consign me to prison for years, if possible. And I was fortunate in including my beloved father in my dreadful letter, as the sequel will show. I then advanced to Scituate, about ten miles from Providence, and wrote another letter to my father and father-in-law, threatening to come to Providence on the following day, and take their lives, if they did not rescue me from my horrible dilemma. Two constables, named Gould and Potter, came to Scituate, and arrested me at the Hotel of Dr. Battey, (from which I had dated my letter,) and took me to Providence in a carriage, and put me in jail as a debtor, on a debt of five hundred dollars, created for the occasion by the wisdom of my father. My father-in-law desired to imprison me as a criminal, (as I had anticipated,) but my father’s counsels prevailed, and I was saved from a felon’s doom. In those days, debtors were incarcerated, and I was confined in a dark cell, by locks, and bars, and bolts, as all Providence feared I would escape, and kill my father and father-in-law, and perhaps others. Their fears were supremely ridiculous, as, if I had seriously contemplated their death, I would not have told them where I was in Scituate, nor the precise period that I should come to Providence and dispatch them. But my object was attained. I meant to have a crisis, and I got it with a vengeance on all sides. The night I entered my cell was the happiest of my life. My bed was on the floor, and rats and bugs crawled over me to their hearts’ content. I never slept more sweetly, though occasionally aroused by the enormous rats squealing and nibbling at my nose. The privy of the prisoners in the large debtors’ apartment joined my cell, and the stench was almost intolerable, and yet I soon became accustomed even to that, and for days I laughed and danced and sang as never, for I had emerged from anxiety and torture approximating purgatory itself. Mr. Parker, a debtor, soon joined me in my cell, and we played cards, and narrated our curious experience, and had a merry time; but Parker obtained his liberty, and I was again alone, and I soon got melancholy, and I wept bitterly over the calamities of my beloved wife, through her penurious and demon father. In three weeks I was permitted the freedom of the jail, which imparted perfect bliss to my disconsolate mind. I reviewed my classics and mathematics in prison, and some faithful companions called, and time again passed merrily. In six weeks my father came, and (as my only complainant) effected my discharge, by withdrawing his fictitious suit for debt against me. He accompanied me in a carriage to the steamboat, and gave me money, with his most affectionate blessing, and I departed for New York, an outcast, in company with a dear relative named Franklin Cooley, who had been very kind to me during my entire confinement, and through all my days. I left my benefactor in New York, and departed for Albany, and went to