On this head I
interrogated my conductor, Dick Ivy, who answered me to this
effect -- 'One would imagine S-- had some view to his own interest,
in giving countenance and assistance to those people, whom he
knows to be bad men, as well as bad writers; but, if he has any
such view, he will find himself disappointed; for if he is so
vain as to imagine he can make them, subservient to his schemes
of profit or ambition, they are cunning enough to make him their
property in the mean time. There is not one of the company you
have seen to-day (myself excepted) who does not owe him
particular obligations -- One of them he bailed out of a spunging-house,
and afterwards paid the debt -- another he translated into
his family, and clothed, when he was turned out half naked from
jail in consequence of an act for the relief of insolvent
debtors -- a third, who was reduced to a woollen night cap, and
lived upon sheeps trotters, up three pair of stairs backward in
Butcher-row, he took into present pay and free quarters, and
enabled him to appear as a gentleman, without having the fear of
sheriff's officers before his eyes. Those who are in distress he
supplies with money when he has it, and with his credit when he
is out of cash.
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