Another part of his misconduct was, the practice of prolonging his visits to unseasonable hours, and disconcerting all the families into which he was admitted.  This was an error in a place of commerce, which all the charms of conversion could not compensate; for what trader would purchase such airy satisfaction, with the loss of solid gain, which must be the consequence of midnight merriment, as those hours which were gained at night were generally lost in the morning?  Distress at last stole upon him by imperceptible degrees; his conduct had already wearied some of those who were at first enamoured of his conversation; but he still might have devolved to others, whom he might have entertained with equal success, had not the decay of his cloaths made it no longer consistent with decency to admit him to their tables, or to associate with him in public places.  He now began to find every man from home, at whose house he called; and was therefore no longer able to procure the necessaries of life, but wandered about the town, slighted and neglected, in quest of a dinner, which, he did not always obtain.  To compleat his misery, he was obliged to withdraw from the small number of friends from whom he had still reason to hope for favours.  His custom was to lie in bed the greatest part of the day, and to go out in the dark with the utmost privacy, and after having paid his visit, return again before morning to his lodging, which was in the garret of an obscure inn.

Being thus excluded on one hand, and confined on the other, he suffered the utmost extremities of poverty, and often waited so long, that he was seized with faintness, and had lost his appetite, not being able to bear the smell of meat, ’till the action of his stomach was restored by a cordial.

He continued to bear these severe pressures, ’till the landlady of a coffee-house, to whom he owed about eight pounds, compleated his wretchedness.  He was arrested by order of this woman, and conducted to the house of a Sheriff’s Officer, where he remained some time at a great expence, in hopes of finding bail.  This expence he was enabled to support by a present from Mr. Nash of Bath, who, upon hearing of his late mis-fortune, sent him five guineas.  No friends would contribute to release him from prison at the expence of eight pounds, and therefore he was removed to Newgate.  He bore this misfortune with an unshaken fortitude, and indeed the treatment he met with from Mr. Dagg, the keeper of the prison, greatly softened the rigours of his confinement.  He was supported by him at his own table, without any certainty of recompence; had a room to himself, to which he could at any time retire from all disturbance; was allowed to stand at the door of the prison, and sometimes taken out into the fields; so that he suffered fewer hardships in the prison, than he had been accustomed to undergo the greatest part of his life.  Virtue is undoubtedly most laudable in that state which makes it most difficult; and therefore the humanity of the gaoler certainly deserves this public attestation.