The possibility of escape by this way, however, had never been
contemplated, and therefore the windows were unprotected by bars.
Accordingly Lord Cochrane, having been supplied, from time to time, by
the same servant who had aided him at Malta, with a quantity of small
strong rope, managed, soon after midnight, and while the watchman
going his rounds was in a distant part of the prison, to get out of
window and climb on to the roof of the building. Thence he threw a
running noose over the iron spikes placed on the wall, and, exercising
the agility that he had acquired during his seaman's occupations,
easily gained the summit--to be somewhat discomfited by having to sit
upon the iron spikes while he fastened his rope to one of them and
prepared, with its help, to slip down to the pavement on the outer
side of the wall. The rope was not strong enough, however, to bear his
weight; it snapped when he was some twenty-five feet from the ground,
and caused him to fall with his back upon the stone pavement. There he
lay, in an almost unconscious state, for a considerable time. But no
passer-by observed him; and before daylight he was able to crawl to
the house of an old nurse of his eldest son's, who gladly afforded him
concealment.

Long concealment was not intended by him. "If it had not been," he
said, "for the commotion excited by that obnoxious, injurious, and
arbitrary measure, the Corn Bill, which began to evince itself on
the day of my departure from prison, I should have lost no time in
proceeding to the House of Commons; but, conjecturing that the spirit
of disturbance might derive some encouragement from my unexpected
appearance at that time, and having no inclination to promote tumult,
I resolved to defer my appearance at the House, and, if possible,
to conceal my departure from the prison, until the order of the
metropolis should be restored."