ere believed, and his person
was secure. No one showed a desire to attack the dangerous fellow who
had the devil at his service.

He had already for a year followed his melancholy profession, when it
began to grow insupportable. The band at whose head he stood, did not
fulfil his brilliant expectations. A seductive exterior had dazzled
him amid the fumes of the wine; now he saw with horror how frightfully
he had been deceived. Hunger and want took the place of that
superfluity by which his senses had been lulled; very often he had to
risk his life on a meal, which was scarcely sufficient to keep him from
starvation. The phantom of that brotherly concord vanished; envy,
suspicion, and jealousy raged among this abandoned crew. Justice had
offered a reward to any one who should deliver him up alive, with a
solemn pardon if he were an accomplice--a powerful temptation for the
dregs of the earth! The unhappy man knew his peril. The honesty of
those who betrayed God and man, was a bad security for his life. From
this moment sleep was gone; a deadly and eternal anguish preyed on his
repose; the hideous spectre of suspicion rattled behind him, wherever
he fled, tortured him when he was awake, lay down by him when he went
to sleep, and scared him with horrible visions. His conscience, which
had been for some time dumb, now recovered its speech, and the adder of
remorse, which had slept, now awoke amid the general storm of his
bosom. All his hatred was now diverted from mankind, and turned its
frightful edge against himself. He now forgave all nature, and found
none but himself to execrate.

Vice had completed its instruction of this unhappy being; his naturally
good sense at last overcame the mournful delusion. Now he felt how low
he had fallen, calm melancholy took the place of grinding despair.
With tears he wished the past were recalled, for now he felt certain
that he could go through it differently. He began to hope that he
might be allowed to become honest, because he felt that he could be so.
At the highest point of his depravity, he was perhaps nearer to
goodness than before his first fault.

About the same time, the seven years' war had broken out, and
recruiting was going on with vigour. This circumstance inspired the
unhappy man with hope, and he wrote a letter to his sovereign, an
extract of which I insert:

"If your princely favour feels no repugnance towards descending to me,
if criminals of my