by Daniel Defoe
However, at last I got some quilting work for ladies’ beds, petticoats, and the like; and this I liked very well and worked very hard, and with this I began to live; but the diligent devil, who resolved I should continue in his service, continually prompted me to go out and take a walk, that is to say, to see if anything would offer in the old way.
One evening I blindly obeyed his summons and fetched a long circuit through the streets, but met with no purchase; but not content with that, I went out the next evening too, when, going by an ale-house, I saw the door of a little room open, next the very street, and on the table a silver tankard, things much in use in public-houses at that time. It seems some company had been drinking there, and the careless boys had forgot to take it away.
I went into the box frankly, and setting the silver tankard on the corner of the bench, I sat down before it and knocked with my foot; a boy came presently, and I bade him fetch me a pint of warm ale, for it was cold weather; the boy run and I heard him go down the cellar to draw the ale. While the boy was gone another boy come and cried, “D’ye call?” I spoke with a melancholy air and said, “No, the boy is gone for a pint of ale for me.”
While I sat here I heard the woman in the bar say, “Are they all gone in the five?” which was the box I sat in, and the boy said, “Yes.” “Who fetched the tankard away?” says the woman. “I did,” says another boy; “that’s it,” pointing, it seems, to another tankard, which he had fetched from another box by mistake; or else it must be that the rogue forgot that he had not brought it in, which certainly he had not.
I heard all this much to my satisfaction, for I found plainly that the tankard was not missed and yet they concluded it was fetched away; so I drank my ale, called to pay, and as I went away I said, “Take care of your plate, child,” meaning a silver pint mug which he brought me to drink in. The boy said, “Yes, madam, very welcome.” And away I came.
I came home to my governess, and now I thought it was a time to try her, that if I might be put to the necessity of being exposed, she might offer me some assistance. When I had been at home some time and had an opportunity of talking to her, I told her I had a secret of the greatest consequence in the world to commit to her if she had respect enough for me to keep it a secret. She told me she had kept one of my secrets faithfully; why should I doubt her keeping another? I told her the strangest thing in the world had befallen me, even without any design, and so told her the whole story of the tankard. “And have you brought it away with you, my dear?” says she. “To be sure I have,” says I, and showed it her. “But what shall I do now?” says I. “Must not I carry it again?”
“Carry it again!” says she. “Aye, if you want to go to Newgate.” “Why,” says I, “they can’t be so base to stop me when I carry it to them again?” “You don’t know those sort of people, child,” says she; “they’ll not only carry you to Newgate but hang you too, without any regard to the honesty of returning it; or bring in an account of all the other tankards as they have lost, for you to pay for.” “What must I do, then?” says I. “Nay,” says she, “as you have played the cunning part and stole it, you must e’en keep it; there’s no going back now. Besides, child,” says she, “don’t you want it more than they do? I wish you could light of such a bargain once a week.”
This gave me a new notion of my governess, and that since she was turned pawnbroker, she had a sort of people about her that were none of the honest ones that I had met with there before.
I had not been long there but I discovered it more plainly than before, for every now and then I saw hilts of swords, spoons, forks, tankards, and all such kind of ware brought in, not to be pawned but to be sold downright; and she bought them all without asking any questions, but had good bargains, as I found by her discourse.
I found also that in following this trade she always melted down the plate she bought, that it might not be challenged; and she came to me and told me one morning that she was going to melt, and if I would, she would put my tankard in, that it might not be seen by anybody. I told her, with all my heart; so she weighed it and allowed me the full value in silver again; but I found she did not do so to the rest of her customers.
Some time after this, as I was at work and very melancholy, she begins to ask me what the matter was. I told her my heart was very heavy; I had little work and nothing to live on and knew not what course to take. She laughed and told me I must go out again and try my fortune; it might be that I might meet with another piece of plate. “Oh, Mother!” says I. “That is a trade that I have no skill in, and if I should be taken I am undone at once.” Says she, “I could help you to a schoolmistress that shall make you as dexterous as herself.” I trembled at that proposal, for hitherto I had had no confederates nor any acquaintance among that tribe. But she conquered all my modesty and all my fears; and in a little time, by the help of this confederate, I grew as impudent a thief and as dexterous as ever Moll Cutpurse was, though, if fame does not belie her, not half so handsome.
The comrade she helped me to dealt in three sorts of craft, viz., shoplifting, stealing of shop-books and pocketbooks, and taking off gold watches from the ladies’ sides; and this last she did so dexterously that no woman ever arrived to the perfection of that art like her. I liked the first and the last of these things very well, and I attended her some time in the practice, just as a deputy attends a midwife, without any pay.
At length she put me to practice. She had shown me her art, and I had several times unhooked a watch from her own side with great dexterity. At last she showed me a prize, and this was a young lady with child who had a charming watch. The thing was to be done as she came out of the church. She goes on one side of the lady and pretends, just as she came to the steps, to fall, and fell against the lady with so much violence as put her into a great fright, and both cried out terribly. In the very moment that she jostled the lady, I had hold of the watch, and holding it the right way, the start she gave drew the hook out, and she never felt it. I made off immediately and left my schoolmistress to come out of her fright gradually, and the lady too; and presently the watch was missed. “Aye,” says my comrade, “then it was those rogues that thrust me down, I warrant ye; I wonder the gentlewoman did not miss her watch before, then we might have taken them.”
She humoured the thing so well that nobody suspected her, and I was got home a full hour before her. This was my first adventure in company. The watch was indeed a very fine one and had many trinkets about it, and my governess allowed us £20 for it, of which I had half. And thus I was entered a complete thief, hardened to a pitch above all the reflections of conscience or modesty, and to a degree which I never thought possible in me.
Thus the devil, who began by the help of an irresistible poverty to push me into this wickedness, brought me on to a height beyond the common rate, even when my necessities were not so terrifying; for I had now got into a little vein of work, and as I was not at a loss to handle my needle, it was very probable I might have got my bread honestly enough.
I must say that if such a prospect of work had presented itself at first, when I began to feel the approach of my miserable circumstances—I say, had such a prospect of getting bread by working presented itself then, I had never fallen into this wicked trade or into such a wicked gang as I was now embarked with; but practice had hardened me, and I grew audacious to the last degree; and the more so because I had carried it on so long and had never been taken; for, in a word, my new partner in wickedness and I went on together so long without being ever detected that we not only grew bold but we grew rich, and we had at one time one-and-twenty gold watches in our hands.
I remember that one day, being a little more serious than ordinary and finding I had so good a stock beforehand as I had, for I had near £200 in money for my share, it came strongly into my mind, no doubt from some kind spirit, if such there be, that as at first poverty excited me and my distresses drove me to these dreadful shifts, so seeing those distresses were now relieved and I cou
ld also get something towards a maintenance by working and had so good a bank to support me, why should I not now leave off while I was well? That I could not expect to go always free; and if I was once surprised, I was undone.
This was doubtless the happy minute when, if I had hearkened to the blessed hint, from whatsoever hand it came, I had still a cast for an easy life. But my fate was otherwise determined; the busy devil that drew me in had too fast hold of me to let me go back; but as poverty brought me in, so avarice kept me in, till there was no going back. As to the arguments which my reason dictated for persuading me to lay down, avarice stepped in and said, “Go on; you have had very good luck; go on till you have gotten four or five hundred pound, and then you shall leave off, and then you may live easy without working at all.”
Thus I, that was once in the devil’s clutches, was held fast there as with a charm, and had no power to go without the circle till I was engulfed in labyrinths of trouble too great to get out at all.
However, these thoughts left some impression upon me and made me act with some more caution than before, and more than my directors used for themselves. My comrade, as I called her (she should have been called my teacher), with another of her scholars, was the first in the misfortune; for, happening to be upon the hunt for purchase, they made an attempt upon a linen-draper in Cheapside, but were snapped by a hawk’s-eyed journeyman and seized with two pieces of cambric, which were taken also upon them.
This was enough to lodge them both in Newgate, where they had the misfortune to have some of their former sins brought to remembrance. Two other indictments being brought against them and the facts being proved upon them, they were both condemned to die. They both pleaded their bellies, and were both voted quick with child; though my tutoress was no more with child than I was.
I went frequently to see them and condole with them, expecting that it would be my turn next; but the place gave me so much horror, reflecting that it was the place of my unhappy birth and of my mother’s misfortunes, that I could not bear it, so I left off going to see them.
And oh! could I but have taken warning by their disasters, I had been happy still, for I was yet free and had nothing brought against me; but it could not be, my measure was not yet filled up.
My comrade, having the brand of an old offender, was executed; the young offender was spared, having obtained a reprieve, but lay starving a long while in prison till at last she got her name into what they call a circuit pardon and so came off.
This terrible example of my comrade frighted me heartily, and for a good while I made no excursions; but one night, in the neighbourhood of my governess’ house, they cried, “Fire.” My governess looked out, for we were all up, and cried immediately that such a gentlewoman’s house was all of a light fire atop, and so indeed it was. Here she gives me a jog. “Now, child,” says she, “there is a rare opportunity, the fire being so near that you may go to it before the street is blocked up with the crowd.” She presently gave me my cue. “Go, child,” says she, “to the house and run in and tell the lady or anybody you see that you come to help them and that you came from such a gentlewoman”; that is, one of her acquaintance farther up the street.
Away I went, and coming to the house, I found them all in confusion, you may be sure. I run in, and finding one of the maids, “Alas! Sweetheart,” said I, “how came this dismal accident? Where is your mistress? Is she safe? And where are the children? I come from Madam —— to help you.” Away runs the maid. “Madam, madam,” says she, screaming as loud as she could yell, “here is a gentlewoman come from Madam —— to help us.” The poor woman, half out of her wits, with a bundle under her arm and two little children, comes towards me. “Madam,” says I, “let me carry the poor children to Madam ——; she desires you to send them; she’ll take care of the poor lambs”; and so I takes one of them out of her hand and she lifts the other up into my arms. “Aye, do, for God’s sake,” says she, “carry them. Oh, thank her for her kindness.” “Have you anything else to secure, madam?” says I. “She will take care of it.” “Oh, dear!” says she. “God bless her; take this bundle of plate and carry it to her too. Oh, she is a good woman! Oh, we are utterly ruined, undone!” And away she runs from me out of her wits, and the maids after her, and away comes I with the two children and the bundle.
I was no sooner got into the street but I saw another woman come to me. “Oh!” says she, “mistress,” in a piteous tone, “you will let fall the child. Come, come, this is a sad time; let me help you,” and immediately lays hold of my bundle to carry it for me. “No,” says I, “if you will help me, take the child by the hand and lead it for me but to the upper end of the street; I’ll go with you and satisfy you for your pains.”
She could not avoid going, after what I said; but the creature, in short, was one of the same business with me and wanted nothing but the bundle; however, she went with me to the door, for she could not help it. When we were come there I whispered her, “Go, child,” said I, “I understand your trade; you may meet with purchase enough.”
She understood me and walked off. I thundered at the door with the children, and as the people were raised before by the 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 and brought the bundle of plate, which was very considerable, straight home to my old governess. She told me she would not look into it, but bade me go again and 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 could do; so I came back again to my governess’, 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 besides, and who would think, to be sure, that she had saved her plate and best things; how she would be surprised when she should find that she had been deceived, and 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 quickly forgot the circumstances that attended it.
Nor 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 more; and the avarice had such success that I had no more thoughts 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 gained; 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 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 all; 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 that I had no gust to the laying it down.
In this condition, hardened by success and resolving to go on, I fell into the snare in which I was appointed to meet with my last reward for this kind of life. But even this was not yet, for I met with several successful adventures more in this way.
My governess was for a while really concerned for this misfortune of my comrade that had been hanged, for she knew enough of my governess to have sent her the same way, and which made her very uneasy; indeed she was in a very great fright.
It is true that when she was gone and had not told what she knew, my governess was easy as to that point and perhaps glad she was hanged, for it was in her power to have obtained a pardon at the expense of her friends; but the loss of her and the sense of her kindness in not making her market of what she knew moved my governess to mourn very sincerely for her. I comforted her as well as I could, and she in return hardened me to merit more completely the same fate.
However, as I had said, it made me the more wary, and particularly I was very shy of shoplifting, especially among the mercers and drapers, who are a set of fellows that have their eyes very much about them. I made a venture or two among the lace-folks and the milliners, and particularly at one shop where two young women were newly set up and had not been bred to trade. There I carried off a piece of bone-lace worth six or seven pound, and a paper of thread. But this was but once; it was a trick that would not serve again.