confined here for debt only, separate ourselves entirely from the prigs; neither drink with them nor converse with them.  Let us at the same time separate ourselves farther from priggism itself.  Instead of being ready, on every opportunity, to pillage each other, let us be content with our honest share of the common bounty, and with the acquisition of our own industry.  When we separate from the prigs, let us enter into a closer alliance with one another.  Let us consider ourselves all as members of one community, to the public good of which we are to sacrifice our private views; not to give up the interest of the whole for every little pleasure or profit which shall accrue to ourselves.  Liberty is consistent with no degree of honesty inferior to this, and the community where this abounds no prig will have the impudence or audaciousness to endeavour to enslave; or if he should, his own destruction would be the only consequence of his attempt.  But while one man pursues his ambition, another his interest, another his safety; while one hath a roguery (a priggism they here call it) to commit, and another a roguery to defend; they must naturally fly to the favour and protection of those who have power to give them what they desire, and to defend them from what they fear; nay, in this view it becomes their interest to promote this power in their patrons.  Now, gentlemen, when we are no longer prigs, we shall no longer have these fears or these desires.  What remains, therefore, for us but to resolve bravely to lay aside our priggism, our roguery, in plainer words, and preserve our liberty, or to give up the latter in the preservation and preference of the former?”

This speech was received with much applause; however, Wild continued as before to levy contributions among the prisoners, to apply the garnish to his own use, and to strut openly in the ornaments which he had stripped from Johnson.  To speak sincerely, there was more bravado than real use or advantage in these trappings.  As for the nightgown, its outside indeed made a glittering tinsel appearance, but it kept him not warm, nor could the finery of it do him much honour, since every one knew it did not properly belong to him; as to the waistcoat, it fitted him very ill, being infinitely too big for him; and the cap was so heavy that it made his head ache.  Thus these cloathes, which perhaps (as they presented the idea of their misery more sensibly to the people’s eyes) brought him more envy, hatred, and detraction, than all his deeper impositions and more real advantages, afforded very little use or honour to the wearer; nay, could scarce serve to amuse his own vanity when this was cool enough to reflect with the least seriousness.  And, should I speak in the language of a man who estimated human happiness without regard to that greatness, which we have so laboriously endeavoured to paint in this history, it is probable he never took (i.e. robbed the prisoners of) a shilling, which he himself did not pay too dear for.