person was taken up; but he
was rarely of sufficient importance to be confined in our illustrious
Prison; and was either had to Newgate, or else incarcerated in the
lodgings of a King's Messenger till his examinations were over, and he
was either committed or Enlarged. These Messengers kept, in those days,
a kind of Sponging Houses for High Treason, where Gentlemen Traitors who
were not in very great peril lived, as it were, at an ordinary, and paid
much dearer for their meat and lodging than though they had been at some
bailiffs lock-up in Cursitor Street, or Tooke's Court, or at the Pied
Bull in the Borough. We had, it is true, for a long time a Romanist
Bishop that was suspected of being in correspondence with St. Germain's,
and lay for a long time under detention. He was a merry old soul, and
most learned man; would dine very gaily with Mr. Lieutenant, or his
deputy, or the Fort Major, swig his bottle of claret, and play a game
of tric-trac afterwards; and it was something laughable to watch the
quiet cunning way in which he would seek to Convert us Warders who had
the guarding of him to the Romanist faith. They let him out at last upon
something they called a _Nolle prosequi_ of the Attorney-General, or
some suchlike dignitary of the law--which _nolle prosequi_ I take to be
a kind of _habeas corpus_ for gentlefolks. He was as liberal to us when
he departed as his means would allow; for I believe that save his
cassock, his breviary, a gold cross round his neck, and episcopal ring,
and a portmantel full of linen, the old gentleman had neither goods nor
chattels in the wide world: indeed, we heard that the Lieutenant lent
him, on leaving, a score of gold pieces, for friendship-sake, to
distribute among us. But he went away--to foreign parts, I infer--with
flying colours; for every body loved the old Bishop, all Romanist and
suspected Jacobite as he was.

Then came that dreadful era of rebellion of which I have spoken, and we
Tower Warders found that our holiday time was over. Whilst the war still
raged in Scotland, scarcely a day passed without some person of
consequence being brought either by water to Traitor's Gate, or by a
strong escort of Horse and Foot to the Tower Postern; not for active
participation in the Rebellion, but as a measure of safety, and to
prevent worse harm being done. And many persons of consequence, trust
me, saved their heads by being laid by the heels for a little time while
the hue and cry