as I have already said, I passed fourteen or sixteen hours of the
four-and-twenty undisturbed; but since I had acquired a character for
mechanical ingenuity, a particular exception with respect to me was made
from the general rules of the prison.

It was ten o'clock when I entered on my undertaking. The room in which I
was confined was secured with a double door. This was totally
superfluous for the purpose of my detention, since there was a sentinel
planted on the outside. But it was very fortunate for my plan; because
these doors prevented the easy communication of sound, and afforded me
tolerable satisfaction that, with a little care in my mode of
proceeding, I might be secure against the danger of being overheard. I
first took off my handcuffs. I then filed through my fetters; and next
performed the same service to three of the iron bars that secured my
window, to which I climbed, partly by the assistance of my chair, and
partly by means of certain irregularities in the wall. All this was the
work of more than two hours. When the bars were filed through, I easily
forced them a little from the perpendicular, and then drew them, one by
one, out of the wall, into which they were sunk about three inches
perfectly straight, and without any precaution to prevent their being
removed. But the space thus obtained was by no means wide enough to
admit the passing of my body. I therefore applied myself, partly with my
chisel, and partly with one of the iron bars, to the loosening the
brick-work; and when I had thus disengaged four or five bricks, I got
down and piled them upon the floor. This operation I repeated three or
four times The space was now sufficient for my purpose: and, having
crept through the opening, I stepped upon a shed on the outside.

I was now in a kind of rude area between two dead walls, that south of
the felons' day-room (the windows of which were at the east end) and the