 of which we stand in greatest need in a critical situation, though
already accumulated it may be by preceding industry, fails to present itself at
the time when it should be called into action. Thus my mind had passed through
two very different stages since my imprisonment, before this means of liberation
suggested itself. My faculties were overwhelmed in the first instance, and
raised to a pitch of enthusiasm in the second, while in both I took it for
granted in a manner that I must passively submit to the good pleasure of my
persecutors.
    During the period in which my mind had been thus undecided, and when I had
been little more than a month in durance, the assizes, which were held twice a
year in the town in which I was a prisoner, came on. Upon this occasion my case
was not brought forward, but was suffered to stand over six months longer. It
would have been just the same, if I had had as strong reason to expect
acquittal, as I had conviction. If I had been apprehended upon the most
frivolous reasons upon which any justice of the peace ever thought proper to
commit a naked beggar for trial, I must still have waited about two hundred and
seventeen days, before my innocence could be cleared. So imperfect are the
effects of the boasted laws of a country whose legislators hold their assembly
from four to six months in every year! I could never discover with certainty,
whether this delay were owing to any interference on the part of my prosecutor,
or whether it fell out in the regular administration of justice, which is too
solemn and dignified to accommodate itself to the rights or benefit of an
insignificant individual.
    But this was not the only incident that occurred to me during my confinement
for which I could find no satisfactory solution. It was nearly at the same time,
that the keeper began to alter his behaviour to me. He sent for me one morning
into the part of the building which was appropriated for his own use, and after
some hesitation told me he was sorry my accommodations had been so indifferent,
and asked whether I should like to have a chamber in his family? I was struck
with the unexpectedness of this question, and desired to know whether any body
had employed him to ask it. No, he replied; but, now the assizes were over, he
had fewer felons on his hands, and more time to look about him: He believed I
was a good kind of a young man; and he had taken a sort of a liking to me. I
fixed my eye upon his countenance as he said this
