possibly be your last. I shall therefore use my influence that you may
not be associated with more hardened criminals, but may be sent out of
this country to another, where you may begin life afresh, and, in the
course of years, efface this dreadful stain. Give me hopes of you; begin
your repentance where now you stand, by blaming yourself, and no other
man. No man constrained you to utter a forged note, and to receive the
money; it was found in your possession. For such an act there can be no
defense in law, morality, or religion."

These words overpowered the culprit. He burst out crying with great
violence.

But it did not last long. He became strangely composed all of a sudden;
and said, "God forgive all concerned in this--but one--but one."

He then bowed respectfully, and like a gentleman, to the judge and the
jury, and walked out of the dock with the air of a man who had parted
with emotion, and would march to the gallows now without flinching.

The counsel for the Crown required that the forged document should be
impounded.

"I was about to make the same demand," said the prisoner's counsel.

The judge snubbed them both, and said it was a matter of course.

Robert Penfold spent a year in separate confinement, and then, to cure
him of its salutary effect (if any), was sent on board the hulk
_Vengeance,_ and was herded with the greatest miscreants in creation.
They did not reduce him to their level, but they injured his mind. And,