But my case was even worse than this. I intimately felt that a trial,
such as our institutions have hitherto been able to make it, is only the
worthy sequel of such a beginning. What chance was there after the
purgation I was now suffering, that I should come out acquitted at last?
What probability was there that the trial I had endured in the house of
Mr. Falkland was not just as fair as any that might be expected to
follow? No; I anticipated my own condemnation.

Thus was I cut off, for ever, from all that existence has to
bestow--from all the high hopes I had so often conceived--from all the
future excellence my soul so much delighted to imagine,--to spend a few
weeks in a miserable prison, and then to perish by the hand of the
public executioner. No language can do justice to the indignant and
soul-sickening loathing that these ideas excited. My resentment was not
restricted to my prosecutor, but extended itself to the whole machine of
society. I could never believe that all this was the fair result of
institutions inseparable from the general good. I regarded the whole
human species as so many hangmen and torturers; I considered them as
confederated to tear me to pieces; and this wide scene of inexorable
persecution inflicted upon me inexpressible agony. I looked on this side
and on that: I was innocent; I had a right to expect assistance; but
every heart was steeled against me; every hand was ready to lend its
force to make my ruin secure. No man that has not felt, in his own most
momentous concerns, justice, eternal truth, unalterable equity engaged
in his behalf, and on the other side brute force, impenetrable
obstinacy, and unfeeling insolence, can imagine the sensations that then
passed through my mind. I saw treachery triumphant and enthroned; I saw
the sinews of innocence crumbled into dust by the gripe of almighty
guilt.