Page:The Scourge - Volume 5.djvu/20
Criminal correspondence*
A variety of letters written by him, have lately been published: they consist of answers to charges made by the parties whom he has imposed upon, and contain* some remarkable passages, as the following extracts will shew:
" Letter to Mr. L— ---- —.
" Old Harry has thrown his club over me, &c. This thing will certainly be the death of me."
" Letter to Mr. S--- L---.
- ' These and these only are the reasons which induce me to deprecate your threat of a " criminal prosecution" and perhaps if I knew the dreadful charge (for I protest I do not) I should probably dread it still more; for ought I know it may
be a crime of the blackest dye. For God's sake relieve my mind by giving me two lines of explanation, &c. &c."
Letter to Mr. P ..
" My dear sir, (t Finding that much — very much depends upon the footing I stand with my religious connections, I have called on Mr. F — and explained the matter to him in a manner that gives him satisfaction, and now I have to request, quite for your sake as much as my own, that you will express yourself to him, should he call upon you, in the most delicate manner possible concerning me. I told him, what in fact, was true that I told you the books were for a friend, fyc. If I am described as " a swindler, a rascal, a villain, #c." a time will come when you will, though not excuse my errors, pardon my offences, &c."
These are the principal extracts which we think necessary to make. But they prove beyond question, that in his own conscience he felt that he committed crimes which would bring down upon his head the severest penalties. He supplicates his injured friends to shew mercy in the most abject and degrading language*
When men fall , how is their state reduced! Yet very probably this man, should he escape the perils which tit present seem to environ him, may start again into life with an unblushing front, such as marked his face, when he made his first appearance in the metropolis^ after his flight from Macclesfield.