It is certainly high on the list of good outcomes for me, even if, as I expect, my pardon is conditioned on my agreeing to transportation to America. Even so, as loathe as I am to become a martyr of any stripe, I am in equal measure disappointed for the cause of freedom of speech. There will be no official censorship tomorrow – all they have done is to eliminate the market. Yet they will have jailed me for months for what I, an Englishman, believed, and said. For my advocacy on behalf of England and some of her best, as well as some of her worst. All of this while committing no treason nor heresy, slandering no King, in fact harming no-one: and the only good that will come out of it will be my life. I am sure Liberty considers that a fine kettle of fish, indeed. Perhaps I can make it up to her in America.
On one hand, I would have been pleased to learn of my new lease on life closer to nine days ago. For the more I thought about it, and the longer I was awake nights as the date of my execution approached, the more definitely I did not want to leave my story in the hands of others. A friend here at Newgate was kind enough to procure for me a saddler’s awl – by order of the Aldermen and the Sheriff, I am denied paper, pen, and transcription by visitors – those nine days ago; and I have been carving this Account onto the stone surfaces of my cell since. My right hand may never recover – and it could have spent those nine days helping gin to my lips.
On the other hand, now there is an Account that will, in all likelihood, survive me – perhaps not as fierce and persuasive a one as it might have been in other circumstances, but nonetheless. It will not be read by many, but perhaps it is right where it needs to be, where the right people may read it. That they may see the lengths to which remarkable persons, alone or as soldiers in a greater effort, will go on their behalf, as