Page:Modern Literature Volume 3 (1804).djvu/71

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

and indeed there was no charge against him that could justify legal detention. "Here," he said, "is my brother Hamilton, who will bail me; I have not been the least to blame, a man put a pistol to my head, and I would confess any thing rather than be shot." Before Hamilton could make any answer to his repeated applications for assistance, the representative of Ophelia entered the apartment, just as her Hamlet was most solemnly appealing to Heaven for his innocence. With impassioned violence she exclaimed, "innocence! a more guilty wretch disgraces not Newgate. Here is a fellow who, pretending to religion, makes that sacred principle the cloak for his vices; the chief purpose and effects of his sanctified discourses and behaviour; his seduction, fraud, and extortion." O'Rourke endeavoured to