sider that
my labours have not been altogether vain and unprofitable.

A change of government having taken place during the last year of my
imprisonment I had the good fortune to get a few months' more remission
of sentence than might otherwise have been the case.

While I feel truly thankful to those noblemen and gentlemen and other
friends who interceded for me, my special gratitude is due to Mr.
Walpole, for the promptitude he displayed in acknowledging my claim to
the few months' mitigation of punishment it was in his power to bestow.

On a Friday morning I was unexpectedly called before the governor, and
informed that my license had arrived. I was asked certain particulars
in reference to my future intentions and address. I was next measured
for a shoe, the only decent and honest article of clothing I ever
received in prison; tried on a suit of clothes, and had my portrait
taken. On the Saturday morning I was weighed and measured, and taken
before the chaplain to receive a few formal words of parting advice. On
the following Monday I was again taken before the governor to hear my
license read. On Tuesday morning I was removed to Millbank Prison, and
lodged there for the night, in a cell along with two other prisoners
going to liberty like myself. We slept on narrow dirty mattresses, laid
on the floor, so close as to be touching each other. One of my new
companions had been nearly four years in the lunatic asylum at
Fisherton, and had recovered. The other was a young professional thief,
belonging to London, whose mind was just on the verge of insanity,
through long confinement in separate cells. To sleep on the floor of a
dusty cell, between two such companions, was not quite so comfortable
as a bed in the Hotel Meurice, at Paris, where I had spent my last free
night. Every moment that divided me from the hour of my liberation now
seemed magnified into days. Wednesday morning at last dawned upon me. I
was taken out and placed before a regiment of policemen, who each
scrutinized me, and that done I received my license. With feelings of
inexpressible thankfulness and gratitude to God I heard the heavy
prison doors close behind me, and once more I inhaled the sweet free
air of Heaven!

Tears streamed down my cheeks as I trudged along the streets, in my
shabby clothes and with my deal crutch. I felt a new punishment
creeping over me, even whilst the glorious sun of freedom was shedding
its welcome rays on my dishono