"I am returned from Bury, and I regret to say that I am not to die yet. That day is put off--perhaps that I may be swallowed up by the sea, or be eaten by the savages of Botany Bay. I am to look forward to years of degraded slavery, and to be sent away from my country and my friends. I am so sorrowful, my dear lady, that I require more of your good advice to learn to live than to learn to die. I feel, indeed, as if my judge did it to torment me, and if I had the opportunity, I should certainly tell him so. You told me he would be severe; he was bitterly so, but it made me feel much less grateful to him than I did the first time. Then I thought him like you, dear lady, but I see no traces of that resemblance now. His words were tormenting, his manners towards me tormenting, and his change of sentence is tormenting. I would really have rather been left to die, though by the hand of the public executioner, than be as I am, soon to be sent out of the country to meet a more miserable death. If I never see you more, I shall never forget you. I told the judge that but for your friendship I should not have been sensible of my sin. He called me a hardened sinner, and said I was not fit to live. I wonder, then, that he did not suffer me to die. Dear lady, I feel so very low, that if you do not come and see me I shall be miserable indeed. Do--oh! pray do, if you can! I hope you are suffering less from the effects of your sprain, and that I shall see you. Forgive your poor servant's boldness and seeming selfishness. I pray earnestly for you and your dear family. Oh that I could see the dear Cliff again! So happy was I when I first lived there, and so should I be now, could I ever hope to see you there again. To be your servant would be something worth living for; but to be a slave in a foreign land! Oh! my dear lady! death would be preferable to "Your poor servant, "MARGARET CATCHPOLE. "To MRS. COBBOLD, Cliff, Ipswich." Her letter was dated on Saturday, the 9th August. It may be seen in the _Ipswich Journal_ of the 16th of August, A. D. 1800, that the Lord Chief Baron paid a visit to the Ipswich gaol on Tuesday, 12th of August. He arrived on the morning of that day in his carriage, and was not personally known to the turnkey. He told the man that he came purposely to inspect the gaol, and wished particularly to see the spot where Margaret Catchpole effected her escape. "Did you fill the office of turnkey at the time?" inquired the visitor. "I did, sir," replied the man. "Then you had a very narrow escape; for, had I been the judge to have tried you, I should have been much inclined to have thought you guilty of connivance in this matter." "Then I am very glad, sir, that you are not a judge."