The preparations for my approaching trial now occupied the principal share of my attention. I had already consulted a solicitor, and without telling him the whole of my case, I learned from him that I could not be tried at all if the Continental witnesses refused to come to Scotland. So advised, I began to flatter myself with the belief that my case would ultimately be abandoned for lack of evidence. I certainly wished that my late partner would come over and testify to my partnership with him, which would have cleared my name from dishonour so far as related to the bills with which we were jointly concerned; but, knowing there were other bills of a similar character of which he knew nothing, I thought it would be useless to attempt to clear myself on one set of bills when I was unable to do so on them all, and I consented to my friend being instructed by my solicitor to remain at home. As, of course, it was of the last importance to me that the witnesses in connection with the other set of bills should also be absent, my solicitor wrote to them to the same effect. I will here explain the reasons which induced me at this crisis to adopt a course which many of my readers, no doubt, will regard as an attempt to defeat the ends of justice. I did not for a moment desire to justify myself with regard to the bills in question. To utter bills of exchange for which no real value has been given is not justifiable, however common it may be, and to tender such bills in exchange for merchandise, and dishonour them at maturity, is flagrant dishonesty. Whatever may have been the amount of my guilt, of the intention to defraud any man I was as innocent as an unborn child. If I had had any such intention, the Bankruptcy Court would have been the safe and easy way to gratify it. Neither in these transactions did I ever suppose that I was offending the statute law of the country, since by the exercise of the same caution which enabled, and still enables, other men to tread very closely upon, but never to overstep, the limits of legality, I too might have kept myself secure from criminal prosecution. I considered myself justified, therefore, in availing myself of such means as were in my power to evade the operation of laws I had never consciously violated. But in all this I may have been, and probably was, in error; I have no wish to extenuate or explain away any fault or crime of which I may have been guilty; I choose, rather, the language of penitence and confession; and although I may never perhaps be forgiven by society, I shall cherish the hope of being more mercifully dealt with by Him who said, with reference to a greater sin than mine, "Go, and sin no more." Thus the days and weeks passed away, while I still hoped and believed that no one would appear to witness against me. The prison diet now, however, began to tell seriously upon me.