Here he purposed to remain; but within a month he was back to London. A young surgeon, of the name of Snowde, had met in Bristol a man of the name of Ramsey, who in a state of destitution and distress had applied to Wesley for relief. Wesley employed him in writing and in keeping accounts for him, and afterwards in teaching a school instituted by the Bristol society.[341] Ramsey brought the young surgeon to hear Wesley preach. Both were rascals, and availed themselves of an opportunity of stealing £30 that had been collected towards building Kingswood school. Snowde went off to London; fell in with his old acquaintance; committed highway robbery; was arrested, tried, and condemned to die. While in Newgate, awaiting the execution of his sentence, he wrote to a friend, adjuring Wesley, “by the living God,” to come and see him before his death. Wesley, who had been robbed so sacrilegiously, started off, on a journey of more than two hundred miles, purposely to visit the convict thief. He found him apparently penitent, and having only a week to live. On the day before his sentence was to be executed, the poor creature wrote:—“I trust God has forgiven me all my sins, washing them away in the blood of the Lamb.” Next morning a reprieve was sent, and, six weeks afterwards, he was ordered for transportation. Whether Wesley assisted in obtaining the commutation of his sentence we have no means of knowing;[342] but as soon as the affair was settled he returned to Bristol; where, with the exception of a brief interval of about a week’s duration, he continued until the month of June. The rest of the year, excepting about three weeks, was spent in London. In Bristol, the work, in its outward aspects, was greatly altered. Wesley writes:—“Convictions sink deeper and deeper; love and joy are more calm, even, and steady.”