"
The clerk, though he was bred under an attorney, could not refrain
from blushing at this blunder, which he endeavoured to conceal,
by observing, that these decoys would not do with me, who seemed
to be an old offender. He went on with asking, if I believed in
transubstantiation; but I treated the notion of real presence with
such disrespect, that his patron was scandalised at my impiety,
and commanded him to proceed to the plot. Whereupon this miserable
pettifogger told me, there was great reason to suspect me of being
a spy on board, and that I had entered into a conspiracy with
Thompson, and others not yet detected, against the life of Captain
Oakum, which accusation they pretended to support by the evidence
of our boy, who declared he had often heard the deceased Thompson
and me whispering together, and could distinguish the words, "Oakum,
rascal, poison, pistol;" by which expressions it appeared, we did
intend to use sinister means to accomplish his destruction. That
the death of Thompson seemed to confirm this conjecture, who, either
feeling the stings of remorse for being engaged in such a horrid
confederacy, or fearing a discovery, by which he must have infallibly
suffered an ignominious death, had put a fatal period to his own
existence.
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