morning, for that the warehouse-keeper would not be there
any more that night.
Away went I, and getting materials in a public house, I wrote
a letter from Mr. John Richardson of Newcastle to his dear
cousin Jemmy Cole, in London, with an account that he sent
by such a vessel (for I remembered all the particulars to a title),
so many pieces of huckaback linen, so many ells of Dutch
holland and the like, in a box, and a hamper of flint glasses
from Mr. Henzill’s glasshouse; and that the box was marked
I. C. No. 1, and the hamper was directed by a label on the
cording.
About an hour after, I came to the warehouse, found the
warehouse-keeper, and had the goods delivered me without
any scruple; the value of the linen being about #22.
I could fill up this whole discourse with the variety of such
adventures, which daily invention directed to, and which I
managed with the utmost dexterity, and always with success.
At length-as when does the pitcher come safe home that goes
so very often to the well?-I fell into some small broils, which
though they could not affect me fatally, yet made me known,
which was the worst thing next to being found guilty that
could befall me.
I had taken up the disguise of a widow’s dress; it was without
any real design in view, but only waiting for anything that
might offer, as I often did. It happened that while I was going
along the street in Covent Garden, there was a great cry of
‘Stop thief! Stop thief!’ some artists had, it seems, put a trick
upon a shopkeeper, and being pursued, some of them fled
one way, and some another; and one of them was, they said,
dressed up in widow’s weeds, upon which the mob gathered
about me, and some said I was the person, others said no.
Immediately came the mercer’s journeyman, and he swore
aloud I was the person, and so seized on me. However, when
I was brought back by the mob to the mercer’s shop, the
master of the house said freely that I was not the woman that
was in his shop, and would have let me go immediately; but
another fellow said gravely, ‘Pray stay till Mr. —-‘ (meaning
the journeyman) ‘comes back, for he knows her.’ So they
kept me by force near half an hour. They had called a constable,
and he stood in the shop as my jailer; and in talking with the
constable I inquired where he lived, and what trade he was;
the man not apprehending in the least what happened afterwards,
readily told me his name, and trade, and where he lived; and
told me as a jest, that I might be sure to hear of his name when
I came to the Old Bailey.
Some of the servants likewise used me saucily, and had much
ado to keep their hands off me; the master indeed was civiller
to me than they, but he would not yet let me go, though he
owned he could not say I was in his shop before.
I began to be a little surly with him, and told him I hoped he
would not take it ill if I made myself amends upon him in a
more legal way another time; and desired I might send for
friends to see me have right done me. No, he said, he could
give no such liberty; I might ask it when I came before the
justice of peace; and seeing I threatened him, he would take
care of me in the meantime, and would lodge me safe in
Newgate. I told him it was his time now, but it would be
mine by and by, and governed my passion as well as I was able.
However, I spoke to the constable to call me a porter, which
he did, and then I called for pen, ink, and paper, but they
would let me have none. I asked the porter his name, and
where he lived, and the poor man told it me very willingly.
I bade him observe and remember how I was treated there;