Some of the prisoners, like the aged, refined, and witty ex-paymaster-general of the Jacobite army, found solace in writing verses, ‘which gained applause,’ says Patten,[5] ‘from good judges of poetry.’ Four Shaftoes, Northumberland men, two fathers and two sons, were in Newgate. The elder, William Shaftoe, was a rich Northumbrian squire, well-disposed to live at home at ease, but, being easily persuaded, he joined the Rebellion at the instigation of his wife. Mr. Justice Hall, his cousin, shared his captivity in Newgate. Patten tells a story of the kinsmen, which, he says, ‘has something diverting in it.’ They were walking in the press yard together when Shaftoe (who was a Church of England man, but had been formerly a Romanist) exclaimed, ‘Cousin Jack! I am thinking upon what is told us, that God will visit the sins of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation. I am of opinion that it is so with us, for your grandfather and my grandfather got most of their estates as sequestrators, and now we must lose them again for being rebels.’ [Sidenote: _JACOBITE PATTEN._] Another captive, the Rev. Mr. Patten (to whom reference has already been made), on finding himself in close confinement, soon turned his thoughts upon the method for getting out of it. He found he had leisure for reflecting on his past life. He took for especial subject of consideration that part of his life which he had spent in promoting the unsuccessful rebellion. He had been a fool. Could he save his neck by becoming a knave? He thought he might, and that the attempt was worth the making. The reverend gentleman, on the allegation of his being troubled with scruples, petitioned the Secretary of State, Lord Townshend, to be pleased to allow a clergyman to converse with him. The noble lord freely granted what was asked, and in a short time the Rev. Dr. Cannon was dispatched to the wavering Jacobite. He was, says Patten, ‘a man of singular good temper and literature, who applied his best endeavours to satisfy me in every Point and Query I proposed. In which, his Learning and solid Reasoning prevailed upon me; for which good Service, my best Wishes shall always attend him.’ [Sidenote: _HANOVERIAN PATTEN._] Dr. Cannon’s course was made known by its results. Patten became suddenly convinced that it was a duty incumbent upon him to make all the reparation he could, for the injury he had done and had intended to do to the Hanoverian cause. By being a traitor to his old comrades, he would serve the cause against which he had been in arms, and secure safety to himself by doing his best to destroy his former friends. ‘As the first thing in that way,’ he tells us, ‘I became an Evidence for the King; which I am far from being ashamed of, let what calumnies will follow.’