The Borough Compter is surely the most loathsome, fetid, narrow place that was ever used for a prison. Criminals and Debtors are confined together: rogues and innocent girls: the most depraved and the most virtuous: there is a yard for exercise which is only about twenty feet square for fifty prisoners: at night the men are turned into a room where they have to lie edgeways for want of space: there is no ventilation, and the air in the morning is more horrible than I can describe. My heart aches when I think of the cruelty of that place: it is a cruel place, because no one ever visits it, no righteous Justice of the Peace, no godly clergyman: there is no one to restrain the warder: and he goes on in the same way, not because he is cruel by nature, but because he is hardened by daily use and custom. I stayed in that terrible place for two nights, paying dues and garnish most exorbitant. At the end of that time I was informed that I could be removed to King's Bench at once. So I was taken to the Court and my business was quickly despatched. As a fine for being poor, I had to pay dues which ought not to be demanded of any prisoner for debt--at least we ought to assume that a debtor wants all the money he has for his maintenance. Thus, the Marshal demanded four shillings and sixpence on admission: the turnkey eighteen-pence: the Deputy Marshal a shilling: the Clerk of the Papers, a shilling: four tipstaffs ten shillings between them: and the tipstaff for bringing the prisoner from the Court, six shillings. These dues paid, I was assigned a room, on the ground-floor of the Great Building (it was shared with another), and my imprisonment began. It was Matthew's revenge and Mr. Probus's first plan of reduction to submission. But I did not submit. Thus I was trapped by the cunning of a man whom I believe to have been veritably possessed of a Devil. That there are such men we know very well from Holy Writ: their signs are a wickedness which shrinks from nothing: a pitiless nature: a constant desire for things of this world: and lastly, as happens always to such men, the transformation of what they desire, when they do get it, into dust and ashes; or its vanishing quite away never to be seen, touched, or enjoyed any more. These signs were all visible in the history of Mr. Probus, as you shall hear. Possessed, beyond a doubt, by a foul fiend, was this man whom then I had every reason to hate and fear. Now, I cannot but feel a mingled terror and pity when exemplary punishment overtakes and overwhelms one who commits crimes which make even the convicts in the condemned cell to shake and shudder. His end was horrible and terrible, but it was a fitting end to such a life. Tom Shirley came, with Alice, to visit me in my new lodging.