her to desist, or perhaps she could not easily find accomplices
wicked enough to concur in so cruel an action; for it may be
conceived that those who had by a long gradation of guilt hardened
their hearts against the sense of common wickedness, would yet be
shocked at the design of a mother to expose her son to slavery and
want, to expose him without interest, and without provocation; and
Savage might on this occasion find protectors and advocates among
those who had long traded in crimes, and whom compassion had never
touched before.

Being hindered, by whatever means, from banishing him into another
country, she formed soon after a scheme for burying him in poverty
and obscurity in his own; and that his station of life, if not the
place of his residence, might keep him for ever at a distance from
her, she ordered him to be placed with a shoemaker in Holborn, that,
after the usual time of trial, he might become his apprentice.

It is generally reported that this project was for some time
successful, and that Savage was employed at the awl longer than he
was willing to confess: nor was it perhaps any great advantage to
him, that an unexpected discovery determined him to quit his
occupation.

About this time his nurse, who had always treated him as her own
son, died; and it was natural for him to take care of those effects
which by her death were, as he imagined, become his own: he
therefore went to her house, opened her boxes, and examined her
papers, among which he found some letters written to her by the Lady
Mason, which informed him of his birth, and the reasons for which it
was concealed. He was no longer satisfied with the employment which