Eighteenth Century Waifs

‘After the Spectators have been sufficiently amused with this formal Procession, she begins her Military exercises, and goes through the whole Catechism (if I may be allowed the Expression) with so much Dexterity and Address, and with so little Hesitation or Default, that great Numbers even of Veteran Soldiers, who have resorted to the Wells out of mere curiosity only, have frankly acknowledged that she executes what she undertakes to Admiration, and that the universal Applause which she meets with is by no means the Result of Partiality to her in Consideration of her Sex, but is due to her, without Favour or Affection, as the Effect of her extraordinary Merit.

‘As our Readers may be desirous of being informed in what Dress she now appears, we think it proper to inform them that she wears Men’s Cloaths, being, as she says, determined so to do, and having bought new Cloathing for that Purpose.’

This theatrical performance, of course, could not last long; so, with her savings, she took a public-house at Wapping, which she christened ‘The Widow in Masquerade,’ and on one side of the sign she was delineated in her full regimentals, on the other in plain clothes.

She afterwards married, for in the Universal Chronicle (November 3/10, 1759, p. 359, col. 3) may be read: ‘Marriages. At Newbury, in the county of Berks, the famous Hannah Snell, who served as a marine in the last war, and was wounded at the siege of Pondicherry, to a carpenter of that place.’ His name was Eyles. In 1789 she became insane, and was taken to Bethlehem, where she died on the 8th of February, 1792, aged sixty-nine.

The examples quoted of women joining the army are by no means singular, for in 1761 a lynx-eyed sergeant detected a woman who wished to enlist under the name of Paul Daniel, in the hope that she might be sent to Germany, where her husband was then serving in the army. And in the same year a woman named Hannah Witney was masquerading at Plymouth in man’s attire, and was laid hold of by a press-gang and lodged in Plymouth gaol. She was so disgusted at the treatment she received that she disclosed her sex, at the same time telling the astonished authorities that she had served as a marine for five years.

There is a curious little chap-book, now very rare, of the ‘Life and Adventures of Maria Knowles … by William Fairbank, Sergeant-major of the 66th Regiment of Foot,’ and, as it is very short, it may be as well to give its ipsissima verba.

‘The heroine of the following story is the only daughter of Mr. John Knowles, a reputed farmer,[36 - A farmer of repute.] of the parish of Bridworth, in the county of Cheshire, where Maria was born, and was her father’s only daughter. At an early age she lost her mother, and was brought up under the care of a mother-in-law, who treated her with more kindness than is usually done to motherless children. Her father having no other child, his house might have proved a comfortable home for one of a more sober disposition. At the age of nineteen she was so very tall that she was styled the ‘Tall Girl.’ She had a very handsome face, which gained her plenty of sweethearts. Many young men felt the weight of her fists for giving her offences. She refused many offers of marriage, and that from persons of fortune.

‘Being one day at the market in Warrington, she saw one Cliff, a sergeant of the Guards on the recruiting service, with whom she fell deeply in love; he in a short time was called to join the regiment, and she, not being able to bear her love-sick passion, eloped from her father’s house, immediately went up to London, disguised in man’s apparel, and enlisted in the same regiment with her sweetheart, in which she made a most martial appearance in her regimentals; her height covered the deception. As a red coat captivates the fair sex, our female soldier made great advances, being a lover of mirth and a smart girl…

‘A part of the Guards were ordered to Holland, with whom sailed Maria and her sweetheart. The British troops were stationed at Dort, and a party was sent in gunboats to annoy the French, who were then besieging Williamstadt. From Holland they were ordered to French Flanders, where Maria was at several desperate battles and sieges. At Dunkirk she was wounded in three different parts, in her right shoulder, in her right arm, and thigh, which discovered her sex, and, of course, her secret.

‘After being recovered from her wounds, and questioned by her commanding officer, she related to him the particulars of her life, and the reason of her being disguised, and entering for a soldier, which was to seek her fortune, and share the fate of the man on whom she had irrevocably fixed her affection.

‘The news soon reached her lover, who flew to the arms of so faithful a girl, whom he embraced with the most ardent zeal, vowing an eternal constancy to her; and, in order to reward such faithful love, the officers raised a handsome subscription for them, after which they were married by the chaplain of the regiment, to their great joy…

‘But this was not all, for the adjutant of the 66th Regiment of Foot dying of his wounds, Sergeant Cliff was promoted to that berth, and Sergeant Fairbank to sergeant-major, as Cliff and him were always comrades together. In a little time the regiment was sent to Gibraltar, where they stayed most part of the year, during which Mrs. Cliff was delivered of a fine son, after which the regiment was sent to the West Indies, and, after a passage of twenty-eight days, landed safely on the island of St. Vincent, where they remained some time; but, the yellow fever raging among the troops, Mr. Cliff died, to the great grief of his disconsolate wife and her young son. She was still afraid of the raging distemper, but, happily for her and her son, neither of them took it.

‘Great indulgence was given her, and also provisions allowed them both; but this did not suffice, for Mrs. Cliff, losing the man she had ventured her life so many times for, was now very unhappy, and made application to the commanding officer for her passage to England; and a great many men, unfit for duty, coming home, she was admitted a passenger. I, being unfit to act as sergeant-major, on account of a wound that I received in my left leg, the same day Mrs. Cliff was wounded, and although it was cured, as soon as I came into a hot country it broke out again, and I, being unfit for duty, was sent home, and recommended.[37 - For a pension.] So I came home in the same ship, with this difference, that she was in the cabin, and I among the men. We sailed in the Eleanor on the 25th of January, 1798, and, after forty days’ sail, we reached Spithead, and, after performing a short quarantine, we landed at Portsmouth on the 16th of March, where I left Mrs. Cliff to pursue her journey to her father’s, and I came to London.’

I have been unable to trace the fate of this heroine any further.

There is yet another woman of the eighteenth century, who acted the part both of soldier and sailor; and we read of her in the Times, 4th of November, 1799.

‘There is at present in the Middlesex Hospital a young and delicate female, who calls herself Miss T – lb – t, and who is said to be related to some families of distinction; her story is very singular: – At an early period of her life, having been deprived, by the villainy of a trustee, of a sum of money bequeathed to her by a deceased relation of high rank, she followed the fortunes of a young naval officer to whom she was attached, and personated a common sailor before the mast, during a cruise in the north seas. In consequence of a lover’s quarrel she quitted the ship, and assumed, for a time, the military character; but her passion for the sea prevailing, she returned to her favourite element, did good service, and received a severe wound on board Earl St. Vincent’s ship, on the glorious 14th of February,[38 - The action off Cape St. Vincent, when Sir John Jervis, with fifteen sail of the line, attacked and defeated the Spanish fleet, consisting of twenty-seven sail of the line.] and again bled in the cause of her country in the engagement off Camperdown. On this last occasion her knee was shattered, and an amputation is likely to ensue. This spirited female, we understand, receives a pension of £20 from an illustrious lady, which is about to be doubled.’

Voilà comment on écrit l’histoire! This newspaper report is about as truthful as nine-tenths of the paragraphs now-a-days; there is a substratum of truth, but not ‘the whole truth and nothing but the truth.’ But this can be read in a little tractate entitled, ‘The Life and Surprising Adventures of Mary Ann Talbot, in the name of John Taylor. Related by herself.’ London, 1809. This pamphlet is extracted from ‘Kirby’s Wonderful Museum of Remarkable Characters, &c.,’ and professes to be an autobiography. It is highly probable that it is so, as she was a domestic servant in Mr. Kirby’s house for three years before her death.

According to this relation she was the youngest of sixteen natural children whom her mother had by Lord William Talbot, Baron of Hensol, steward of his Majesty’s household, and colonel of the Glamorganshire Militia. She was born the 2nd of February, 1778, and her mother died on giving her birth. She was put out to nurse in the country, until she was five years of age, when she was placed in a boarding-school at Chester, where she remained nine years, being looked after by a married sister who lived at Trevalyn, county Denbigh. At her death a man named Sucker, living at Newport, county Salop, became her guardian, and he behaved to her with such severity that she cordially hated him. He introduced her to a Captain Bowen, of the 82nd Regiment of Foot, who took her to London in January, 1792, where, friendless and alone, she soon became his victim.

His regiment was ordered to embark for Santo Domingo, and he had so thoroughly subjugated her to his will, and she was so utterly helpless, that she accompanied him on board as his ‘little foot page.’ Captain Bowen made John Taylor (for such was the name Miss Talbot then took) thoroughly act up to her assumed character, and she had to live and mess with the lowest of the ship’s company, and, what was more, had to do her turn of duty with the ship’s crew.

After a stormy voyage, with short provisions, they arrived at Port-au-Prince, but stayed there a very short time, as orders came for them to return to Europe, and join the troops on the Continent, under the command of His Royal Highness the Duke of York. Then it was that Captain Bowen made her enrol herself as a drummer in his regiment, threatening her unless she did so he would sell her up-country for a slave. There was nothing for her but to comply, so she put on the clothes and learned the business of a drummer-boy, having, besides, still to be the drudge of her paramour.

At the siege of Valenciennes she received two wounds, neither of them severe enough to incapacitate her from serving, and she cured them, without going into hospital, with a little basilicon, lint, and Dutch drops. In this siege Captain Bowen was killed, and she, finding the key of his desk in his pocket, searched the desk and found several letters relating to her, from her quondam guardian, Sucker.

Being now released from her servitude, she began to think of quitting the service, and, having changed her military dress for one she had worn on ship-board, she deserted, and, after some wandering, reached Luxembourg, but, it being in the occupation of the French, she was not permitted to go further. Being thus foiled in her design of reaching England, and destitute of every necessary of life, she was compelled to engage on board a French lugger, a cruiser. In the course of their voyage, they fell in with the British fleet under the command of Lord Howe. The French vessel made a show of fighting, and John Taylor refused to fight against her countrymen, for which she received a severe thrashing from the French captain.

After a very faint resistance the lugger was captured, and she, as being English, was taken on board the Queen Charlotte to be interrogated by Lord Howe. Her story, being backed up by the French captain, gained her release, and she was allowed to join the navy, a berth being found for her on board the Brunswick as powder-monkey, her duty being to hand powder, &c., for the guns when in action. Captain Harvey, of the Brunswick, noticed the pseudo lad, and straightly examined her as to whether she had not run away from school, or if she had any friends; but she disarmed his suspicions by telling him her father and mother were dead, and she had not a friend in the world; yet the kindly captain took such a friendly interest in her that he made her principal cabin-boy.

In the memorable fight off Brest, on the ‘Glorious First of June,’ Captain Harvey was killed, and our heroine severely wounded both in the ankle by a grape-shot and in the thigh a little above the knee. She was, of course, taken to the cockpit; but the surgeon could not extract the ball in the ankle, and would not venture to cut it out; nor, when they arrived home, and she was taken to Haslar Hospital, could they extract the ball. Partially cured, she was discharged, and shipped on board the Vesuvius bomb, belonging to Sir Sydney Smith’s squadron, where she acted as midshipman, although she did not receive the pay which should have accompanied the position; and, while thus serving, a little anecdote she tells give us a fair idea of what stuff she was made.

‘It was necessary for some one on board to go to the jib-boom to catch the jib-sheet, which in the gale had got loose. The continual lungeing of the ship rendered this duty particularly hazardous, and there was not a seaman on board but rejected this office. I was acting in the capacity of midshipman, though I never received pay for my service in this ship but as a common man. The circumstance I mention only to show that it was not my particular duty to undertake the task, which, on the refusal of several who were asked, I voluntarily undertook. Indeed, the preservation of us all depended on this exertion. On reaching the jib-boom I was under the necessity of lashing myself fast to it, for the ship every minute making a fresh lunge, without such a precaution I should inevitably have been washed away. The surges continually breaking over me, I suffered an uninterrupted wash and fatigue for six hours before I could quit the post I occupied. When danger is over, a sailor has little thought or reflection, and my mess-mates, who had witnessed the perilous situation in which I was placed, passed it off with a joke observing, “that I had only been sipping sea broth”; but it was a broth of a quality that, though most seamen relish, yet few, I imagine, would like to take it in the quantity I was compelled to do.’

By the fortune of war the Vesuvius was captured, and the crew were conveyed to Dunkirk, where they were lodged in the prison of St. Clair, and the rigour of their captivity seems to have been extreme, especially in the case of Mary Anne Talbot, who perhaps partially deserved it, as she attempted, in company with a mess-mate, to escape. ‘We were both confined in separate dungeons, where it was so dark that I never saw daylight during the space of eleven weeks, and the only allowance I received was bread and water, let down to me from the top of the cell. My bed consisted only of a little straw, not more than half a truss, which was never changed. For two days I was so ill in this dreadful place that I was unable to stir from my wretched couch to reach the miserable pittance, which, in consequence, was drawn up in the same state. The next morning, a person – who, I suppose, was the keeper of the place – came into the dungeon without a light (which way he came I know not, but I suppose through a private door through which I afterwards passed to be released), and called to me, “Are you dead?” To this question I was only able to reply by requesting a little water, being parched almost to death by thirst, resulting from the fever which preyed on me. He told me he had none, and left me in a brutal manner, without offering the least relief. Nature quickly restored me to health, and I sought the bread and water with as eager an inclination as a glutton would seek a feast. About five weeks after my illness, an exchange of prisoners taking place, I obtained my liberty.’

She then shipped to America as steward, and from thence to England, and was going on a voyage to the Mediterranean, when she was seized by a press-gang, and sent on board a tender. But she had no wish to serve His Majesty at sea any more, and, discovering her sex, she was examined by a surgeon, and of course at once discharged.

Her little stock of money getting low, she applied at the Navy pay-office, in Somerset House, for the cash due to her whilst serving in the Brunswick and Vesuvius, as well as her share of prize-money, arising from her being present on the ‘glorious 1st of June.’ She was referred to a prize-agent, who directed her to call again; this not being to her taste, she returned to Somerset House, and indulged in very rough language, for which she was taken off to Bow Street. She told her story, and was ordered to appear again, when a subscription was got up in her behalf; and she was paid twelve shillings a week, until she received her money from the Government.

Her old wound in the leg became bad again, and she went into St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, and on her discharge, partially cured, she petitioned the King and the Duke of York for relief. The latter gave her five pounds. Then she cast about for the means of earning a livelihood, and bethought her that, when she was a prisoner at Dunkirk, she had watched a German make little ornaments out of gold-wire, which he sold at a good profit; and she did the same, working at the shop of a jeweller in St. Giles’s, and so expert was she that she made the chains for a gold bracelet worn by Queen Charlotte. But the old wound still broke out, and she went into St. George’s Hospital for seven months. When she came out, she led a shiftless, loafing existence, always begging for money – of Mr. Dundas, of the Duke of York, or anyone else that might possibly be generous.

At last these kind friends got her case introduced in the very highest quarters, and she kissed the Queen’s hand at Buckingham House, as it was then called; and soon afterwards she was directed to apply at the War Office, in her sailor’s dress, to receive a half-year’s payment of a pension the Queen had granted her, in the name of John Taylor. Still her wound kept breaking out, and twice she had to go into Middlesex Hospital. She had some idea of going on the stage, and performed several parts at the Thespian Society in Tottenham Court Road, but she gave it up, finding begging a more profitable business; but even then she had to go to Newgate for a small debt. She took in washing, but the people did not pay her, and misfortune pursued her everywhere.

One night, in September, 1804, she was thrown from a coach into a hole left by the carelessness of some firemen, in Church Lane, Whitechapel, and she broke her arm, besides bruising herself badly. The fire office would give her no compensation, but many people were interested in her case, among them a Mr. Kirby, a publisher in Paternoster Row, who employed her as a domestic servant. In 1807, she fell into a decline, doubtless induced by the very free life she had led; and she died on the 4th of February, 1808, having just completed her thirtieth year.

It is not to be thought that England enjoyed the monopoly of these viragos – the country of Jeanne d’Arc was quite equal to the occasion, and Renée Bordereau affords an illustration for the last century. She was born, of peasant parents, in 1770, at the village of Soulaine, near Angers; and at the time of the insurrection in La Vendée, when the royalists were so cruelly punished, she lost forty-two relations in the struggle, her father being murdered before her eyes.

This crushed out of her any soft and feminine feelings she might have possessed, and she vowed vengeance on the hated Republicans. She obtained a musket, taught herself how to use it, learned some elementary drill, and then, donning man’s attire, joined the royalists. Among them she was known by the name of Langevin, and where the fight was fiercest, there she would be, and none suspected that the daring trooper was a woman. On horseback, and on foot, she fought in above two hundred battles and skirmishes, frequently wounded, but seldom much hurt. Such was the terror with which she inspired the Bonapartists, that, when the rebellion was put down, Napoleon specially exempted Langevin from pardon, and she languished in prison until the Restoration. She died in 1828.

THE ‘TIMES’ AND ITS FOUNDER

A discursive book anent the eighteenth century, as this is, would be incomplete without a mention of one of the greatest powers which it produced. This marvellous newspaper, whose utterances, at one time, exercised a sensible influence over the whole of the civilised world, and which, even now, is the most potent of all the English press, was founded by Mr. John Walter, on January 1, 1788.

This gentleman was born either in 1738 or 1739, and his father followed the business of a ‘coal buyer,’ which meant that he bought coals at the pit’s mouth, and then shipped them to any desired port, or market. In those days almost all coals came, by sea, from Newcastle, and its district, because of the facility of carriage; the great inland beds being practically unworked, and in many cases utterly unknown: it being reserved for the giant age of steam to develop their marvellous resources.

His father died in 1755, John Walter then being seventeen and, boy though he was, he at once succeeded to his father’s business. In it he was diligent and throve well, and he so won the confidence and respect of his brother ‘coal buyers’ that when a larger Coal Exchange was found necessary, in order to accommodate, and keep pace with its increasing business, the whole of the arrangements, plans, and directions were left in his hands. When the building was completed, he was rewarded by his brethren in trade with the position of manager, and afterwards he became Chairman to the Body of Coal Buyers.

He married, and, in 1771, things had gone so prosperously with him that he bought a house with some ground at Battersea Rise, and here he lived, and reared his family of six children, until his bankruptcy, when it was sold. He also took unto himself partners, and was the head of the firm of Walter, Bradley, and Sage. For some time all went well, but competition arose, and the old-fashioned way of doing business could not hold its own against the keenness, and cutting, of the new style. Let us hear him tell his own story.[39 - ‘The case of Mr. John Walter, of London, Merchant.’ London, 1781.]

‘I shall forbear relating the various scenes of business I was engaged in prior to my embarking in Lloyd’s Rooms; sufficient it is to remark that a very extensive trade I entered into at the early age of seventeen, when my father died, rewarded a strong spirit of industry, and, for the first ten or twelve years, with a satisfactory increase of fortune; but a number of inconsiderable dealers, by undermining the fair trader, and other dishonourable practices, reduced the profits, and made them inadequate to the risque and capital employed. It happened unfortunately for me, about that time, some policy brokers, who had large orders for insurances on foreign Indiamen and other adventures, found their way to the Coal Market, a building of which I was the principal planner and manager.

‘I was accustomed, with a few others, to underwrite the vessels particularly employed in that trade, and success attended the step, because the risque was fair, and the premiums adequate. This was my temptation for inclining to their solicitations of frequenting Lloyd’s Rooms.[40 - Then in Lombard Street.] With great reluctance I complain that I quitted a trade where low art and cunning combated the fair principles of commerce, which my mind resisted as my fortune increased; but from the change I had to encounter deception and fraud, in a more dangerous but subtle degree.

‘The misfortunes of the war were of great magnitude to the Underwriters, but they were considerably multiplied by the villainy and depravity of Mankind. In the year 1776, at a time when they received only peace premiums, American privateers swarmed on the seas, drove to desperation by the Boston port act passing at the close of the preceding year, to prohibit their fisheries, and our trade fell a rapid prey before government had notice to apply the least protection. Flushed with success, it increased the number of their armed vessels, and proved such a source of riches as enabled them to open a trade with France, who had, hitherto, been only a silent spectator, and produced the sinews of a war which then unhappily commenced.’

He then details the causes which led to his bankruptcy – how the wars with the French, Spaniards, and Dutch, all of whom had their men-of-war and privateers, which preyed upon our commerce, ruined the underwriters, and continues,

‘In two years only of the war I lost, on a balance, thirty-one thousand pounds, which obliged me, in 1781, to quit the Coal Trade, after carrying it on so many years, when I had returned’ (? turned over) ‘above a Million of money, the profits of which have been sunk as an Underwriter, that I might have the use of my capital employed in it, to pay my unfortunate losses… Last year, I was obliged to make a sacrifice of my desirable habitation at Battersea Rise, where I had resided ten years, and expended a considerable sum of money, the fruits of many years of industry, before I became acquainted with Lloyd’s Rooms.

‘These reserves, however, proved ineffectual, and I found it necessary, on examining the state of my accounts early in January last, to call my Creditors together; for, though some months preceding I found my fortune rapidly on the decline, I never suspected my being insolvent till that view of my affairs, when I found a balance in my favour of only nine thousand pounds, from which was to be deducted a fourth part owing me by brokers, who, unfortunately for me as well as themselves, were become bankrupts. This surplus, it was clear, would not bear me through known, though unsettled, losses, besides what might arise on unexpired risques. I therefore, without attempting to borrow a shilling from a friend, resorting to false Credit, or using any subterfuge whatever, after depositing what money remained in my hands, the property of others, laid the state of my affairs before my Creditors.

‘This upright conduct made them my friends; they immediately invested me with full power to settle my own affairs, and have acted with liberality and kindness. They were indebted for the early knowledge I gave them of my affairs to the regularity of my accounts; for, had I rested my inquiry till after the broker’s yearly accounts were chequed, in all probability a very trifling dividend would have ensued. Had the merchant been obliged to stand his own risque during the late war, few concerned on the seas would have been able to withstand the magnitude of their losses.

‘The only alleviation to comfort me in this affliction has arose from the consideration that I have acted honourably by all men; that, neither in prosperity nor adversity, have I ever been influenced by mean or mercenary motives in my connections with the world, of which I can give the most satisfactory proofs; that, when in my power, benevolence ever attended my steps; the deserving and needy never resorted to me in vain, nor has gratitude ever been wanting to express any obligations or kindnesses received from those I have had transactions with by every return in my power. I have the further consolation of declaring that, in winding up my affairs, I have acted with the strictest impartiality in every demand both for and against my estate; that I have (unsolicited) attended every meeting at Guildhall to protect it against plunder. A dividend was made as soon as the bankrupt laws would permit, and the surplus laid out in interest for the benefit of the estate, till a fair time is allowed to know what demands may come against it. I am fully convinced that it will not be £15,000 deficient; above double that sum I have left in Lloyd’s Rooms as a profit among the brokers.

‘No prospect opening of embarking again in business for want of Capital to carry it on, I was advised to make my case known to the administration, which has been done both by public and private application of my friends, who kindly interceded in my behalf for some respectable post under Government, and met with that kind reception from the Minister which gave me every prospect of success, which I flatter myself I have some natural claim to, from the consideration that, as trade is the support of the nation, it could not be carried on without Underwriters.

‘And as the want of protection to the trade of the Country, from the host of enemies we had to combat, occasioned by misfortunes, whom could I fly to with more propriety than to Government? as, by endeavouring to protect commerce, I fell a martyr on the conclusion of an unfortunate war. I was flattered with hopes that my pretensions to an appointment were not visionary, and that I was not wanting in ability to discharge the duties of any place I might have the honour to fill. The change of administration[41 - Lord North resigned, and Lord Rockingham succeeded as Premier, 1782.] which happened soon after was death to my hopes, and, as I had little expectation of making equal interest with the Minister who succeeded, I have turned my thoughts to a matter which appeared capable of being a most essential improvement in the conduct of the Press;[42 - Logotypes – or printing types in which words, etc., were cast, instead of single letters.] and, by great attention and assiduity for a year past, it is now reduced from a very voluminous state and great incorrectness to a system which, I hope, will meet the public approbation and countenance.

‘Such is the brief state of a Case which I trust humanity will consider deserving a better fate. Judge what must be my sensations on this trying occasion: twenty-six years in the prime of life passed away, all the fortune I had acquired by a studious attention to business sunk by hasty strides, and the world to begin afresh, with the daily introduction to my view of a wife and six children unprovided for, and dependent on me for support. Feeling hearts may sympathise at the relation, none but parents can conceive the anxiety of my mind in such a state of uncertainty and suspense.’

From an unprejudiced perusal of this ‘case,’ the reader can but come to the conclusion that Mr. John Walter was not overburdened with that inconvenient commodity – modesty; and that his logic – judged by ordinary rules – is decidedly faulty. But that he did try to help himself, is evidenced by the following advertisement in the Morning Post of July 21, 1784: