tice know nothing of a caufe more than what is told them on oath by a witness; and the moft flagitious villain upon earth is tried in the fame manner as a man of the best character, who is accused of the fame crime.

MEAN while, amidst all my fatigues and diftreffes, I had the fatisfaction to find my endeavours had been attended with fuch fuccefs, that this hellish fociety were almoft utterly extirpated, and that, instead of reading of murders and ftreet-robberies in the news, almost every morning, there was, in the remaining part of the month of November, and in all December, not only no fuch thing as a murder, but not even a street-robbery committed. Some fuch, indeed, were mentioned in the public papers; but they were all found, on the ftricteft enquiry, to be falfe.

In this entire freedom from ftreet-robberies, during the dark months, no man will, I believe, fcruple to acknowledge, that the winter of 1753 ftands unrival'd, during a course of many years; and this may poffibly appear the more extraor

dinary

dinary to those who recollect the outrages with which it began.

HAVING thus fully accomplished my undertaking, I went into the country in a very weak and deplorable condition, with no fewer or lefs diseases than a jaundice, a dropfy, and an asthma, altogether uniting their forces in the deftruction of a body fo entirely emaciated, that it had loft all its muscular flesh.

MINE was now no longer what is called a Bath cafe; nor, if it had been fo, had I ftrength remaining fufficient to go thither, a ride of fix miles only being attended with an intolerable fatigue. I now difcharged my lodgings at Bath, which I had hitherto kept. I began, in earneft, to look on my cafe as defperate, and I had vanity enough to rank my felf with thofe heroes who, of old times, became voluntary facrifices to the good of the public.

BUT, left the reader fhould be too eager to catch at the word vanity, and fhould be unwilling to indulge me with fo fublime a gratification, for I think he is not too apt to gratify me, I will

3

take

take my key a pitch lower, and will frankly own that I had a ftronger motive than the love of the public to push me on: I will therefore confefs to him that my private affairs at the beginning of the winter had but a gloomy afpect; for I had not plundered the public or the poor of thofe fums which men, who are always ready to plunder both as much as they can, have been pleased to fufpect me of taking: on the contrary, by compofing, inftead of inflaming, the quarrels of porters and beggars (which I blush when I fay hath not been univerfally practifed) and by refusing to take a fhilling from a man who most undoubtedly would not have had another left, I had reduced an income of about 500l. * a year of the dirtieft money upon earth,

to

A predeceffor of mine ufed to boast that he made 1000l. a year in his office: but how he did this (if indeed he did it) is to me a fecret. His clerk, now mine,told me I had more bufinefs than he had ever known there; I am fure I had as much as any man could do. The truth is, the fees are fo very low, when any are due, and fo much is done for nothing, that if a fingle juftice of peace had bufinefs enough to employ twenty clerks, neither he nor they would get much by their labour. The public will not therefore, I hope, think I betray a fecret when I inform them that I received from the government a yearly penfion out of the public fervice-money; which I believe indeed

would

to little more than 3ool; a confiderable proportion of which remained with my clerk; and indeed if the who'e had done fo, as it ought, he would be but ill paid for fitting almost fixteen hours in the twentyfour, in the most unwholesome, as well as naufeous air in the univers, and which hith in his cafe corrupted a good conftitu tion without contaminating his morals.

BUT, not to trouble the reader with anecdotes, contrary to my own rule laid down in my preface, I affure him I thought my family was very flenderly provided for; and that my health began to decline fo faft, that I had very little more of life left to accomplish what I had thought

would have been larger, had my great patron been convinced of an error, which I have heard him utter more than once, That he could not indeed fay, that the acting as a principal juftice of peace in Weftminfter was on all accounts very defirable, but that all the world knew it was a very lucrative office. Now to have fhewn him plainly, that a man must be a rogue to make a very little this way, and that he could not make much by being as great a rogue as he could be, would have required more confidence than I believe he had in me, and more of his converfation than he chose to allow me; I therefore refigned the office, and the farther execution of my plan to my brother, who had long been my affiftant. And now, left the cafe between me and the reader fhould be the fame in both inftances as it was between me and the great man, I will not add another word on the fubject.

5

of

of too late. I rejoiced therefore greatly in feeing an opportunity, as I apprehended, of gaining fuch merit in the eye of the public, that if my life were the facrifice to it, my friends might think they did a popular act in putting my family at leaft beyond the reach of neceffity, which I myself began to defpair of doing. And tho' I disclaim all pretence to that Spartan or Roman patriotifm, which loved the public fo well that it was always ready to become a voluntary facrifice to the public good, I do folemnly declare I have that love for my family.

AFTER this confeffion therefore, that the public was not the principal Deity to which my life was offered a facrifice, and when it is farther confidered what a poor facrifice this was, being indeed no other than the giving up what I faw little likelihood of being able to hold much longer, and which, upon the terms I held it, nothing but the weakness of human nature could represent to me as worth holding at all; the world may, I believe, without envy allow me all the praife to which I have any title.

My aim, in fact, was not praife, which