s
strangers at first coming if they keep not to the exact rules of
temperance and forbearance of strong liquors, ran quickly so much in
debt with his physician that he was obliged immediately to go off, by
doing which six felons became their own masters, of whom James White was
one. He retired into the woods and lived there in a very wretched manner
for some time, till he met with some Indian families in that retreat,
who according to the natural uncultivated humanity of that people
cherished and relieved him to the utmost of their power.

Soon after this, he went to work amongst some English servants, in order
to ease them, telling them how things stood with him, viz., that he had
been transported, and that for fear of being seized he fled into the
woods, where he had endured the greatest hardships. The servants pitying
his desperate condition relieved him often, without the knowledge of
their mistress until they got him into a planter's service, where though
he worked hard he was sure to fare tolerably well. But at length being
ordered to carry water in large vessels over the rocks to the ship that
rode in the bay underneath it, his feet were thereby so intolerably cut
that he was soon rendered lame and incapable of doing it any longer. The
family thereupon grew weary of keeping him in that decrepit state he was
in, and so for what servile scullion-like labour he was able to do, a
master of a ship took him on board and carried him to England.

On his return hither, he went directly to his friends in Cripplegate
parish and told them what had befallen him, and how he was driven home
again almost as much by force as he was hurried abroad. They were too
poor to be able to conceal him, and he was therefore obliged to go and
cry fruit about the streets publicly, that he might not want bread. He
went on in this mean but honest way, without committing any new acts
that I am able to learn, for the space of some months. Then being seen
and known by some who were at that employed (or at least employed
themselves) in detecting and taking up all such persons as returned from
transportation, White amongst the rest was seized, and the ensuing
sessions at the Old Bailey convicted on the Statute. He pleaded that he
was only a very young man, and if the Court would have so much pity on
him as to send him over again, he would be satisfied to stay all his
life-time in America; but the resolution which had been taken to spare
none who re