me to the situation of a houseless vagabond, still continuing
his pursuit under these forlorn circumstances with unmitigable cruelty.
Indignation and resentment seemed now for the first time to penetrate my mind. I
knew his misery so well, I was so fully acquainted with its cause, and so
strongly impressed with the idea of its being unmerited, that, while I suffered
so deeply, I still continued to pity, rather than hate my persecutor. But this
incident introduced some change into my feelings. I said, Surely he might now
believe that he had sufficiently disarmed me, and might at length suffer me to
be at peace. At least ought he not to be contented to leave me to my fate, the
perilous and uncertain condition of an escaped felon, instead of thus whetting
the animosity and vigilance of my countrymen against me? Were his interference
on my behalf in opposition to the stern severity of Mr. Forester, and his
various acts of kindness since, a mere part that he played in order to lull me
into patience? Was he perpetually haunted with the fear of an ample retaliation,
and for that purpose did he personate remorse at the very moment that he was
secretly keeping every engine at play that could secure my destruction? The very
suspicion of such a fact filled me with inexpressible horror, and struck a
sudden chill through every fibre of my frame.
    My wound was by this time completely healed, and it became absolutely
necessary that I should form some determination respecting the future. My habits
of thinking were such as gave me an uncontrolable repugnance to the vocation of
my hosts. I did not indeed feel that aversion and abhorrence to the men which
are commonly entertained. I saw and respected their good qualities and their
virtues. I was by no means inclined to believe them worse men, or more inimical
in their dispositions to the welfare of their species, than the generality of
those that look down upon them with most censure. But, though I did not cease to
love them as individuals, my eyes were perfectly opened to their mistakes. If I
should otherwise have been in danger of being misled, it was my fortune to have
studied felons in a jail, before I studied them in their state of comparative
prosperity; and this was an infallible antidote to the poison. I saw that in
this profession were exerted uncommon energy, ingenuity and fortitude, and I
could not help recollecting how admirably beneficial such qualities might be
made in the great theatre of human affairs; while in their present direction
they were thrown away upon purposes diametrically at war with the first
interests of human society. Nor were their