The History of Thomas Ellwood Written By HimselfEllwood, Thomas
History
The History of Thomas Ellwood Written By Himself
Ellwood, Thomas
Ellwood, Thomas, 1639-1713; Quakers -- Biography
They all carried themselves respectfully towards me, which I imputed
chiefly to this, that when any of our women friends came there to visit
the prisoners, if they had not relations of their own there to take care
of them, I, as being a young man and more at leisure than most others,
for I could not play the tailor there, was forward to go down with them
to the grate, and see them safe out. And sometimes they have left money
in my hands for the felons, who at such times were very importunate
beggars, which I forthwith distributed among them in bread, which was to
be had in the place. But so troublesome an office it was, that I thought
one had as good have had a pack of hungry hounds about one, as these,
when they knew there was a dole to be given. Yet this, I think, made
them a little the more observant to me; for they would dispose themselves
to one side of the room, that they might make way for me to walk on the
other.
For having, as I hinted before, made up our packs and taken our leave of
our friends, whom we were to leave behind, we took our bundles on our
shoulders, and walked two and two abreast through the Old Bailey into
Fleet Street, and so to Old Bridewell. And it being about the middle of
the afternoon, and the streets pretty full of people, both the
shopkeepers at their doors and passengers in the way would stop us, and
ask us what we were and whither we were going; and when we had told them
we were prisoners going from one prison to another, from Newgate to
Bridewell, “What!” said they, “without a keeper?”—“No,” said we, “for our
word, which we have given, is our keeper.” Some thereupon would advise
us not to go to prison, but to go home. But we told them we could not do
so; we could suffer for our testimony, but could not fly from it. I do
not remember we had any abuse offered us, but were generally pitied by
the people.
When we were come to Bridewell, we were not put up into the great room in
which we had been before, but into a low room in another fair court,
which had a pump in the middle of it. And here we were not shut up as
before, but had the liberty of the court to walk in, and of the pump to
wash or drink at. And indeed we might easily have gone quite away if we
would, there being a passage through the court into the street; but we
were true and steady prisoners, and looked upon this liberty, arising
from their confidence in us, to be a kind of parole upon us; so that both
conscience and honour stood now engaged for our true imprisonment.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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