of inefficient idleness. I felt myself an outcast from society. My desolate situation, a wounded conscience, readily brought me home to myself. I wished to terminate my sufferings by death. Such were the feelings of a guilty mind in extreme misery, when your generous intervention enabled me to exercise cooler reflection.
Our travellers were much affected by the lady's narrative; Hamilton used his eloquence to console her, and to persuade her that the circumstances which she mentioned, and the contrition which she displayed, evinced such a mind as when restored to its place in society, would first compensate, and finally obliterate the unhappy effects of artful and pernicious companions, in suspending rectitude of principle, and perverting justness and vigour of understanding. "I am convinced," he said, "that still
