noise of the fire, I was soon let in, and I said, ‘Is madam
awake? Pray tell her Mrs. —- desires the favour of her to
take the two children in; poor lady, she will be undone, their
house is all of a flame,’ They took the children in very civilly,
pitied the family in distress, and away came I with my bundle.
One of the maids asked me if I was not to leave the bundle
too. I said, ‘No, sweetheart, ’tis to go to another place; it
does not belong to them.’
I was a great way out of the hurry now, and so I went on,
clear of anybody’s inquiry, and brought the bundle of plate,
which was very considerable, straight home, and gave it to
my old governess. She told me she would not look into it,
but bade me go out again to look for more.
She gave me the like cue to the gentlewoman of the next house
to that which was on fire, and I did my endeavour to go, but
by this time the alarm of fire was so great, and so many
engines playing, and the street so thronged with people, that
I could not get near the house whatever I would do; so I came
back again to my governess’s, and taking the bundle up into
my chamber, I began to examine it. It is with horror that I
tell what a treasure I found there; ’tis enough to say, that
besides most of the family plate, which was considerable, I
found a gold chain, an old-fashioned thing, the locket of which
was broken, so that I suppose it had not been used some years,
but the gold was not the worse for that; also a little box of
burying-rings, the lady’s wedding-ring, and some broken bits
of old lockets of gold, a gold watch, and a purse with about
#24 value in old pieces of gold coin, and several other things
of value.
This was the greatest and the worst prize that ever I was
concerned in; for indeed, though, as I have said above, I was
hardened now beyond the power of all reflection in other cases,
yet it really touched me to the very soul when I looked into
this treasure, to think of the poor disconsolate gentlewoman
who had lost so much by the fire besides; and who would think,
to be sure, that she had saved her plate and best things; how
she would be surprised and afflicted when she should find that
she had been deceived, and should find that the person that
took her children and her goods, had not come, as was pretended,
from the gentlewoman in the next street, but that the children
had been put upon her without her own knowledge.
I say, I confess the inhumanity of this action moved me very
much, and made me relent exceedingly, and tears stood in my
eyes upon that subject; but with all my sense of its being cruel
and inhuman, I could never find in my heart to make any
restitution. The reflection wore off, and I began quickly to
forget the circumstances that attended the taking them.
Now was this all; for though by this job I was become
considerably richer than before, yet the resolution I had
formerly taken, of leaving off this horrid trade when I had
gotten a little more, did not return, but I must still get farther,
and more; and the avarice joined so with the success, that I
had no more thought of coming to a timely alteration of life,
though without it I could expect no safety, no tranquillity in
the possession of what I had so wickedly gained; but a little
more, and a little more, was the case still.
At length, yielding to the importunities of my crime, I cast off
all remorse and repentance, and all the reflections on that head
turned to no more than this, that I might perhaps come to have
one booty more that might complete my desires; but though I
certainly had that one booty, yet every hit looked towards
another, and was so encouraging to me to go on with the trade,