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He can in conscience deem deliberate bloodshed, Being so circumstanced, I am a murderer.

How camest thou hither? Didst thou not sail in the Mermaid, bound for Copenhagen?

I did: but agony of mind wrung from me, unawares, some words of exclamation and disclosure, which one of the crew overheard; and when that tempest, which lately rocked your walls, began to vex our course, and put the ship in peril, this man accused me as a murderer. The frightened mariners would no longer share the risk with such an unblessed passenger, and I was cast into the deep.

Fearful extremity! How wert thou preserved?

I swam while strength remain'd, and then embraced A floating plank, which bore me to the land. The tempest and the sea had pity on me; And will ye then destroy what they have spared? I beg for mercy: I am not ashamed To ask, ay, to implore your clemency;