very laws which, by a perception
of their iniquity, drove me to what I am, preclude my return. God, we
are told, judges of men by what they are at the period of arraignment,
and whatever be their crimes, if they have seen and abjured the folly of
those crimes, receives them to favour. But the institutions of countries
that profess to worship this God admit no such distinctions. They leave
no room for amendment, and seem to have a brutal delight in confounding
the demerits of offenders. It signifies not what is the character of the
individual at the hour of trial. How changed, how spotless, and how
useful, avails him nothing. If they discover at the distance of
fourteen[G] or of forty years[H] an action for which the law ordains
that his life shall be the forfeit, though the interval should have been
spent with the purity of a saint and the devotedness of a patriot, they
disdain to enquire into it. What then can I do? Am I not compelled to go
on in folly, having once begun?"

[Footnote G: Eugene Aram. See Annual Register for 1759.]

[Footnote H: William Andrew Home. Ibid.]

CHAPTER IV.

I Was extremely affected by this plea. I could only answer, that Mr.
Raymond must himself be the best judge of the course it became him to
hold; I trusted the case was not so desperate as he imagined.

This subject was pursued no further, and was in some degree driven from
my thoughts by an incident of a very extraordinary nature.

I have already mentioned the animosity that was entertained against me
by the infernal portress of this solitary mansion. Gines, the expelled
member of the gang, had been her particular favourite. She submitted to
his exile indeed, because her genius felt subdued by the energy and
inherent superiority of Mr. Raymond; but she submitted with murmuring
and discontent. Not daring to resent the conduct of the principal in
this affair, she collected all the bitterness of her spirit against me.

To the unpardonable offence I had thus committed in the first instance,
were added the reasonings I had lately offered against the profession of
robbery. Robbery was a fundamental article in the creed of this hoary
veteran, and she listened to my objections with the same unaffected
astonishment and horror that an old woman of other habits would listen
to one who objected to the agonies and dissolution of the Creator of the
world, or to the garment of imputed righteousness prepared to envelope
the souls of the el