The trial proceeded; Armstrong was the principal evidence.  To my person he would not swear.  The Jew proved my selling my clothes, purchasing those found in the bundle, and the stick, of which Armstrong possessed himself.  The clothes I had on at the time of my capture were produced in court.  As for Ogle, his case was decisive.  We were then called upon for our defence.  Ogle’s was very short.  “He had been accustomed to fits all his life—­was walking to Hounslow, and had fallen down in a fit.  It must have been somebody else who had committed the robbery and had made off, and he had been picked up in a mistake.”  This defence appeared to make no other impression than ridicule, and indignation at the barefaced assertion.  I was then called on for mine.

“My lord,” said I, “I have no defence to make except that which I asserted before the magistrates, that I was performing an act of charity towards a fellow-creature, and was, through that, supposed to be an accomplice.”

“Arraigned before so many upon a charge, at the bare accusation of which my blood revolts, I cannot and will not allow those who might prove what my life has been, and the circumstances which induced me to take up the disguise in which I was taken, to appear in my behalf.  I am unfortunate, but not guilty.  One only chance appears to be open to me, which is, in the candour of the party who now stands by me.  If he will say to the court that he ever saw me before, I will submit without murmur to my sentence.”

“I’m sorry that you’ve put that question, my boy,” replied the man, “for I have seen you before;” and the wretch chuckled with repressed laughter.

I was so astonished, so thunderstruck with this assertion, that I held own my head, and made no reply.  The judge then summed up the evidence to the jury, pointing out to them, that of Ogle’s guilt there could be no doubt, and of mine, he was sorry to say, but little.  Still they must bear in mind that the witness Armstrong could not swear to my person.  The jury, without leaving the box, consulted together a short time, and brought in a verdict of guilty against Benjamin Ogle and Philip Maddox.  I heard no more—­the judge sentenced us both to execution:  he lamented that so young and prepossessing a person as myself should be about to suffer for such an offence:  he pointed out the necessity of condign punishment, and gave us no hopes of pardon or clemency.  But I heard him not—­I did not fall, but I was in a state of stupor.  At last, he wound up his sentence by praying us to prepare ourselves for the awful change, by an appeal to that heavenly Father—­“Father!” exclaimed I, in a voice which electrified the court, “did you say my father?  O God! where is he?” and I fell down in a fit.  The handkerchiefs of the ladies were applied to their faces, the whole court were moved, for I had, by my appearance, excited considerable interest, and the judge, with a faltering, subdued voice, desired that the prisoners might be removed.