 handkerchief; and the fact being proved by
incontestible evidence, he received sentence; in consequence of which he was
immediately carried to the public pump, and subjected to a severe cascade of
cold water. This cause being discussed, they proceeded to the trial of the other
offender, who was a lieutenant of a man of war, indicted for a riot, which he
had committed in company with a female not yet taken, against the laws of the
place, and the peace of his fellow-prisoners. The culprit had been very
obstreperous, and absolutely refused to obey the summons, with many expressions
of contempt and defiance against the authority of the court; upon which the
constables were ordered to bring him to the bar, vi &amp; armis; and he was
accordingly brought before the judge, after having made a most desperate
resistance with a hanger, by which one of the officers was dangerously wounded.
This outrage was such an aggravation of his crime, that the court would not
venture to decide upon it, but remitted him to the sentence of the warden; who,
by virtue of his dictatorial power, ordered the rioter to be loaded with irons,
and confined in the strong-room, which is a dismal dungeon, situated upon the
side of the ditch, infested with toads and vermin, surcharged with noisome
damps, and impervious to the least ray of light.
    Justice being done upon the criminals, our adventurer and his company
adjourned to the ordinary, which was kept at the coffee-house; and he found,
upon enquiry, that his mess-mates consisted of one officer, two under-writers,
three projectors, an alchymist, an attorney, a parson, a brace of poets, a
baronet, and a knight of the bath. The dinner, tho' not sumptuous, nor very
elegantly served up, was nevertheless substantial, and pretty well dressed: the
wine was tolerable, and all the guests as chearful as if they had been utter
strangers to calamity; so that our adventurer began to relish the company, and
mix in the conversation, with that sprightliness and ease which were peculiar to
his disposition. The repast being ended, the reckoning paid, and part of the
gentlemen withdrawn to cards, or other avocations, those who remained, among
whom Peregrine made one, agreed to spend the afternoon in conversation over a
bowl of punch; and the liquor being produced, they passed the time very socially
in various topicks of discourse, including many curious anecdotes relating to
their own affairs. No man scrupled to own the nature of the debt for which he
was confined
