ectual greatness, and all pity for the agonies
of his soul. I also would abjure forbearance. I would show myself bitter
and inflexible as he had done. Was it wise in him to drive me into
extremity and madness? Had he no fears for his own secret and atrocious
offences?

I had been obliged to spend the remainder of the night upon which I had
been apprehended, in prison. During the interval I had thrown off every
vestige of disguise, and appeared the next morning in my own person. I
was of course easily identified; and, this being the whole with which
the magistrates before whom I now stood thought themselves concerned,
they were proceeding to make out an order for my being conducted back to
my own county. I suspended the despatch of this measure by observing
that I had something to disclose. This is an overture to which men
appointed for the administration of criminal justice never fail to
attend.

I went before the magistrates, to whose office Gines and his comrade
conducted me, fully determined to publish those astonishing secrets of
which I had hitherto been the faithful depository; and, once for all, to
turn the tables upon my accuser. It was time that the real criminal
should be the sufferer, and not that innocence should for ever labour
under the oppression of guilt.

I said that "I had always protested my innocence, and must now repeat
the protest."

"In that case," retorted the senior magistrate abruptly, "what can you
have to disclose? If you are innocent, that is no business of ours! We
act officially."

"I always declared," continued I, "that I was the perpetrator of no
guilt, but that the guilt wholly belonged to my accuser. He privately
conveyed these effects among my property, and then charged me with the
robbery. I now declare more than that, that this man is a murderer, that
I detected his criminality, and that, for that reason, he is determined
to deprive me of life. I presume, gentlemen, that you do consider it as
your business to take this declaration. I am persuaded you will be by no
means disposed, actively or passively, to contribute to the atrocious
injustice under which I suffer, to the imprisonment and condemnation of
an innocent man, in order that a murderer may go free. I suppressed this
story as long as I could. I was extremely averse to be the author of the
unhappiness or the death of a human being. But all patience and
submission have their limits."

"Give me leave, sir," rejoined the