Then I proceeded to tell how the journeyman treated me; how they would

not suffer me to send for any of my friends; how afterwards they found

the real thief, and took the very goods they had lost upon her, and all

the particulars as before.

Then the constable related his case: his dialogue with the mercer

about discharging me, and at last his servant's refusing to go with

him, when he had charged him with him, and his master encouraging him

to do so, and at last his striking the constable, and the like, all as

I have told it already.

The justice then heard the mercer and his man. The mercer indeed made

a long harangue of the great loss they have daily by lifters and

thieves; that it was easy for them to mistake, and that when he found

it he would have dismissed me, etc., as above. As to the journeyman,

he had very little to say, but that he pretended other of the servants

told him that I was really the person.

Upon the whole, the justice first of all told me very courteously I was

discharged; that he was very sorry that the mercer's man should in his

eager pursuit have so little discretion as to take up an innocent

person for a guilty person; that if he had not been so unjust as to

detain me afterward, he believed I would have forgiven the first

affront; that, however, it was not in his power to award me any

reparation for anything, other than by openly reproving them, which he

should do; but he supposed I would apply to such methods as the law

directed; in the meantime he would bind him over.

But as to the breach of the peace committed by the journeyman, he told

me he should give me some satisfaction for that, for he should commit

him to Newgate for assaulting the constable, and for assaulting me also.

Accordingly he sent the fellow to Newgate for that assault, and his

master gave bail, and so we came away; but I had the satisfaction of

seeing the mob wait upon them both, as they came out, hallooing and

throwing stones and dirt at the coaches they rode in; and so I came

home to my governess.

After this hustle, coming home and telling my governess the story, she

falls a-laughing at me. 'Why are you merry?' says I; 'the story has

not so much laughing room in it as you imagine; I am sure I have had a

great deal of hurry and fright too, with a pack of ugly rogues.'

'Laugh!' says my governess; 'I laugh, child, to see what a lucky

creature you are; why, this job will be the best bargain to you that

ever you made in your life, if you manage it well. I warrant you,'

says she, 'you shall make the mercer pay you #500 for damages, besides

what you shall get out of the journeyman.' I had other thoughts of the matter than she had; and especially,

because I had given in my name to the justice of peace; and I knew that

my name was so well known among the people at Hick's Hall, the Old

Bailey, and such places, that if this cause came to be tried openly,

and my name came to be inquired into, no court would give much damages,

for the reputation of a person of such a character. However, I was

obliged to begin a prosecution in form, and accordingly my governess

found me out a very creditable sort of a man to manage it, being an

attorney of very good business, and of a good reputation, and she was

certainly in the right of this; for had she employed a pettifogging

hedge solicitor, or a man not known, and not in good reputation, I

should have brought it to but little.




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