mayhap I might have managed it better; but howsomdever 'tis gone, and there's an end on't. So as we are all turned a drift in the world, some of my ship mates advised me to try a little matter of smuggling with them, and come over here. I have lived among these Frenchmen now these two months, and can, to be sure, just live; but rot 'em, if I could get any thing to do at home, I wouldn't stay another hour, for I hates 'em all, as your honour very well knows. A lucky voyage or two will put some money mayhap in my way, with this smuggling trade; and then I reckons to cross over home once for all, and so go down to Liverpool to my friends, if any on um be alive yet."
'I reproved my acquaintance severely for his proceeding, and told him, that to enable him to go to his friends, I would supply him with money to buy him cloaths, which I found he principally wanted; being ashamed to appear among his relations so ill equipped, after having received a considerable sum in prize money.
'The poor fellow appeared to be very grateful, and assured me that to prove his sincerity he would embark in the same pacquet boat. "But Lord, Captain," added he, "I be'nt the only Englishman who stays in this rascally country agin their will—your honour remembers Lieutenant Stornaway, on board your honour's ship?"
'Aye, to be sure I do.'
'"Well; he, poor lad, is got into prison here for debt, and there I reckon he'll die; for nobody that ever gets into one of their confounded jails in this country, ever gets out again."
'As I perfectly remembered Stornaway, a gallant and spirited young Scotsman, I was much hurt at this account, and asked if I could be admitted to see him. I found it attended with infinite difficulty, and that I must apply to so many different persons before I could be allowed to see my unfortunate countryman, that the pacquet boat of the next day must sail without me. Cleveland therefore departed; and I, with long attendance on the Commandant and other officers, was at length introduced into the prison. I will not shock you with a description of it, nor with the condition in which I found the poor young man; who seemed to me likely to escape, by death, from the damp and miserable dungeon where he lay, without necessary food, without air, and without hope of relief. He related to me his sorrowful and simple tale. He was brought up to the sea; had no friends able to assist him; and on being discharged, after the peace, had gone, with what money he received, and on half pay, to France, in hopes of being able to live at less expence than in England, and to learn, at the same time, a language so necessary in his profession.
'"And for some time," said he, "I did pretty well; till going with one of my countrymen to see a relation of his, who was (tho' born of Scots parents) brought up as a pensioner in a convent, and a Catholic, I was no longer my own master, and tho' I knew that it was almost impossible for me to support a wife, I yet rashly married, and have made one of the loveliest young creatures in the world a beggar.
'"She was totally destitute of fortune; and was afraid her friends, who were but distant relations, and people of rank in Scotland, would insist on her taking the veil, as the most certain and easiest means of providing for her. She had a decided aversion to a monastic life; and poor as I was, (for I did not attempt to deceive her,) hesitated not to quit her convent with me, which it was easy enough to do by the management of her relation, with whom she was allowed to go out. We set out, therefore, together for England. I had about twenty Louis in my pocket, which would have carried us thither comfortably: but calamity overtook us by the way. We travelled in stages and diligences, as we found cheapest; in one of which I imagine my poor girl caught the infection of the small pox, with which she fell ill at Amiens. I attended her with all the agonizing fear of a wretch who sees his only earthly good on the point of being torn from him for ever; and very, very ill she was for many days and nights. Yet her lovely face was spared; and in a month I saw her quite out of danger, but still too weak to travel. As I spared nothing that could contribute to her ease or her recovery, my money was dreadfully diminished, and I had barely enough left to carry me alone to England. But as our credit was yet good, I purposed our living on it till her strength was somewhat re-established, and that I would then go to England, get a supply of money, and return to pay my debts and fetch my wife.
'"This was the only expedient," said poor Stornaway, "that I could think of, and perhaps was the very worst I could have adopted; since by this means we insensibly got into debt, and to creditors the most inexorable.
'"At the end of three weeks, my wife was tolerably well. I divided with her the money I had left, and went off in the night to Calais, flattering myself I should return to her within a fortnight. But so vigilant were those to whom I owed money, and so active the maréchaussés, that I was pursued, and thrown, without hesitation and without appeal, into this prison; where my little remaining money, being all exhausted in fees, to save me from even worse treatment, I have now lain near six weeks in the situation in which you see me. As to myself," continued the poor young man, "my life has been a life of hardship, and I have learned to hold it as nothing; but when I reflect on what must have been the condition of my Isabel, I own to you, dear Sir, that my fortitude forsakes me, and the blackest despair takes possession of my soul."