"The Petition of Thomas Dugood, of the Parish of St. Paul,
Covent-Garden, in the City of Westminster,

"HUMBLY SHEWETH,

"That your petitioner is a parentless and friendless boy, seventeen
years of age, who, until lately seized by two Police Officers and sent
to prison by the police, obtained the honest means of living by the sale
of Religious and Moral Tracts, which he used to purchase of Mr. Collins,
of Paternoster-row.

"That your petitioner has, for more than four months last past, lodged,
and he still lodges, at the house of Keeran Shields, who lives at No.
13, Gee's-court, Oxford-street, and who is a carter to Mr. White, of
Mortimer-street, and who is also a watchman in Marybone parish.

"That your petitioner has never in his life lived as a vagrant, but has
always had a settled home, has always pursued an honest and visible
means of getting his living, has always been, and is ready to prove
that he always has been an industrious, a peaceable, sober, honest, and
orderly person.

"That, on the 10th of January, 1817, your petitioner, for having pulled
down a posting bill, entitled, "_Mr. Hunt hissed out of the City
of Bristol_," was committed by Mr. Sellon to the New Prison,
Clerkenwell, where he was kept on bread and water and compelled to lie on
the bare boards until the twenty-second of the same month, when he was
tied, with about fifty others, to a long rope, or cable, and marched to
Hicks's Hall, and there let loose.