The History and Remarkable Life of the Truly Honourable Colonel Jacque, Commonly called Colonel Jack. Defoe Daniel

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      I was but a boy, 'tis true, but I thought myself a man, now I had got a pocket to put my money in, and I went directly to find out my companion by whose means I got it; but I was frighted out of my wits when I heard that he was carried to Bridewell. I made no question but it was for the letter-case, and that I should be carried there too; and then my poor brother Captain Jacque's case came into my head, and that I should be whipped there as cruelly as he was, and I was in such a fright that I knew not what to do.

      But in the afternoon I met him; he had been carried to Bridewell, it seems, upon that very affair, but was got out again. The case was thus: having had such good luck at the custom-house the day before, he takes his walk thither again, and as he was in the long-room, gaping and staring about him, a fellow lays hold of him, and calls to one of the clerks that sat behind, "Here," says he, "is the same young rogue that I told you I saw loitering about t'other day, when the gentleman lost his letter-case and his goldsmiths' bills; I dare say it was he that stole them." Immediately the whole crowd of people gathered about the boy, and charged him point-blank; but he was too well used to such things to be frighted into a confession of what he knew they could not prove, for he had nothing about him belonging to it, nor had any money but six pence and a few dirty farthings.

      They threatened him, and pulled and hauled him, till they almost pulled the clothes off his back, and the commissioners examined him; but all was one; he would own nothing, but said he walked up through the room, only to see the place, both then and the time before, for he had owned he was there before; so, as there was no proof against him of any fact, no, nor of any circumstances relating to the letter-case, they were forced at last to let him go. However, they made a show of carrying him to Bridewell, and they did carry him to the gate to see if they could make him confess anything; but he would confess nothing, and they had no mittimus; so they durst not carry him into the house; nor would the people have received him, I suppose, if they had, they having no warrant for putting him in prison.

      Well, when they could get nothing out of him, they carried him into an alehouse, and there they told him that the letter-case had bills in it of a very great value; that they would be of no use to the rogue that had them, but they would be of infinite damage to the gentleman that had lost them; and that he had left word with the clerk, whom the man that stopped this boy had called to, and who was there with him, that he would give £30 to any one that would bring them again, and give all the security that could be desired that he would give them no trouble, whoever it was.

      He was just come from out of their hands when I met with him, and so he told me all the story. "But," says he, "I would confess nothing, and so I got off, and am come away clear." "Well," says I, "and what will you do with the letter-case and the bills? Will you not let the poor man have his bills again?" "No, not I," says he; "I won't trust them. What care I for their bills?" It came into my head, as young as I was, that it was a sad thing indeed to take a man's bills away for so much money, and not have any advantage by it neither; for I concluded that the gentleman who owned the bills must lose all the money, and it was strange he should keep the bills, and make a gentleman lose so much money for nothing. I remember that I ruminated very much about it, and though I did not understand it very well, yet it lay upon my mind, and I said every now and then to him, "Do let the gentleman have his bills again; do, pray do;" and so I teased him, with "Do" and "Pray do," till at last I cried about them. He said, "What, would you have me be found out and sent to Bridewell, and be whipped, as your brother Captain Jacque was?" I said, "No, I would not have you whipped, but I would have the man have his bills, for they will do you no good, but the gentleman will be undone, it may be." And then I added again, "Do let him have them." He snapped me short. "Why," says he, "how shall I get them to him? Who dare carry them? I dare not, to be sure, for they will stop me, and bring the goldsmith to see if he does not know me, and that I received the money, and so they will prove the robbery, and I shall be hanged. Would you have me be hanged, Jacque?"

      I was silenced a good while with that, for when he said, "Would you have me be hanged, Jacque?" I had no more to say. But one day after this he called to me. "Colonel Jacque," says he, "I have thought of a way how the gentleman shall have his bills again; and you and I shall get a good deal of money by it, if you will be honest to me, as I was to you." "Indeed," says I, "Robin" – that was his name-"I will be very honest; let me know how it is, for I would fain have him have his bills."

      "Why," says he, "they told me that he had left word at the clerk's place in the long-room that he would give £30 to any one that had the bills, and would restore them, and would ask no questions. Now, if you will go, like a poor innocent boy, as you are, into the long-room and speak to the clerk, it may do. Tell him if the gentleman will do as he promised, you believe you can tell him who has it; and if they are civil to you, and willing to be as good as their words, you shall have the letter-case, and give it them."

      I told him ay, I would go with all my heart. "But, Colonel Jacque," says he, "what if they should take hold of you and threaten to have you whipped? Won't you discover me to them?" "No," says I; "if they would whip me to death I won't." "Well, then," says he, "there's the letter-case; do you go." So he gave me directions how to act and what to say; but I would not take the letter-case with me, lest they should prove false, and take hold of me, thinking to find it upon me, and so charge me with the fact; so I left it with him. And the next morning I went to the custom-house, as was agreed. What my directions were will, to avoid repetition, appear in what happened; it was an errand of too much consequence indeed to be entrusted to a boy, not only so young as I was, but so little of a rogue as I was yet arrived to the degree of.

      Two things I was particularly armed with, which I resolved upon: 1. That the man should have his bills again; for it seemed a horrible thing to me that he should be made to lose his money, which I supposed he must, purely because we would not carry the letter-case home. 2. That whatever happened to me, I was never to tell the name of my comrade Robin, who had been the principal. With these two pieces of honesty, for such they were both in themselves, and with a manly heart, though a boy's head, I went up into the long-room in the custom-house the next day.

      As soon as I came to the place where the thing was done, I saw the man sit just where he had sat before, and it ran in my head that he had sat there ever since; but I knew no better; so I went up, and stood just at that side of the writing-board that goes upon that side of the room, and which I was but just tall enough to lay my arms upon.

      While I stood there one thrust me this way, and another thrust me that way, and the man that sat behind began to look at me. At last he called out to me, "What does that boy do there? Get you gone, sirrah! Are you one of the rogues that stole the gentleman's letter-case a Monday last?" Then he turns his tale to a gentleman that was doing business with him, and goes on thus: "Here was Mr. – had a very unlucky chance on Monday last. Did not you hear of it?" "No, not I," says the gentleman. "Why, standing just there, where you do," says he, "making his entries, he pulled out his letter-case, and laid it down, as he says, but just at his hand, while he reached over to the standish there for a penful of ink, and somebody stole away his letter-case."

      "His letter-case!" says t'other. "What, and was there any bills in it?"

      "Ay," says he, "there was Sir Stephen Evans's note in it for £300, and another goldsmith's bill for about £12; and which is worse still for the gentleman, he had two foreign accepted bills in it for a great sum-I know not how much. I think one was a French bill for 1200 crowns."

      "And who could it be?" says the gentleman.

      "Nobody knows," says he; "but one of our room-keepers says he saw a couple of young rogues like that," pointing at me, "hanging about here, and that on a sudden they were both gone."

      "Villains!" says he again. "Why, what can they do with them? They will be of no use to them. I suppose he went immediately and gave notice to prevent the payment."

      "Yes," says the clerk, "he did; but the rogues were too nimble for him with the СКАЧАТЬ