I was often whipped into a swoon, and lashed out of it (during which miserable interval, I was robbed by my fellow-prisoners of everything about me, even to my cap, shoes, and stockings): I was not only destitute of necessaries, but even of food, so that my wretchedness was extreme.

Not one of my acquaintance to whom I imparted my situation, would grant me the least succour or regard, on pretence of my being committed for theft, and my landlord refused to part with some of my own clothes which I sent for, because I was indebted to him for a week's lodging.
'Overwhelmed with calamity, I grew desperate, and resolved to put an end to my grievances and life together: for this purpose I got up in the middle of the night, when I thought everybody around me asleep, and fixing one end of a large hook in the ceiling, that supported the scales on which the hemp is weighed, I stood upon a chair, and making a noose on the other end, put my neck into ii with an intention to hang myself; but before I could adjust the knot I was surprised and prevented by two women, who had been awake all the while and suspected my design.

In the morning, my attempt was published among the prisoners and punished with thirty stripes, the pain of which, co-operating with my disappointment and disgrace, bereft me of my senses, and threw me into an ecstacy of madness, during which I tore the flesh from my bones with my teeth, and dashed my head against the pavement; so that they were obliged to set a watch over me, to restrain me from doing further mischief to myself and others.

This fit of frenzy continued three days, at the end of which I grew calm and sullen: but as the desire of making away with myself still remained, I came to a determination of starving myself to death, and with that view refused all sustenance.
'Whether it was owing to the want of opposition, or to the weakness of nature, I know not; but on the second day of my fast, I found my resolution considerably impaired, and the calls of hunger almost insupportable.

At this critical conjuncture a lady was brought into the prison, with whom I had contracted an acquaintance while I lived with Horatio; she was then on the same footing as I was, but afterwards quarrelling with her gallant, and not finding another to her mind, altered her scheme of life, and set up a coffee-house among the hundreds in Drury, where she entertained gentlemen with claret, arrack, and the choice of half-a-dozen damsels who lived in her house.