I was overwhelmed with grief for him; my own case gave me no
disturbance compared to this, and I loaded myself with reproaches on
his account. I bewailed his misfortunes, and the ruin he was now come
to, at such a rate, that I relished nothing now as I did before, and
the first reflections I made upon the horrid, detestable life I had
lived began to return upon me, and as these things returned, my
abhorrence of the place I was in, and of the way of living in it,
returned also; in a word, I was perfectly changed, and become another
body.
While I was under these influences of sorrow for him, came notice to me
that the next sessions approaching there would be a bill preferred to
the grand jury against me, and that I should be certainly tried for my
life at the Old Bailey. My temper was touched before, the hardened,
wretched boldness of spirit which I had acquired abated, and conscious
in the prison, guilt began to flow in upon my mind. In short, I began
to think, and to think is one real advance from hell to heaven. All
that hellish, hardened state and temper of soul, which I have said so
much of before, is but a deprivation of thought; he that is restored to
his power of thinking, is restored to himself.
As soon as I began, I say, to think, the first think that occurred to
me broke out thus: 'Lord! what will become of me? I shall certainly
die! I shall be cast, to be sure, and there is nothing beyond that but
death! I have no friends; what shall I do? I shall be certainly cast!
Lord, have mercy upon me! What will become of me?' This was a sad
thought, you will say, to be the first, after so long a time, that had
started into my soul of that kind, and yet even this was nothing but
fright at what was to come; there was not a word of sincere repentance
in it all. However, I was indeed dreadfully dejected, and disconsolate
to the last degree; and as I had no friend in the world to communicate
my distressed thoughts to, it lay so heavy upon me, that it threw me
into fits and swoonings several times a day. I sent for my old
governess, and she, give her her due, acted the part of a true friend.
She left no stone unturned to prevent the grand jury finding the bill.
She sought out one or two of the jurymen, talked with them, and
endeavoured to possess them with favourable dispositions, on account
that nothing was taken away, and no house broken, etc.; but all would
not do, they were over-ruled by the rest; the two wenches swore home to
the fact, and the jury found the bill against me for robbery and
house-breaking, that is, for felony and burglary.