I am sure, by their looks, that some of our escort would willingly have aided us, only that it was impossible to do so; and, knowing how large a number of persons would sympathize with us, I cannot blame them so very much for taking steps to prevent our escape." "I never saw such a fellow as you for finding excuses for people," O'Sullivan said, almost angrily.

"You look at things as calmly as if they concerned other people, and not ourselves." Kennedy smiled.
"If an opinion is to be worth anything, O'Sullivan, it must be an impartial one; and it is best to look at the matter calmly, and to form our plans, whatever they may be, as if they were intended to be carried out by other people." O'Sullivan laughed.
"My dear fellow, if you had not gone through those adventures, I should have said that you had mistaken your vocation, and were cut out for a philosopher rather than a soldier.

However, although your luck did not suffice to save the Salisbury from capture, we must still hope that it has not altogether deserted you; and anyhow, I am convinced that, if it be possible for anyone to effect an escape from this dismal place, you are the man." Newgate, in those days, stood across the street, and constituted one of the entrances to the city.

Its predecessor had been burnt, in the great fire of 1666, and the new one was at this time less than forty years old, and, though close and badly ventilated, had not yet arrived at the stage of dirt and foulness which afterwards brought about the death of numbers of prisoners confined there, and in 1750 occasioned an outbreak of jail fever, which not only swept away a large proportion of the prisoners, but infected the court of the Old Bailey close to it, causing the death of the lord mayor, several aldermen, a judge, many of the counsel and jurymen, and of the public present at the trials.
The outward appearance of the building was handsome, but the cells were, for the most part, small and ill ventilated.
"This place is disgraceful," O'Neil said.

"There is barely room for our three pallets.