The cell to which I was consigned was dark and loathsome, as all Scotch jails then were, and as many of them still are. A small grating looked out into a yard, where sick debtors were allowed space to walk. A small stream of light came in at this aperture, and exhibited to me all the horrors of my place of confinement--the pallet of straw, a broken chair, and fragments of iron chains, which had been used for the purpose of binding felons. I cannot describe what I felt, as my eye glanced, in the dim light of the cell, over these articles; yet they added nothing to my pain. I may even say with truth, that they had rather the power of diminishing it--the lowest condition of despair sometimes drawing from an additional evil a species of frozen insensibility, which is felt as a relief. For two or three days I scarcely moved; my meat lay by the side of my pallet, and I saw crowds of hungry rats come and eat of it--fighting with each other over the vessel, and turning, at times, and looking at me, apparently without terror. The sight of these creatures at one time would have made me fly and scream, from an involuntary fear of them, to which I had all my life been subject; but I now sat and looked at them with apathy, though they approached so near to me that I could have seized them with my extended hand. This fit of inanity gradually wore off; but it was succeeded by a condition a thousand times more fearful; for, as if the restrained blood had obeyed some impulse of reacting nature, my veins began to beat violently, my temples throbbed, and the thoughts that had been frozen or fixed in one gloomy direction began to career violently--touching all subjects in their progress; retracing every painful circumstance of my lot; contrasting my former happiness with my present misery; foreshadowing my trial, my condemnation, my execution or banishment; and then, again, mixing up a thousand images, leaving me in a state of wild confusion, incapable of distinguishing one thing from another. This was the beginning of a fever. I was insensible for many days--had been bled and blistered--despaired of--and recovered from the brink of death, to meet a fate a thousand times more dreadful. My trial, as I understood, was put off until I should be in a condition to be able to sit upright in the dock. When I became able to speak, I was waited on by a man of the law. I knew not who sent him, but suspected that he came at the bidding of Augustus, who probably thought I might yet be brought off. I told the man the truth; and requested him to ascertain whether my aunt was in her senses when she made the declaration on her death-bed. He answered, that he had already made inquiries on that subject, but that none of the witnesses would admit that she was otherwise than sane; and the circumstance of her having been on her death-bed militated against me. He seemed to pity me, but held out no hope. I asked to have one meeting with Augustus, but knew not whether my message reached him. He never came; and I had no relatives to take a part for me in my defence.