if you don't chuse it; but certainly you know the custom; the house is full of prisoners, and I can't 'afford gentlemen a room to themselves for no'thing.'

Booth presently took this hint, indeed it was a pretty broad one, and told the bailiff he should not scruple to pay him his price; but in fact he never drank unless at his meals. As to that, sir,' cries the bailiff, it is just as your honour pleases. I scorn to impose upon any gentleman in misfortunes: I wish you well out of them, for my part. Your honour can take nothing amiss of me; I only does my duty, what I am bound to do; and as you says you don't care to drink any thing, what will you be pleased to have for dinner?"

Booth then complied in bespeaking a dish of meat, and told the bailiff, he would drink a bottle with him after dinner. He then desired the favour of pen, ink, and paper, and a messenger; all which were immediately procured him, the bailiff telling him he might send wherever he pleased, and repeating his concern for Booth's misfortunes, and a hearty desire to see the end of them.

The messenger was just dispatched with the letter, when who should arrive but honest Atkinson? A soldier of the guards, belonging to the same company with the serjeant, and who had known Booth at Gibraltar, had seen the arrest, and heard the orders given to the coachman. This fellow accidentally meeting Atkinson, had acquainted him with the whole affair.

At the appearance of Atkinson, joy immediately overspread the countenance of Booth. The ceremonials which passed between them are unnecessary to be repeated. Atkinson was soon dispatched to the attorney and to Mrs. Ellison, as the reader hath before heard from his own mouth.

Booth now greatly lamented that he had writ to his wife. He thought she might have been

acquainted with the affair better by the serjeant. Booth begged him, however, to do every thing in his power to comfort her; to assure her that he was in perfect health and good spirits, and to lessen as much as possible the the concern which he knew she would have at reading his letter.

The serjeant, however, as the reader hath seen, brought himself the first account of the arrest. Indeed, the other messenger did not arrive till a full hour afterwards. This was not owing to any slowness of his, but to many previous errands which he was to execute before the delivery of the letter; for, notwithstanding the earnest desire which the bailiff had declared to see Booth out of his troubles, he had ordered the porter, who was his follower, to call upon two or three other bailiffs, and as many attorneys, to try to load his prisoner with as many actions as possible.

His

Here the reader may be apt to conclude, that the bailiff, instead of being a friend, was really an enemy to poor Booth; but in fact, he was not so. desire was no more than to accumulate bail bonds; for the bailiff was reckoned an honest and good sort of man in his way, and had no more malice against the bodies in his custody, than a butcher hath to those in his; and as the latter, when he takes his knife in hand, hath no idea but of the joints into which he is to cut the carcase; so the former, when he handles his writ, hath no other design but to cut out the body into as many bail bonds as possible. As to the life of the animal, or the liberty of the man, they are thoughts which never obtrude themselves on either.

VOL. IX.

CHAP. II.

Containing an Account of Mr. Booth's Fellow-sufferers. BEFORE we return to Amelia, we must detain

6

our reader a little longer with Mr. Booth, in the custody of Mr. Bondum the bailiff, who now informed his prisoner, that he was welcome to the liberty of the house with the other gentlemen. Booth asked who those gentlemen were. • One of them, sir,' says Mr. Bondum, is a very great • writer or author, as they call him-He hath been here these five weeks, at the suit of a bookseller, for eleven pound odd money; but he expects to be discharged in a day or two; for he hath writ * out the debt. He is now writing He is now writing for five or six booksellers, and he will get you sometimes, when he sits to it, a matter of fifteen shillings a day. For he is a very good pen, they say; but is apt to be idle. Some days he won't write above five • hours; but at other times I have known him at it above sixteen.'- Ay!' cries Booth, Pray, what are his productions ?-What doth he write?' Why, sometimes,' answered Bondum, he writes your history books for your numbers, and some→ times your verses, your poems, what do you call them? and then again he writes news for your newspapers.- Ay, indeed! he is a most extraordinary man, truly-How doth he get his news here?" 4 -Why he makes it, as he doth your parliament speeches for your Magazines. He reads them to us sometimes over a bowl of punch.-To be sure. it is all one as if one was in the parliament house -It is about liberty and freedom, and about the constitution of England. I says nothing for my part; for I will keep my neck out of a halter: but, faith, he makes it out plainly to me, that all matters are not as they should be. I am all for

Is that so consistent with

8 liberty, 'for my part.' your calling? cries Booth.. I thought, my friend, you had lived by depriving men of their liberty. That's another matter,' cries the bailiff, that's all according to law, and in the way of business. To be sure, men must be obliged to pay their debts, or else there would be an end of every thing.' Booth desired the bailiff to give him his opinion of liberty. Upon which, he hesitated, a moment, and then cried out, O it is a fine thing, it is a very fine thing, and the constitution of Eng'land.' Booth told him, that by the old constitution of England, he had heard that men could not be arrested for debt; to which the bailiff answered, that must have been in very bad times; because as why,' says he, would it not be the hardest thing in the world if a man could not arrest another for a just and lawful debt? besides, sir, you 'must be mistaken; for, how could that ever be! is not liberty the constitution of England? well, and is not the constitution, as a man may say, whereby the constitution, that is the law and liberty, and all that.

Booth had a little mercy upon the poor bailiff, when he found him rounding in this manner, and told him he had made the matter very clear. Booth then proceeded to inquire after the other gentlemen, his fellows in affliction; upon which Bondum acquainted him, that one of the prisoners was a poor fellow. 'He calls himself a gentleman,' said Bondum; but I am sure I never saw any thing genteel by him. In a week that he hath been in my house, he hath drank only part of one bottle ' of wine. I intend to carry him to Newgate within a day or two, if he cannot find bail, which, I suppose, he will not be able to do; for every body " says he is an undone man. He hath run out all he hath by losses in business, and one way or other; and he hath a wife and seven children.-Here was

the whole family here the other day, all howling together. I never saw such a beggarly crew; was almost ashamed to see them in my house. I thought they seemed fitter for Bridewell than any other place. To be sure, I do not reckon him as proper company for such as you, sir; but there is another prisoner in the house that I dare say you will like very much. He is, indeed, very much ⚫ of a gentleman, and spends his money like one. • I have had him only three days, and I am afraid, ' he won't stay much longer. They say, indeed, he is a gamester; but what is that to me or any one, ⚫ as long as a man appears as a gentleman? I always love to speak by people as I find. And, in my opinion, he is fit company for the greatest lord in the land; for he hath very good cloaths, and money enough. He is not here for debt, but upon a judge's warrant for an assault and battery; for the tipstaff locks up here."

The bailiff was thus haranguing, when he was interrupted by the arrival of the attorney whom the trusty serjeant had, with the utmost expedition, found out, and dispatched to the relief of his distressed friend. But before we proceed any farther with the captain, we will return to poor Amelia, for whom, considering the situation in which we left her, the good-natured reader may be, perhaps, in no small degree solicitous.

CHAP. III.

Containing some extraordinary Behaviour in Mrs.
Ellison.

THE serjeant being departed to convey Mrs. Ellison to the captain, his wife went to fetch Amelia's children to their mother.