It would be impossible for me to recount, in
the compass of one day's conversation, all the particular exploits
of which I bore considerable share. Suffice it to say, I have been,
at different times, prisoner in all the jails within the bills
of mortality. I have broken from every round-house on this side
Temple-bar. No bailiff, in the days of my youth and desperation,
durst execute a writ upon me without a dozen of followers; and the
justices themselves trembled when I was brought before them.
"I was once maimed by a carman, with whom I quarrelled, because
he ridiculed my leek on St. David's day; my skull was fractured by
a butcher's cleaver on the like occasion. I have been run through
the body five times, and lost the tip of my left ear by a pistol
bullet. In a rencontre of this kind, having left my antagonist
for dead, I was wise enough to make my retreat into France; and a
few days after my arrival at Paris, entering into conversation with
some officers on the subject of politics, a dispute arose, in which
I lost my temper, and spoke so irreverently of the Grand Monarque,
that next morning I was sent to the Bastille, by virtue of a
lettre de cachet.
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