celebrated among footmen and chambermaids; but I
was neither an Erostratus nor an Alexander, to die contented with that species
of eulogium. With respect to all that was solid, what chance could I find in new
exertions of a similar nature? Never was a human creature pursued by enemies
more inventive or envenomed. I could have small hope that they would ever cease
their persecution, or that my future attempts could be crowned with a more
desirable issue.
    They were considerations like these that dictated my resolution. My mind had
been gradually weaning from Mr. Falkland, till its feelings rose to something
like abhorrence. I had long cherished a reverence for him, which not even
animosity and subordination on his part could readily destroy. But I now
ascribed a character so inhumanly sanguinary to his mind; I saw something so
fiend-like in the thus hunting me round the world, and determining to be
satisfied with nothing less than my blood, while at the same time he knew my
innocence, my indisposition to mischief, nay I might add my virtues; that
henceforth I trampled reverence and the recollection of former esteem under my
feet. I lost all regard to his intellectual 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 dispatch 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