Six Years in the Prisons of England. Various
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at Euston Square Station for the place which I intended to have gone to, under such widely different circumstances, the previous evening. My guardian performed his duty during this long and painful journey with kindness and consideration, and did not propose to put handcuffs upon me.
Arrived at our destination, I was marched through the police and sheriffs office to the common prison, and, to my utter astonishment and dismay, was prohibited for nine or ten days to have any communication with my friends. The single ray of hope which had sustained me on my weary journey, and illumined my darkest hour, was thus pitilessly excluded, and for the first time since my arrest I began to realise my true position. When I learnt that my arrest and incarceration in jail was noticed in all the newspapers, I felt that I was utterly and hopelessly ruined. No language could describe the anguish I endured as I thought of my wife and my friends, of the disgrace and humiliation which I had brought upon them, and of the separation, worse than death itself, which was in store for us. Yet, strange as it may appear, amid all the mental torture I then and afterwards endured, I also experienced a certain sense of relief in my mind from considerations which would scarcely be expected to operate on one in my situation. Those only who have been in difficulties in business, who have borne the ceaseless strain on body and mind which the burden of obligations, each day rushing forward with ever increasing velocity for liquidation, entails upon those who are honestly striving to stem the ebbing tide of fortune, can fully understand how relieved I felt at the thought that I had no longer any bills to pay. Then a strong sense of indignation towards my prosecutors mingled with the wild and bitter current of my thoughts, and prevented me from being overpowered and destroyed. It was now but too clear to me that I was the victim of a premeditated and heartless scheme, the successful issue of which was to protect my creditors from loss indeed, but to involve me in utter ruin.
I saw, with feelings I cannot and dare not utter, and which I now confess it was sinful in me to cherish, that they had lured me on to the centre of a great sea of ice; that they had, when their opportunity came, broken it around me, and left me alone and helpless to struggle against inevitable doom. Three of the six long weary months during which I waited for trial were thus passed in a state of agony bordering on the madness of despair. The hours seemed magnified into days, and the weeks into years; and, as they dragged their slow length along, my mental anguish received a new and terrible ally. Although I was as yet in the eye of the law an innocent man, the miserable allowance of oatmeal which constituted my chief food, and which was in all respects inferior to the penal diet of the worst-behaved convict I ever met with in the English prisons, became loathsome to me, and the pangs of hunger were added to the mental torture I had till then alone endured. My cup of misery was surely filled to the brim!
With the recollection of what I suffered then, burnt, as it were, with a hot iron on my memory, I thank Almighty God that no fiend was ever permitted, even in my worst and weakest hour, to whisper suicide to my ear; but I now can understand how some have listened to the fell deceiver, and welcomed him, as friend and deliverer, to their arms. Fortunately for me, my early training and subsequent mode of life preserved me from any thought of this fatal solution to the problem of my life. I read my bible almost constantly, although my reading seemed only to add to the bitterness of my regrets and self-reproaches. These questions would constantly suggest themselves to me: "Could I ever have been a Christian?" and "What will the enemies of Christianity think and say about my fall?" Until one day about noon, as I was gazing through the window of my lonely cell, I saw, or fancied I saw, a solitary star, and my thoughts were gradually lifted from the cross of suffering to the throne of Mercy, and (let philosophers and theologians explain it as they may) instantaneous peace of mind followed the sight, or fancied sight, of that noon-tide star! The load was removed which threatened to crush my brain into lunacy, the "salt surf waves of bitterness" were stilled, and within me there was peace.
The preparations for my approaching trial now occupied the principal share of my attention. I had already consulted a solicitor, and without telling him the whole of my case, I learned from him that I could not be tried at all if the Continental witnesses refused to come to Scotland. So advised, I began to flatter myself with the belief that my case would ultimately be abandoned for lack of evidence. I certainly wished that my late partner would come over and testify to my partnership with him, which would have cleared my name from dishonour so far as related to the bills with which we were jointly concerned; but, knowing there were other bills of a similar character of which he knew nothing, I thought it would be useless to attempt to clear myself on one set of bills when I was unable to do so on them all, and I consented to my friend being instructed by my solicitor to remain at home. As, of course, it was of the last importance to me that the witnesses in connection with the other set of bills should also be absent, my solicitor wrote to them to the same effect. I will here explain the reasons which induced me at this crisis to adopt a course which many of my readers, no doubt, will regard as an attempt to defeat the ends of justice. I did not for a moment desire to justify myself with regard to the bills in question. To utter bills of exchange for which no real value has been given is not justifiable, however common it may be, and to tender such bills in exchange for merchandise, and dishonour them at maturity, is flagrant dishonesty. Whatever may have been the amount of my guilt, of the intention to defraud any man I was as innocent as an unborn child. If I had had any such intention, the Bankruptcy Court would have been the safe and easy way to gratify it. Neither in these transactions did I ever suppose that I was offending the statute law of the country, since by the exercise of the same caution which enabled, and still enables, other men to tread very closely upon, but never to overstep, the limits of legality, I too might have kept myself secure from criminal prosecution. I considered myself justified, therefore, in availing myself of such means as were in my power to evade the operation of laws I had never consciously violated. But in all this I may have been, and probably was, in error; I have no wish to extenuate or explain away any fault or crime of which I may have been guilty; I choose, rather, the language of penitence and confession; and although I may never perhaps be forgiven by society, I shall cherish the hope of being more mercifully dealt with by Him who said, with reference to a greater sin than mine, "Go, and sin no more."
Thus the days and weeks passed away, while I still hoped and believed that no one would appear to witness against me. The prison diet now, however, began to tell seriously upon me.
In England and America I believe a prisoner is allowed to maintain himself, under certain restrictions, whilst he is waiting for trial; but in Scotland he is compelled to subsist on a diet which is considered the main ingredient in the punishment of the very lowest class of offenders whose sentences do not exceed a few months' imprisonment. The sense of punishment involved in this treatment—which would kill me now—was to some extent forgotten in the greater mental suffering I then endured, but the pangs of hunger and painful dreams about food frequently compelled me to think of my health. On making a complaint to the medical officer of the prison, he told me that as I was in good health he could only give me the choice of coffee and a slice of bread in lieu of the oatmeal breakfast; but on seeing the small quantity of bread I was to be allowed, compared with the bulk of the oatmeal porridge, I decided on not changing for the worse. I did not wish to be treated differently from other prisoners, and therefore did not appeal to any higher authority. Indeed, I then imagined that as I was stronger and heartier than the majority of my miserable companions, I could subsist upon a meagre diet as well, if not better, than they. I now know from experience that I was wrong in this opinion, and that the man of strong digestion, accustomed to a generous diet, is likely to sustain more injury to his health by a sudden change to a very low scale of dietary, than those of weak digestion who have not been accustomed to any other. The only concession made to me was a slight addition to the time for exercise in the open-air cribs provided for that purpose. My legs, accustomed to much exertion, began to get stiff, and after I had been incarcerated for four or five months, one of my ankles occasionally pained me. The day fixed for my trial at last drew nigh, and so confident had I become that I should be liberated without a trial, that I had my clothes packed and ready to take abroad with me. I intended to leave the country for ever, and seek a new home in a distant land, where the prejudices of friends and society would not debar me from all the channels of honour and usefulness. I was removed a few days previous to the date fixed for my trial to the prison in the city where it was appointed to take place, and I then had my first experience of handcuffs.
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