To suppose that this man of straight-laced morality would stray from his hovel at Peckham, to hunt gamblers at midnight in Pall-Mall, from motives of public justice, is as ridiculous a supposition, as that he could produce any circumstance of his life, that procured him an honest shilling. The warrant having thus operated to the accomplishment of every purpose for which it was obtained, the negociation commenced relative to its future progress, but ended as fifty others had done before; one hundred pounds was demanded to satisfy the voracious appetite of offended decorum; a sum so trifling, that if it was not immediately paid, a similar visit was threatened for the next night:—however, the sum of 60l. was at length acceded to, and 60l. was paid, of course all hostilities ceased. This pecuniary anodyne assuaged the moral-wrought grief of Mr. Bell; but there was yet left unmolested, three houses more in the same neighbourhood, that furnished Mr. Bell with _suspicions_, that similar instruments against them might prove equally productive to his pocket; he instantly tried the experiment, and with the use of little more rhetoric than accompanies a dark-lanthorn and knife in the hands of a midnight ruffian, demanded 35l. each, as the conditions of a short cessation from a like outrage: these respective sums being also paid, silence was proclaimed, and the blast of offended justice no longer heard; here perhaps, the business would have ended, and the robberies sunk into an oblivion, criminal as the impunity with which they were committed, had Mr. Bell given himself time to recollect, that one extreme generally begets another; the extremity of vice being frequently the beginning of folly; for within a month subsequent to this transaction, the different parties received a further demand of 10l. each: however, a little expostulation upon the rapidity of their collections, procured them a respite of some days for the payment of this second subsidy; in the interim the nefarious transactions came to the knowledge of some of the magistrates at Bow Street, who to their eternal honour, sent for the objects of Mr. Bell’s plunder, from whom they received an ample detail of all the circumstances; from that period the spirit of self-defence was roused, and the injured parties determined to seek protection from the laws of the country: with the advice of three eminent council at a consultation, they have preferred bills of indictment against Mr. Bell and his Attorney, who appears so implicated in the business, that no legal distinction in point of turpitude can possibly exist; therefore, they are indicted for a conspiracy; other bills were prepared, the presenting of which was delayed by an accident till next sessions.