Fleet, June 6.
TO the account of such of my companions as
are imprisoned without being miserable, or are
miserable without any claim to compassion, I promised
to add the histories of those, whose virtue
has made them unhappy or whose misfortunes
are at least without a crime. That this catalogue
should be very numerous, neither you nor your
readers ought to expect: rari quippe boni; "the
good are few." Virtue is uncommon in all the
classes of humanity; and I suppose it will scarcely
be imagined more frequent in a prison than in
other places.
Yet in these gloomy regions is to be found the
tenderness, the generosity, the philanthropy of
Serenus, who might have lived in competence and
ease, if he could have looked without emotion on
the miseries of another. Serenus was one of those
exalted minds, whom knowledge and sagacity could
not make suspicious; who poured out his soul in
boundless intimacy, and thought community of
possessions the law of friendship. The friend of
Serenus was arrested for debt, and after many endeavours
to soften his creditor, sent his wife to solicit
that assistance which never was refused. The tears
and importunity of female distress were more than
was necessary to move the heart of Serenus; he
hasted immediately away, and conferring a long
time with his friend, found him confident that if
the present pressure was taken off, he should soon
be able to re-establish his affairs. Serenus,
accustomed to believe, and afraid to aggravate distress,
did not attempt to detect the fallacies of hope, nor
reflect that every man overwhelmed with calamity
believes, that if that was removed he shall immediately
be happy: he, therefore, with little hesitation
offered himself as surety.
In the first raptures of escape all was joy, gratitude,
and confidence: the friend of Serenus displayed
his prospects, and counted over the sums of
which he should infallibly be master before the day
of payment. Serenus in a short time began to find
his danger, but could not prevail with himself to
repent of beneficence; and therefore suffered himself
still to be amused with projects which he durst
not consider, for fear of finding them impracticable.
The debtor, after he had tried every method of
raising money which art or indigence could prompt,
wanted either fidelity or resolution to surrender
himself to prison, and left Serenus to take his place.
Serenus has often proposed to the creditor, to pay
him whatever he shall appear to have lost by the
flight of his friend: but however reasonable this
proposal may be thought, avarice and brutality have
been hitherto inexorable, and Serenus still continues
to languish in prison.
In this place, however, where want makes almost
every man selfish, or desperation gloomy, it is the
good fortune of Serenus not to live without a friend:
he passes most of his hours in the conversation of
Candidus, a man whom the same virtuous ductility
has, with some difference of circumstances, made
equally unhappy. Candidus, when he was young,
helpless, and ignorant, found a patron that educated,
protected, and supported him, his patron being
more vigilant for others than himself, left at his
death an only son, destitute and friendless. Candidus
was eager to repay the benefits he had received; and
having maintained the youth for a few years at his
own house, afterwards placed him with a merchant
of eminence, and gave bonds to a great value as a
security for his conduct.
The young man, removed too early from the only
eye of which he dreaded the observation, and deprived
of the only instruction which he heard with
reverence, soon learned to consider virtue as restraint,
and restraint as oppression: and to look with a
longing eye at every expense to which he could not
reach, and every pleasure which he could not partake:
by degrees he deviated from his first regularity,
and unhappily mingling among young men busy
in dissipating the gains of their fathers' industry, he
forgot the precepts of Candidus, spent the evening
in parties of pleasure, and the morning in expedients
to support his riots. He was, however, dexterous and
active in business: and his master, being secured
against any consequences of dishonesty, was very
little solicitous to inspect his manners, or to inquire
how he passed those hours, which were not immediately
devoted to the business of his profession:
when he was informed of the young man's
extravagance or debauchery, "let his bondsman look to
that," said he, "I have taken care of myself."
Thus the unhappy spendthrift proceeded from
folly to folly, and from vice to vice, with the
connivance, if not the encouragement, of his master; till
in the heat of a nocturnal revel he committed such
violences in the street as drew upon him a criminal
prosecution. Guilty and unexperienced, he knew not
what course to take: to confess his crime to Candidus,
and solicit his interposition, was little less dreadful
than to stand before the frown of a court of justice.
Having, therefore, passed the day with anguish in
his heart and distraction in his looks, he seized at
night a very large sum of money in the compting-
house, and setting out he knew not whither, was
heard of no more.
The consequence of his flight was the ruin of
Candidus; ruin surely undeserved and irreproachable,
and such as the laws of a just government ought
either to prevent or repair: nothing is more inequitable
than that one man should suffer for the crimes
of another, for crimes which he neither prompted
nor permitted, which he could neither foresee nor
prevent. When we consider the weakness of human
resolutions and the inconsistency of human conduct,
it must appear absurd that one man shall engage for
another, that he will not change his opinions or alter
his conduct.
It is, I think, worthy of consideration, whether,
since no wager is binding without a possibility of loss
on each side, it is not equally reasonable, that no
contract should be valid without reciprocal stipulations;
but in this case, and others of the same kind, what
is stipulated on his side to whom the bond is given?
he takes advantage of the security, neglects his
affairs, omits his duty, suffers timorous wickedness to
grow daring by degrees, permits appetite to call for
new gratifications, and, perhaps, secretly longs for the
time in which he shall have power to seize the
forfeiture; and if virtue or gratitude should prove too
strong for temptation, and a young man persist in
honesty, however instigated by his passions, what
can secure him at last against a false accusation? I
for my part always shall suspect, that he who can
by such methods secure his property, will go one
step further to increase it; nor can I think that man
safely trusted with the means of mischief, who, by
his desire to have them in his hands, gives an
evident proof how much less he values his neighbour's
happiness than his own.
Another of our companions is Lentulus, a man
whose dignity of birth was very ill supported by
his fortune. As some of the first offices in the
kingdom were filled by his relations, he was early
invited to court, and encouraged by caresses and
promises to attendance and solicitation; a constant
appearance in splendid company necessarily
required magnificence of dress; and a frequent
participation of fashionable amusements forced him
into expense: but these measures were requisite
to his success; since every body knows, that to be
lost to sight is to be lost to remembrance, and that
he who desires to fill a vacancy, must be always at
hand, lest some man of greater vigilance should
step in before him.
By this course of life his little fortune was every
day made less: but he received so many distinctions
in publick, and was known to resort so familiarly
to the houses of the great, that every man looked
on his preferment as certain, and believed that its
value would compensate for its slowness: he, therefore,
found no difficulty in obtaining credit for all
that his rank or his vanity made necessary: and, as
ready payment was not expected, the bills were
proportionably enlarged, and the value of the hazard
or delay was adjusted solely by the equity of
the creditor. At length death deprived Lentulus
of one of his patrons, and a revolution in the
ministry of another; so that all his prospects vanished
at once, and those that had before encouraged his
expenses, began to perceive that their money was
in danger; there was now no other contention but
who should first seize upon his person, and, by
forcing immediate payment, deliver him up naked
to the vengeance of the rest. In pursuance of this
scheme, one of them invited him to a tavern, and
procured him to be arrested at the door; but Lentulus,
instead of endeavouring secretly to pacify him
by payment, gave notice to the rest, and offered to
divide amongst them the remnant of his fortune:
they feasted six hours at his expense, to deliberate
on his proposal; and at last determined, that as he
could not offer more than five shillings in the pound,
it would be more prudent to keep him in prison,
till he could procure from his relations the payment
of his debts.
Lentulus is not the only man confined within
these walls, on the same account: the like procedure,
upon the like motives, is common among men whom
yet the law allows to partake the use of fire and water
with the compassionate and the just; who frequent
the assemblies of commerce in open day, and talk
with detestation and contempt of highwaymen or
housebreakers: but, surely, that man must be confessedly
robbed, who is compelled, by whatever means,
to pay the debts which he does not owe: nor can I
look with equal hatred upon him, who, at the hazard
of his life, holds out his pistol and demands my
purse, as on him who plunders under shelter of the
law, and by detaining my son or my friend in prison,
extorts from me the price of their liberty. No
man can be more an enemy to society than he, by
whose machinations our virtues are turned to our
disadvantage; he is less destructive to mankind
that plunders cowardice, than he that preys upon
compassion.
I believe, Mr. Adventurer, you will readily
confess, that though not one of these, if tried before a
commercial judicature, can be wholly acquitted from
imprudence or temerity; yet that, in the eye of all
who can consider virtue as distinct from wealth, the
fault of two of them, at least, is outweighed by the
merit; and that of the third is so much extenuated
by the circumstances of his life, as not to deserve a
perpetual prison: yet must these, with multitudes
equally blameless, languish in confinement, till
malevolence shall relent, or the law be changed.