Colonel Jack

They began to listen a little upon that, and asked him if he could give them any hopes of recovering their loss. He told them that he was not afraid to tell them that he believed he had heard some news of them, and that what he had done had prevented all the bills being burnt, book and all; but that now he ought not to be asked any more questions till they should be pleased to answer him a question or two. They told him they would give him any satisfaction they could, and bid him tell what he desired.

«Why, sir», says he, «how can you expect any thief that had robbed you to such a considerable value as this would come and put himself into your hands, confess he had your goods, and restore them to you, if you do not give them assurance that you will not only give them the reward you agreed to, but also give assurance that they shall not be stopped, questioned, or called to account before a magistrate?»

They said they would give all possible assurance of it. «Nay», says he, «I do not know what assurance you are able to give; for when a poor fellow is in your clutches and has shown you your goods, you may seize upon him for a thief, and it is plain he must be so. Then you go, take away your goods, send him to prison, and what amends can he have of you afterward?»

They were entirely confounded with the difficulty; they asked him to try if he could get the things into his hands, and they would pay him the money before he let them go out of his hand, and he should go away half-an-hour before they went out of the room.

«No, gentlemen», says he, «that won’t do now. If you had talked so before you had talked of apprehending me for nothing, I should have taken your words; but now it is plain you have had such a thought in your heads, and how can I, or any one else, be assured of safety?»

Well, they thought of a great many particulars, but nothing would do. At length the other people who were present put in, that they should give security to him, by a bond of £ 1000, that they would not give the person any trouble whatsoever. He pretended they could not be bound, nor could their obligation be of any value, and that their own goods being once seen, they might seize them. «And what would it signify», said he, «to put a poor pick pocket to sue for his reward?» They could not tell what to say, but told him that he should take the things of the boy, if it was a boy, and they would be bound to pay him the money promised. He laughed at them, and said, «No, gentlemen; as I am not the thief, so I shall be very loth to put myself in the thief’s stead and lie at your mercy».

They told him they knew not what to do then, and that it would be very hard he would not trust them at all. He said he was very willing to trust them and to serve them, but that it would be very hard to be ruined and charged with the theft for endeavouring to serve them.

They then offered to give it him under their hands that they did not in the least suspect him; that they would never charge him with anything about it; that they acknowledged he went about to inquire after the goods at their request; and that if he produced them, they would pay him so much money, at or before the delivery of them, without obliging him to name or produce that person he had them from.

Upon this writing, signed by three gentlemen who were present, and by the person in particular who lost the things, the young gentleman told them he would go and do his utmost to get the pocket-book and all that was in it.

Then he desired that they would in writing, beforehand, give him a particular of all the several things that were in the book, that he might not have it said, when he produced it, that there was not all; and he would have the said writing sealed up, and he would make the book be sealed up when it was given to him. This they agreed to; and the gentleman accordingly drew up a particular of all the bills that he remembered, as he said, was in the book, and also of the diamonds, as follows: —

One bill under Sir Henry Furness’s hand for £ 1200.

One bill under Sir Charles Duncomb’s hand for £ 800, £ 250 endorsed off = £ 550.

One bill under the hand of J. Tassel, goldsmith, £ 165.

One bill of Sir Francis Child, £ 39.

One bill of one Stewart, that kept a wager-office and insurance, £ 350.

A paper containing thirty-seven loose diamonds, value about £ 250.

A little paper containing three large rough diamonds, and one large one polished and cut, value £ 185.

For all these things they promised, first, to give him whatever he agreed with the thief to give him, not exceeding £ 50, and to give him £ 50 more for himself for procuring them.

Now he had his cue, and now he came to me, and told me honestly the whole story as above. So I delivered him the book, and he told me that he thought it was reasonable we should not take the full sum, because he would seem to have done them some service, and so make them the easier. All this I agreed to; so he went the next day to the place, and the gentlemen met him very punctually.

He told them at the first word he had done their work, and, as he hoped, to their mind; and told them, if it had not been for the diamonds, he could have got all for £ 10; but that the diamonds had shone so bright in the boy’s imagination that he talked of running away to France or Holland, and living there all his days like a gentleman; at which they laughed. «However, gentlemen», said he, «here is the book»; and so pulled it out, wrapt up in a dirty piece of a coloured handkerchief, as black as the street could make it, and sealed with a piece of sorry wax, and the impression of a farthing for a seal.

Upon this, the note being also unsealed, at the same time he pulled open the dirty rag, and showed the gentleman his pocket-book; at which he was so over-surprised with joy, notwithstanding all the preparatory discourse, that he was fain to call for a glass of wine or brandy to drink, to keep him from fainting.

The book being opened, the paper of diamonds was first taken out, and there they were every one; only the little paper was by itself; and the rough diamonds that were in it were loose among the rest, but he owned they were all there safe.

Then the bills were called over one by one, and they found one bill for £ 80 more than the account mentioned, besides several papers which were not for money, though of consequence to the gentleman; and he acknowledged that all was very honestly returned. «And now, young man», said they, «you shall see we will deal as honestly by you»; and so, in the first place, they gave him £ 50 for himself, and then they told out the £ 50 for me.

He took the £ 50 for himself, and put it up in his pocket, wrapping it in paper, it being all in gold; then he began to tell over the other £ 50. But when he had told out £ 30, «Hold, gentlemen», said he, «as I have acted fairly for you, so you shall have no reason to say I do not do so to the end. I have taken £ 30, and for so much I agreed with the boy; and so there is £ 20 of your money again».

They stood looking one at another a good while, as surprised at the honesty of it; for till that time they were not quite without a secret suspicion that he was the thief; but that piece of policy cleared up his reputation to them. The gentleman that had got his bills said softly to one of them, «Give it him all». But the other said (softly too), «No, no; as long as he has got it abated, and is satisfied with the £ 50 you have given him, ‘tis very well; let it go as it ‘tis». This was not spoke so softly but he heard it, and said, «No», too; «I am very well satisfied; I am glad I have got them for you»; and so they began to part.

But just before they were going away one of the gentlemen said to him, «Young man, come, you see we are just to you, and have done fairly, as you have also; and we will not desire you to tell us who this cunning fellow is that got such a prize from this gentleman; but as you have talked with him, prithee, can you tell us nothing of how he did it, that we may beware of such sparks again?»

«Sir», says Will, «when I shall tell you what they say, and how the particular case stood, the gentleman would blame himself more than anybody else, or as much at least. The young rogue that catched this prize was out, it seems, with a comrade, who is a nimble, experienced pickpocket as most in London; but at that time the artist was somewhere at a distance, and this boy never had picked a pocket in his life before; but he says he stood over against the passage into the Exchange, on the east side, and the gentleman stood just by the passage; that he was very earnest in talking with some other gentleman, and often pulled out this book and opened it, and took papers out and put others in, and returned it into his coat-pocket; that the last time it hitched at the pocket-hole, or stopt at something that was in the pocket, and hung a little out, which the boy, who had watched it a good while perceiving, he passes by close to the gentleman, and carried it smoothly off, without the gentleman’s perceiving it at all».

He went on, and said, «‘Tis very strange gentlemen should put pocket-books which have such things in them into those loose pockets, and in so careless a manner». «That’s very true», says the gentleman; and so, with some other discourse of no great signification, he came away to me.

We were now so rich that we scarce knew what to do with our money; at least I did not, for I had no relations, no friends, nowhere to put anything I had but in my pocket. As for Will, he had a poor mother, but wicked as himself, and he made her rich and glad with his good success.

We divided this booty equally; for though the gaining it was mine, yet the improving of it was his, and his management brought the money; for neither he or I could have made anything proportionable of the thing any other way. As for the bills, there was no room to doubt but unless they had been carried that minute to the goldsmith’s for the money, he would have come with notice to stop the payment, and perhaps have come while the money was receiving, and have taken hold of the person. And then as to the diamonds, there had been no offering them to sale by us poor boys to anybody but those who were our known receivers, and they would have given us nothing for them compared to what they were worth; for, as I understood afterwards, those who made a trade of buying stolen goods took care to have false weights, and cheat the poor devil that stole them at least an ounce in three.

Upon the whole, we made the best of it many ways besides. I had a strange kind of uninstructed conscience at that time; for though I made no scruple of getting anything in this manner from anybody, yet I could not bear destroying their bills and papers, which were things that would do them a great deal of hurt, and do me no good; and I was so tormented about it that I could not rest night or day while I made the people easy from whom the things were taken.

I was now rich, so rich that I knew not what to do with my money or with myself. I had lived so near and so close, that although, as I said, I did now and then lay out twopence or threepence for mere hunger, yet I had so many people who, as I said, employed me, and who gave me victuals and sometimes clothes, that in a whole year I had not quite spent the 15s. which I had saved of the custom-house gentleman’s money; and I had the four guineas which was of the first booty before that still in my pocket – I mean the money that I let fall into the tree.

But now I began to look higher; and though Will and I went abroad several times together, yet, when small things offered, as handkerchiefs and such trifles, we would not meddle with them, not caring to run the risk for small matters. It fell out one day that, as we were strolling about in West Smithfield on a Friday, there happened to be an ancient country gentleman in the market, selling some very large bullocks. It seems they came out of Sussex, for we heard him say there were no such bullocks in the whole county of Suffolk. His worship, for so they called him, had received the money for these bullocks at a tavern, whose sign I forget now, and having some of it in a bag, and the bag in his hand, he was taken with a sudden fit of coughing, and stands to cough, resting his hand with the bag of money in it upon the bulk-head of a shop just by the Cloister Gate in Smithfield; that is to say, within three or four doors of it. We were both just behind him. Says Will to me, «Stand ready». Upon this he makes an artificial stumble, and falls with his head just against the old gentleman in the very moment when he was coughing, ready to be strangled, and quite spent for want of breath.

The violence of the blow beat the old gentleman quite down. The bag of money did not immediately fly out of his hand, but I ran to get hold of it, and gave it a quick snatch, pulled it clean away, and ran like the wind down the Cloisters with it; turned on the left hand, as soon as I was through, and cut into Little Britain, so into Bartholomew Close, then across Aldersgate Street, through Paul’s Alley into Redcross Street, and so across all the streets, through innumerable alleys, and never stopped till I got into the second quarter of Moorfields, our old agreed rendezvous.

Will, in the meantime, fell down with the old gentleman, but soon got up. The old knight, for such, it seems, he was, was frighted with the fall, and his breath so stopped with his cough that he could not recover himself to speak till some time; during which nimble Will was got up again, and walked off. Nor could he call out, «Stop thief», or tell anybody he had lost anything for a good while; but, coughing vehemently and looking red, till he was almost black in the face, he cried, «The ro – hegh, hegh, hegh – the rogues – hegh – have got – hegh, hegh, hegh, hegh, hegh, hegh»; then he would get a little breath, and at it again: «The rogues – hegh, hegh»; and, after a great many heghs and rogues, he brought it out – «have got away my bag of money!»

All this while the people understood nothing of the matter; and as for the rogues indeed, they had time enough to get clear away, and in about an hour Will came to the rendezvous. There we sat down in the grass again, and turned out the money, which proved to be eight guineas, and £ 5, 12s. in silver, so that it made just £ 14 together. This we shared upon the spot, and went to work the same day for more; but whether it was that, being flushed with our success, we were not so vigilant, or that no other opportunity offered, I know not, but we got nothing more that night, nor so much as anything offered itself for an attempt.

We took many walks of this kind, sometimes together, at a little distance from one another, and several small hits we made; but we were so flushed with our success that truly we were above meddling with trifles, as I said before – no, not such things that others would have been glad of; nothing but pocket-books, letter-cases, or sums of money would move us.

The next adventure was in the dusk of the evening, in a court which goes out of Gracechurch Street into Lombard Street, where the Quakers’ meeting house is. There was a young fellow who, as we learned afterward, was a woollen-draper’s apprentice in Gracechurch Street. It seems he had been receiving a sum of money which was very considerable, and he comes to a goldsmith’s shop in Lombard Street with it; paid in the most of it there; insomuch that it grew dark, and the goldsmith began to be shutting in shop, and candles to be lighted. We watched him in there, and stood on the other side of the way to see what he did. When he had paid in all the money he intended, he stayed still some time longer, to take notes, as I supposed, for what he had paid; and by this time it was still darker than before. At last he comes out of the shop, with still a pretty large bag under his arm, and walks over into the court, which was then very dark. In the middle of the court is a boarded entry, and farther, at the end of it, a threshold; and as soon as he had set his foot over the threshold, he was to turn on his left hand into Gracechurch Street.

«Keep up», says Will to me; «be nimble»; and as soon as he had said so he flies at the young man, and gives him such a violent thrust that pushed him forward with too great a force for him to stand; and as he strove to recover, the threshold took his feet, and he fell forward into the other part of the court, as if he had flown in the air, with his head lying towards the Quakers’ meeting-house. I stood ready, and presently felt out the bag of money, which I heard fall; for it flew out of his hand, he having his life to save, not his money. I went forward with the money, and Will, that threw him down, finding I had it, run backward, and as I made along Fenchurch Street, Will overtook me, and we scoured home together. The poor young man was hurt a little with the fall, and reported to his master, as we heard afterward, that he was knocked down, which was not true, for neither Will or I had any stick in our hands; but the master of the youth was, it seems, so very thankful that his young man was not knocked down before he paid the rest of the money (which was above £ 100 more) to the goldsmith, who was Sir John Sweetapple, that he made no great noise at the loss he had, and, as we heard afterward, only warned his apprentice to be more careful and come no more through such places in the dark; whereas the man had really no such deliverance as he imagined, for we saw him before, when he had all the money about him; but it was no time of day for such work as we had to do, so that he was in no danger before.

This booty amounted to £ 29, 16s., which was £ 14 18s. apiece, and added exceedingly to my store, which began now to be very much too big for my management; and indeed I began to be now full of care for the preservation of what I had got. I wanted a trusty friend to commit it to; but where was such a one to be found by a poor boy bred up among thieves? If I should have let any honest body know that I had so much money, they would have asked me how I came by it, and would have been afraid to take it into their hands, lest I being some time or other catched in my rogueries, they should be counted the receivers of stolen goods and the encouragers of a thief.

We had, however, in the meantime a great many other successful enterprises, some of one kind, some of another, and were never so much as in danger of being apprehended; but my companion Will, who was now grown a man, and encouraged by these advantages, fell into quite another vein of wickedness, getting acquainted with a wretched gang of fellows that turned their hands to everything that was vile.

Will was a lusty, strong fellow, and withal very bold and daring, would fight anybody and venture upon anything; and I found he began to be above the mean rank of a poor pickpocket, so I saw him but seldom. However, once coming to me in a very friendly manner, and asking me how I went on, I told him that I used the old trade still, that I had had two or three good jobs: one with a young woman, whose pocket I had picked of eleven guineas; and another, a countrywoman, just come out of a stage-coach, seeing her pull out her bag to pay the coachman; and that I followed her till I got an opportunity, and slipped it out so neatly that though there was £ 8, 17s. in it, yet she never felt it go. And several other jobs I told him of, by which I made pretty good purchase. «I always said you were a lucky boy, Colonel Jacque», says he; «but, come, you are grown almost a man now, and you shall not be always at play at push-pin. I am got into better business, I assure you, and you shall come into it too. I’ll bring you into a brave gang, Jacque», says he, «where you shall see we shall be all gentlemen».

Then he told me the trade itself, in short, which was with a set of fellows that had two of the most desperate works upon their hands that belonged to the whole art of thieving; that is to say, in the evening they were footpads, and in the night they were housebreakers. Will told me so many plausible stories, and talked of such great things, that, in short, I, who had been always used to do anything he bid me do, went with him without any hesitation.

Nothing is more certain than that hitherto, being partly from the gross ignorance of my untaught childhood, as I observed before, partly from the hardness and wickedness of the company I kept; and add to these that it was the business I might be said to be brought up to – I had, I say, all the way hitherto, no manner of thoughts about the good or evil of what I was embarked in; consequently I had no sense of conscience, no reproaches upon my mind for having done amiss.

Yet I had something in me, by what secret influence I knew not, kept me from the other degrees of raking and vice, and, in short, from the general wickedness of the rest of my companions. For example, I never used any ill words, nobody ever heard me swear, nor was I given to drink, or to love strong drink; and I cannot omit a circumstance that very much served to prevent it. I had a strange original notion, as I have mentioned in its place, of my being a gentleman; and several things had casually happened in my way to increase this fancy of mine. It happened one day, that being in the Glass-house Yard, between Rosemary Lane and Ratcliff Highway, there came a man dressed very well, and with a coach attending him, and he came (as I suppose) to buy glass-bottles, or some other goods, as they sold; and in bargaining for his goods, he swore most horrid oaths at every two or three words. At length the master of the glass-house, an ancient, grave gentleman, took the liberty to reprove him, which at first made him swear the worse. After a while the gentleman was a little calmer, but still he swore very much, though not so bad as at first. After some time the master of the glass-house turned from him – «Really, sir», says the good old gentleman, «you swear so, and take God’s name in vain so, that I cannot bear to stay with you. I would rather you would let my goods alone and go somewhere else. I hope you won’t take it ill, but I don’t desire to deal with anybody that does so. I am afraid my glass-house should fall on your head while you stay in it».

The gentleman grew good-humoured at the reproof, and said, «Well, come, don’t go away; I won’t swear any more», says he, «if I can help it; for I own», says he, «I should not do it».

With that the old gentleman looked up at him, and, returning, «Really, sir», says he, «‘tis pity you, that seem to be a fine gentleman, well-bred and good-humoured, should accustom yourself to such a hateful practice. Why, ‘tis not like a gentleman to swear; ‘tis enough for my black wretches that work there at the furnace, or for these ragged, naked, blackguard boys», pointing at me, and some others of the dirty crew that lay in the ashes. «‘Tis bad enough for them», says he, «and they ought to be corrected for it, too; but for a man of breeding, sir», says he, «a gentleman, it ought to be looked upon as below them. Gentlemen know better, and are taught better, and it is plain you know better. I beseech you, sir, when you are tempted to swear, always ask yourself, ‘Is this like a gentleman? Does this become me as a gentleman?’ Do but ask yourself that question, and your reason will prevail – you will soon leave it off».

I heard all this, and it made the blood run chill in my veins when he said swearing was only fit for such as we were. In short, it made as great an impression upon me as it did upon the gentleman; and yet he took it very kindly too, and thanked the old gentleman for his advice. But from that time forward I never had the least inclination to swearing or ill words, and abhorred it when I heard other boys do it. As to drinking, I had no opportunity; for I had nothing to drink but water, or small-beer that anybody gave me in charity, for they seldom gave away strong beer; and after I had money, I neither desired strong beer or cared to part with my money to buy it.

Then as to principle, ‘tis true I had no foundation laid in me by education; and being early led by my fate into evil, I had the less sense of its being evil left upon my mind. But when I began to grow to an age of understanding, and to know that I was a thief, growing up in all manner of villainy, and ripening apace for the gallows, it came often into my thoughts that I was going wrong, that I was in the high-road to the devil; and several times I would stop short, and ask myself if this was the life of a gentleman.

But these little things wore off again as often as they came on, and I followed the old trade again, especially when Will came to prompt me, as I have observed, for he was a kind of a guide to me in all these things; and I had, by custom and application, together with seeing his way, learned to be as acute a workman as my master.