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with the foulest disgrace!
I began these memoirs with the idea of vindicating my character. I have now no character that I wish to vindicate: but I will finish them that thy story may be fully understood; and that, if those errors of thy life be known which thou so ardently desiredst to conceal, the world may at least not hear and repeat a half-told and mangled tale.
1. I confess, however, the inability I found to weave a catastrophe, such as I desired, out of these ordinary incidents. What I have here said, therefore, must not be interpreted as applicable to the concluding sheets of my work.
2. An incident exactly similar to this was witnessed by a friend of the author, a few years since, in a visit to the prison of Newgate.
3. A story extremely similar to this is to be found in the Newgate Calendar, vol. i. p. 382.
4. See Howard on Prisons.
5. In the case of the peine forte et dure. See State Trials, Vol. I. anno 1615.
6. This seems to be the parody of a celebrated saying of John King of France, who was taken prisoner by the Black Prince at the battle of Poitiers.
7. Eugene Aram. See Annual Register for 1759.
8. William Andrew Home. Ibid.
Ann Radcliffe
The Mysteries of Udolpho