s of my new residence. The latter were
generally full of cheerfulness and merriment. They could expatiate
freely wherever they thought proper. They could form plans and execute
them. They consulted their inclinations. They did not impose upon
themselves the task, as is too often the case in human society, of
seeming tacitly to approve that from which they suffered most; or, which
is worst, of persuading themselves that all the wrongs they suffered
were right; but were at open war with their oppressors. On the contrary,
the imprisoned felons I had lately seen were shut up like wild beasts in
a cage, deprived of activity, and palsied with indolence. The occasional
demonstrations that still remained of their former enterprising life
were the starts and convulsions of disease, not the meditated and
consistent exertions of a mind in health. They had no more of hope, of
project, of golden and animated dreams, but were reserved to the most
dismal prospects, and forbidden to think upon any other topic. It is
true, that these two scenes were parts of one whole, the one the
consummation, the hourly to be expected successor of the other. But the
men I now saw were wholly inattentive to this, and in that respect
appeared to hold no commerce with reflection or reason.

I might in one view, as I have said, congratulate myself upon my present
residence; it answered completely the purposes of concealment. It was
the seat of merriment and hilarity; but the hilarity that characterised
it produced no correspondent feelings in my bosom. The persons who
composed this society had each of them cast off all control from
established principle; their trade was terror, and their constant object
to elude the vigilance of the community. The influence of these
circumstances was visible in their character. I found among them
benevolence and kindness: they were strongly susceptible of emotions of
generosity. But, as their situation was precarious, their dispositions
were proportionably fluctuating. Inured to the animosity of their
species, they were irritable and passionate. Accustomed to exercise
harshness towards the subject of their depredations, they did not always
confine their brutality within that scope. They were habituated to
consider wounds and bludgeons and stabbing as the obvious mode of
surmounting every difficulty. Uninvolved in the debilitating routine of
human affairs, they frequently displayed an energy which, from every
impartial obs