“I candidly declared to him my situation, and my inability to satisfy these demands; the consequence of which was an immediate arrest; and I was hurried from my peaceful chamber to the loathsome place appropriated in Newgate for debtors. Here I pined in misery and want. The course language of my fellow-prisoners, whose hearts seemed hardened in proportion to their necessities, offended, and disgusted me. I soon after heard that Lord G—— was arrived in England. I wrote to him, and he sent a servant to me with momentary relief. Obligation was new to me. Insensibly, and actuated more by despair than choice, I joined my companions; and the sight of a few guineas rejoicing them, I proposed our sharing them together. The sum was not sufficient to relieve me materially; and as the die of misery was cast, I endeavoured to dissipate its calamity: I drank—I laughed—I joined in their vulgar jokes, and for a while forgot myself. With the morning, rejected reason returned, but vanished as my companions of the time approached me.
“I passed near two years in this state of mental horror, when I was unexpectedly relieved from it by the commiserating heart of the then Sheriff, Mr. P. L—— M——. To that Gentleman it is not necessary to be personally known. His urbanity, his feelings do so much honour to human Nature, that she is compelled to acknowledge him her master-piece. In him the poor find a protector; the oppressed, a friend. That Gentleman saw, heard my story, and pitied me. His heart and purse were equally opened; and he seemed to satisfy the one, while he bountifully took from the other. I endeavoured to evince my gratitude; but the manly tear glistened in his eye, and I buried it in my heart. I returned to the house where I had lodged, forlorn and desolate, and took possession of the garret over my former apartment.
“I had not been there many days, before the Gentleman above-mentioned condescended to visit me. He was attended by his lawyer, who had been, by his directions, with Mrs. S——. He found her, surrounded by affluence; the new, but acknowledged favourite of the French Duke de ——. She was regardless of my situation, insensible to my misery; yet he prevailed on her, partly by intreaty, and partly by threats, in my name, of appropriating her property, to sign an instrument, which he had prepared, and which was a mutual release from all pecuniary matters between us. Nor did the generosity of my noble friend stop here: he hastily slipped into my hand a twenty-five pound note, and hurried down stairs, as if fearful to receive the bare acknowledgment of obligations which can never, never be repaid!
“Fortune seemed at this time anxious to make me amends for the many injuries with which she had lately overwhelmed me. The relation, to whom I had stood indebted for my commission, and who had left unanswered all the letters I had written to him, now sent for me. He received me with coldness, bordering on displeasure; and I briefly related to him my whole story. Ah, what a world of light did this meeting cast over my bewildered mind!—He was a very old man, who had been confined some years to his house by various bodily infirmities; and to such, the plausible appearance of youth and beauty in distress, is peculiarly interesting. I found he had received frequent visits from Mrs. S———, and had materially assisted her. Her attentions secured to her his friendship; and she had art enough to persuade him, that my conduct in the West-Indies had been such as to-forfeit every claim to his protection. She assured him, that my commission had been sold to discharge various gambling debts contracted there. This cruel, this unprecedented injury, soon, however, retorted on herself; and as “foul deeds WILL rise,” I was indebted to her for the vindication of my own character, and the total overthrow of that of my unnatural accuser.
“My uncle (for by that name I shall henceforth distinguish him) had found an uncommon affection for my child, who frequently accompanied his mother in her visits to him. He had been well tutored by her how to answer any questions that might be put to him; yet where there was no suspicion, there could be little danger. Mrs. S—— had constantly assured the old gentleman that she boarded at the house of the relation where I had first seen her. He found himself one day very ill, and was desirous of the company of his little favourite. His housekeeper, whom many years service, and the solitude of her master’s life, had placed on a footing that fell little short of being mistress of his house, was the person whom he dispatched for the child: she was nearly as old and infirm as her master; and as her walks had for several years extended no farther than to and from the adjacent chapel every Sunday morning, she could have wished to evade his proposal of shaking her ancient bones in a hackney-coach, and would gladly have had the commission devolve on the foot-boy, who, with herself, composed the whole of his household establishment. But her master, though a very good man, was a very peremptory one, and she dared not risk his displeasure by a refusal. Mrs. Wilmot accordingly equipped herself in her Sunday gown and cloak, and desiring the coachman to drive very gently over the stones, she sallied forth in quest of the little Frederick; for whom she also, after the example of her master, felt more than an usual affection.”
(To be continued.)
THE FARRAGO.
Nº. IV.
“One who had gain’d a princely store