a request
than that of a peremptory command.

"However, that my truly valuable friend may not think I am too proud to
ask a favour, let me entreat you to let me have your boy to attend me
for this day, not only for the sake of saving me the expense of porters,
but for the delivery of some letters to people whose names I would not
have known to strangers.

"The civil treatment I have thus far met from those whose prisoner I
am, makes me thankful to the Almighty, that though He has thought fit
to visit me (on my birth-night) with affliction, yet (such is His great
goodness!) my affliction is not without alleviating circumstances. I
murmur not; but am all resignation to the divine will. As to the world,
I hope that I shall be endued by Heaven with that presence of mind, that
serene dignity in misfortune, that constitutes the character of a true
nobleman; a dignity far beyond that of coronets; a nobility arising
from the just principles of philosophy, refined and exalted by those of
Christianity."

He continued five days at the officer's, in hopes that he should be able
to procure bail, and avoid the necessity of going to prison. The state
in which he passed his time, and the treatment which he received, are
very justly expressed by him in a letter which he wrote to a friend:
"The whole day," says he, "has been employed in various people's filling
my head with their foolish chimerical systems, which has obliged me
coolly (as far as nature will admit) to digest, and accommodate myself
to every different person's way of thinking; hurried from one wild
system to another, till it has quite made a chaos of my imagination, and
nothing done--promised--disappointed--ordered to send, every hour, from
one part of the town to the other."

When his friends, who had hitherto caressed and applauded, found that
to give bail and pay the debt was the same, they all refused to preserve
him from a prison at the expense of eight pounds: and therefore,
after having been for some time at the officer's house "at an immense
expense," as he observes in his letter, he was at length removed to
Newgate. This expense he was enabled to support by the generosity of Mr.
Nash at Bath, who, upon receiving from him an account of his condition,
immediately sent him five guineas, and promised to promote his
subscription at Bath with all his interest.

By his removal to Newgate he obtained at least a freedom from suspense,
and rest from the disturbing vic