some, usually betrayed them, but none of these discoveries
amounted to anything considerable, not like that I related just
now; but I was willing to act safe, and was still cautious of
running the great risks which I found others did, and in which
they miscarried every day.
The next thing of moment was an attempt at a gentlewoman’s
good watch. It happened in a crowd, at a meeting-house,
where I was in very great danger of being taken. I had full
hold of her watch, but giving a great jostle, as if somebody
had thrust me against her, and in the juncture giving the watch
a fair pull, I found it would not come, so I let it go that moment,
and cried out as if I had been killed, that somebody had trod
upon my foot, and that there were certainly pickpockets there,
for somebody or other had given a pull at my watch; for you
are to observe that on these adventures we always went very
well dressed, and I had very good clothes on, and a gold watch
by my side, as like a lady as other fold.
I had no sooner said so, but the other gentlewoman cried out
‘A pickpocket’ too, for somebody, she said, had tried to pull
her watch away.
When I touched her watch I was close to her, but when I cried
out I stopped as it were short, and the crowd bearing her
forward a little, she made a noise too, but it was at some distance
from me, so that she did not in the least suspect me; but when
she cried out ‘A pickpocket,’ somebody cried, ‘Ay, and here
has been another! this gentlewoman has been attempted too.’
At that very instance, a little farther in the crowd, and very
luckily too, they cried out ‘A pickpocket,’ again, and really
seized a young fellow in the very act. This, though unhappy
for the wretch, was very opportunely for my case, though I
had carried it off handsomely enough before; but now it was
out of doubt, and all the loose part of the crowd ran that way,
and the poor boy was delivered up to the rage of the street,
which is a cruelty I need not describe, and which, however,
they are always glad of, rather than to be sent to Newgate,
where they lie often a long time, till they are almost perished,
and sometimes they are hanged, and the best they can look for,
if they are convicted, is to be transported.
This was a narrow escape to me, and I was so frighted that I
ventured no more at gold watches a great while. There was
indeed a great many concurring circumstances in this adventure
which assisted to my escape; but the chief was, that the woman
whose watch I had pulled at was a fool; that is to say, she was
ignorant of the nature of the attempt, which one would have
thought she should not have been, seeing she was wise enough
to fasten her watch so that it could not be slipped up. But she
was in such a fright that she had no thought about her proper
for the discovery; for she, when she felt the pull, screamed out,
and pushed herself forward, and put all the people about her into
disorder, but said not a word of her watch, or of a pickpocket,
for a least two minutes’ time, which was time enough for me,
and to spare. For as I had cried out behind her, as I have said,
and bore myself back in the crowd as she bore forward, there
were several people, at least seven or eight, the throng being
still moving on, that were got between me and her in that time,
and then I crying out ‘A pickpocket,’ rather sooner than she,
or at least as soon, she might as well be the person suspected
as I, and the people were confused in their inquiry; whereas,
had she with a presence of mind needful on such an occasion,
as soon as she felt the pull, not screamed out as she did, but
turned immediately round and seized the next body that was