ssions of contempt and defiance against the
authority of the court; upon which the constables were ordered to bring
him to the bar, vi et armis; and he was accordingly brought before the
judge, after having made a most desperate resistance with a hanger, by
which one of the officers was dangerously wounded. This outrage was such
an aggravation of his crime, that the court would not venture to decide
upon it, but remitted him to the sentence of the warden; who, by virtue
of his dictatorial power, ordered the rioter to be loaded with irons,
and confined in the strong room, which is a dismal dungeon, situated
upon the side of the ditch, infested with toads and vermin, surcharged
with noisome damps, and impervious to the least ray of light.

Justice being done upon these criminals, our adventurer and his company
adjourned to the ordinary, which was kept at the coffee-house; and he
found, upon inquiry, that his messmates consisted of one officer, two
underwriters, three projectors, an alchemist, an attorney, a parson, a
brace of poets, a baronet, and a knight of the Bath. The dinner,
though not sumptuous, nor very elegantly served up, was nevertheless
substantial, and pretty well dressed. The wine was tolerable, and all
the guests as cheerful as if they had been utter strangers to calamity;
so that our adventurer began to relish the company, and mix in the
conversation, with that sprightliness and ease which were peculiar to
his disposition. The repast being ended, the reckoning paid, and part
of the gentlemen withdrawn to cards, or other avocations, those who
remained, among whom Peregrine made one, agreed to spend the afternoon
in conversation over a bowl of punch; and the liquor being produced,
they passed the time very socially in various topics of discourse,
including many curious anecdotes relating to their own affairs. No man
scrupled to own the nature of the debt for which he was confined, unless
it happened to be some piddling affair, but, on the contrary, boasted
of the importance of the sum, as a circumstance that implied his
having been a person of consequence in life; and he who made the most
remarkable escapes from bailiffs, was looked upon as a man of superior
genius and address.

Among other extraordinary adventures of this kind, none was more
romantic than the last elopement achieved by the officer; who told them
he had been arrested for a debt of two hundred pounds, at a time when he
could not command as m