a justice, who mistaking my confusion for a
sign of guilt committed me, after a short examination, to Bridewell,
having admonished me, as the only means to save my life, to turn
evidence, and impeach my confederate. I now concluded the vengeance of
Heaven had overtaken me, and that I must soon finish my career by an
ignominious death. This reflection sank so deep into my soul, that I
was for some days deprived of my reason, and actually believed myself
in hell, tormented by fiends. Indeed, there needs not a very extravagant
imagination to form that idea: for of all the scenes on earth that of
Bridewell approaches nearest the notion I had always entertained of the
regions. Here I saw nothing but rage, anguish and impiety, and heard
nothing but groans, curses, and blasphemy. In the midst of this hellish
crew, I was subjected to the tyranny of a barbarian, who imposed upon me
tasks that I could not possibly perform, and then punished my incapacity
with the utmost rigour and inhumanity. I was often whipped into a swoon,
and lashed out of it (during which miserable interval, I was robbed by
my fellow-prisoners of everything about me, even to my cap, shoes, and
stockings): I was not only destitute of necessaries, but even of food,
so that my wretchedness was extreme. Not one of my acquaintance to whom
I imparted my situation, would grant me the least succour or regard,
on pretence of my being committed for theft, and my landlord refused
to part with some of my own clothes which I sent for, because I was
indebted to him for a week's lodging.

'Overwhelmed with calamity, I grew desperate, and resolved to put an
end to my grievances and life together: for this purpose I got up in
the middle of the night, when I thought everybody around me asleep, and
fixing one end of a large hook in the ceiling, that supported the scales
on which the hemp is weighed, I stood upon a chair, and making a noose
on the other end, put my neck into ii with an intention to hang myself;
but before I could adjust the knot I was surprised and prevented by two
women, who had been awake all the while and suspected my design. In the
morning, my attempt was published among the prisoners and punished with
thirty stripes, the pain of which, co-operating with my disappointment
and disgrace, bereft me of my senses, and threw me into an ecstacy of
madness, during which I tore the flesh from my bones with my teeth, and
dashed my head against the pavement; so that t