Here is his story (told in 1822) of the first conception of the plan, and his notion of its value:-- “The next day after Gibbs, Ellenborough, and their associates, had got me safe in Newgate, an American friend of mine, who had the clearest and soundest head of almost any man I ever knew in my life, and for whom I had and still have a very great personal regard, came to see me in a very miserable hole, though better than that to which I had been sentenced, and from which I finally ransomed myself at the expense, for _lodging_ alone, of 1200_l._ Being seated, one of us on each side of a little bit of a table, he said, looking up into my face, with his arms folded upon the edge of the table, ‘Well! they have _got you_ at last. And now, what will you do?’ After a moment or two I answered, ‘What do you think I ought to do?’ He then gave me his opinion, and entered pretty much into a sort of plan of proceedings. I heard him out, and then I spoke to him in much about these words: ‘No, Dickins, that will never do. This nation is drunk, it is mad as a March hare, and mad it will be till this beastly frolic (_the war_) is over. The only mode of proceeding, to get satisfaction, requires great patience. The nation must suffer at last, and greatly and dreadfully suffer, and in that suffering it will come to its reason, and to that justice of sentiment, which are now wholly banished. I shall make no immediate impression by tracing the paper-system to its deadly root. The common people will stare at me, and the rich ruffians will swear; but the time must come when all will listen; and my plan is to write that _now_ which I can hold up to the teeth of my insolent enemies, and taunt them with in the hour of their distress.…’ I then described to him the outline of what I intended to do with regard to the paper-system; and after passing a very pleasant afternoon, during which we selected and rejected several titles, we at last fixed upon that of _Paper against Gold_, which I began to write and to publish in a few weeks afterwards, and which, at the end of thirteen years, I hold up to the noses of the insolent foes who then exulted over me, and tell them, ‘This is what you got by my having been sentenced to Newgate: this was the produce of that deed by which it was hoped and believed, that I was pressed down never to be able to stir again.…’ This was a new epoch in the progress of my mind. I now bent my whole force to one object, regarding everything else as of no consequence at all. The pursuits of agriculture and gardening filled up the moments of mere leisure and relaxation. Other topics than that of paper-money came now and then to make a variety; but this was the main thing. I never had any hope in anything else; and nothing else was an object of my care.”