ways, yet have found themselves
weak in this part, and have not been able to bear the weight of a
secret joy or of a secret sorrow, but have been obliged to disclose it,
even for the mere giving vent to themselves, and to unbend the mind
oppressed with the load and weights which attended it. Nor was this
any token of folly or thoughtlessness at all, but a natural consequence
of the thing; and such people, had they struggled longer with the
oppression, would certainly have told it in their sleep, and disclosed
the secret, let it have been of what fatal nature soever, without
regard to the person to whom it might be exposed. This necessity of
nature is a thing which works sometimes with such vehemence in the
minds of those who are guilty of any atrocious villainy, such as secret
murder in particular, that they have been obliged to discover it,
though the consequence would necessarily be their own destruction.
Now, though it may be true that the divine justice ought to have the
glory of all those discoveries and confessions, yet 'tis as certain
that Providence, which ordinarily works by the hands of nature, makes
use here of the same natural causes to produce those extraordinary
effects.

I could give several remarkable instances of this in my long
conversation with crime and with criminals. I knew one fellow that,
while I was in prison in Newgate, was one of those they called then
night-fliers. I know not what other word they may have understood it
by since, but he was one who by connivance was admitted to go abroad
every evening, when he played his pranks, and furnished those honest
people they call thief-catchers with business to find out the next day,
and restore for a reward what they had stolen the evening before. This
fellow was as sure to tell in his sleep all that he had done, and every
step he had taken, what he had stolen, and where, as sure as if he had
engaged to tell it waking, and that there was no harm or danger in it,
and therefore he was obliged, after he had been out, to lock himself
up, or be locked up by some of the keepers that had him in fee, that
nobody should hear him; but, on the other hand, if he had told all the
particulars, and given a full account of his rambles and success, to
any comrade, any brother thief, or to his employers, as I may justly
call them, then all was well with him, and he slept as quietly as other
people.

As the publishing this account of my life is for the sake of t