His vanity never forsook him. Even in Newgate he maintained his exquisite assumption, triumphing over his companions by virtue of his crime. “They think I am here for 10,000_l._, and they respect me,” he wrote to one of his friends, who would not desert him. He pointed the attention of another to the fact, that while the remaining convicts were compelled to sweep the yard, he was exempted from the degrading task. Even here his superfine dandyism stuck to him. Drawing down his dirty wristbands with an ineffable air of coxcombry, he exclaimed, “They are convicts like me, but no one dare offer me the broom.” But bad as this might be for such a man, he brought yet harsher treatment on his head. As, previously to Helen Abercrombie’s death, she had made her will in favour of her sister, the claim of the latter was placed before the various offices in which the life had been insured. While this was pending, Wainwright, thinking that if he could save the directors from paying such large sums, they would gratefully interfere for the alleviation of his misery, wrote a letter giving them certain information, coupled with a request or condition that they should procure a mitigation of punishment. What this revelation was may be judged from the united facts, that it saved the offices from paying the policies, and that when they communicated it to the Secretary of State, an order was immediately sent to place him in irons, and to forward him instantly to the convict ship. If his position were bad before, it was worse now; and he whose luxury a rose leaf would have ruffled, and whose nerves were so delicately attuned that a harsh note would jar them, must have been fearfully situated. He had played his last card, and he had lost. When he wrote from Newgate he had claimed for himself “a soul whose nutriment was love, and its offspring art, music, divine song, and still holier philosophy.” In the convict ship he shrunk from the companionship of the men with whom he was associated, and his pride revolted from being placed in irons without distinction, like them. “They think me a desperado! Me! the companion of poets, philosophers, artists, and musicians, a desperado! You will smile at this--no, I think you will feel for the man, educated and reared as a gentleman, now the mate of vulgar ruffians and country bumpkins.”