Being in the lobby of the lords one day, when an appeal of an interesting nature was expected to come on, so that Barrington thought to profit by numbers of genteel people that generally attend; unhappily for Barrington’s projects, a gentleman recognised his person, and applying to the deputy usher of the black rod, Barrington was disgracefully turned out, and, of course, totally disappointed of the harvest he had promised himself. Barrington, having by some means heard that this gentleman was the person who had denounced him to the keeper of the lobby, was so indiscreet as to threaten him with revenge for what he deemed an unmerited injury; but, the magistrates thinking otherwise, they granted, upon that gentleman’s complaint, a warrant against Barrington to bind him over to keep the peace. His credit having sunk so very low, that not one of all his numerous acquaintance would become a surety for him, he was compelled to go to Tothill-fields Bridewell, where he remained a considerable time under confinement, from his inability to procure the bail that was required. However, having again obtained a release from that disagreeable quarter, he had no alternative but that of his old profession, and, therefore, in about three months afterwards, we find him detected in picking the pocket of a low woman, at Drury-Lane theatre, for which, being indicted and convicted at the Old Bailey, he was sentenced to ballast-heaving, or, in other words, to three years’ hard labor on the river Thames, on board of the hulks at Woolwich. As soon as it was convenient, in the spring of 1777, Barrington was put on board one of these vessels. A sudden remove from ease and affluence to a scene of wretched servitude and suffering, and the privation of almost every comfort in life, could not but have a most sensible effect upon a man in his condition. In short, he was not only harassed and fatigued with labor, to which he had been unaccustomed, but even disgusted with the filthy language of his fellow-convicts, whose blasphemous effusions, which they seemed to make use of by way of amusement, must have been a constant source of the most disagreeable sensations in the mind of almost any person not totally lost to the feelings and the decencies of civilized, or even a savage state of existence. At length the mental, as well as the corporeal sufferings of Barrington, did not escape the notice of Messrs. Erskine and Duncan Campbell, the superintendents of the convicts; for, in consequence of Barrington’s good behavior, and through the interference of these gentlemen, he was again set at liberty, after sustaining nearly a twelvemonth’s severe suffering on board the hulks of Woolwich.