himfelf obliged to me, when he compares it with. the conduct of authors, who often fill a whole fheet with their own praises, to which they fometimes fet their own real names, and fometimes a fictitious one. One hint, however, I must give the kind reader; which is, that if he should be able to find no fort of amusement in the book, he will be pleafed to remember the public utility which will arife from it. If entertainment, as Mr. Richardfon obferves, be but a fecondary confideration in a romance; with which Mr. Addifon I think agrees, affirming the ufe of the paftry-cook to be the first; if this, I fay be true of a mere work of invention, fure it inay well be fo confidered in a work founded, like this, on truth; and where the political reflections form fo diftinguishing a part. But perhaps I may hear, from fome critic of the most faturnine complexion, that my vanity must have made a horrid dupe of my judgment, if it hath flattered me with an expectation of having any thing here feen in a grave light, or of conveying any useful inftruction to the public, or to their guardians. I anfwer with the great man, whom I just now quoted, that my purpose is to convey instruction in the vehicle of entertainment; and fo to bring about at once, like the revolution in the Rehearsal, a perfect reformation of the laws relating to our maritime affairs an undertaking, I will not fay more modeft, but furely more feasible, than that of reforming a whole people, by making ufe of a vehicular ftory, to wheel in among them worse manners than their own. : THE THE INTRODUCTION. I N the beginning of Auguft, 1753, when I had taken the Duke of Portland's medicine, as it is called, near a year, the effect of which had been the carrying off the fymptoms of a lingering imperfect gout, I was perfuaded by Mr. Ranby, the King's premier ferjeant furgeon, and the ableft advice, I believe, in all branches of the phyfical profeffion, to go immediately to Bath. I accordingly writ that very night to Mrs. Bowden, who, by the next poft, informed me fhe had taken me a lodging for a month certain. Within a few days after this, whilft I was preparing for my journey, and when I was almoft fatigued to death with feveral long examinations, relating to five different murders, all committed within the space of a week, by different gangs of street robbers, I received a meffage from his Grace the Duke of Newcastle, by Mr. Carrington, the King's meffenger, to attend his Grace in Lincoln's-inn-fields, upon fome bufinefs of importance; with which I'immediately complied; when his Grace fent a gentleman to difcourfe with me on the best plan which could be invented for putting an immediate end to those murders and robberies which were every day committed in the streets: upon which, I pronifed to transmit my opinion, in writing, tois Grace, who, as the gentleman informed me, intended to lay it before the privy council. Tho' this vifit coft me a fevere cold, I, notwithstanding, fet myself down to work, and in about four days fent the Duke as regular a plan as I could form, with all the reafons and arguments I could bring to fupport it, drawn out in feveral sheets of paper; and foon received a metfage from the Duke, by M. Carrington, acquainting me, that my plan was highly approved of, and that all the terms of it would be complied with. The principal and moft material of those terms was the immediately depofiting 600l. in my hands; at which fmall charge I undertook to demolish the then reigning gangs, and to put the civil policy into fuch order, that no fuch gangs fhould ever be able, for the future, to form themselves into bodies, or at least to remain any time formidable to the public. I had delayed my Bath-journey for fome time, contrary to the repeated advice of my phyfical acquaintance, and to the ardent defire of my warmeft friends, though my diftemper was now turned to a deep jaundice; in which case the Bath-waters are generally reputed to be almoft infallible. But I had the moft eager defire of demolishing this gang of villains and cut-throats, which I was fure of accomplishing the moment I was enabled to pay a fellow who had undertaken, for a small fum, to betray them into the hands of a fet of thief-takers whom I had enlifted into the fervice, all men of known and approved fidelity and intrepidity. After fome weeks the money was paid at the Treasury, and within a few days after 2001, of it had come to my hands the whole gang of cutthroats was entirely difperfed, feven of them were in actual cuftody, and the reft driven, fome out of town, and others out of the kingdom. Tho' my health was now reduced to the laft extremity, I continued to act with the utmost vigour against thefe villains; in examining whom, and in taking the depofitions against them, I have often spent whole days, nay fometimes whole nights, efpecially when there was any difficulty in procuring fufficient evidence to convict them; which is a very common cale in ftreet-robberies, even when the guilt of the party is fufficiently apparent to fatisfy the most tender confcience. But courts of juftice know nothing of a caufe more than what is told them on oath by a witnefs; and the moft flagitious villain upon earth is tried in the fame manner as a man of the beft character, who is accused of the fame crime. Mean while, amidst all my fatigues and diftreffes, I had the fatisfaction to find my endeaYours had been attended with fuch fuccefs, that this hellifh fociety were almoft utterly extirpated, and that, inftead of reading of murders and ftreet-robberies in the news, almost every morning, there was, in the remaining part of the month of November, and in all December, not only no fuch thing as a murder, but not even a fireet-robbery committed. Some fuch, indeed, were mentioned in the public papers; but they were all found, on the strictest enquiry, to be falle. In this entire freedom from street-robberies, during the dark months, no man will, I believe, fcruple to acknowledge, that the winter of 1753 ftands unrivalled, during a course of many years; which it began. Having thus fully accomplished my underta king, I went into the country in a very weak and deplorable condition, with no fewer or lefs difeases than a jaundice, a dropsy, and an asthma, altogether uniting their forces in the deftruction of a body fo entirely emaciated, that it had lost all its mufcular flesh. Mine was now no longer what is called a Bath cafe; nor, if it had been fo, had I ftrength remaining fufficient to go thither, a ride of fix miles only being attended with an intolerable fatigue. I now difcharged my lodgings at Bath, which I had hitherto kept. I began, in earnest, to look on my cafe as defperate, and I had vanity enough to rank myfelf with thofe heroes who, of old times, became voluntary facrifices to the good of the public. But, leaft the reader fhould be too eager to catch at the word vanity, and fhould be unwilling to indulge me with fo fublime a gratification, for I think he is not too apt to gratify me, I will take my key a pitch lower, and will frankly own that I had a ftronger motive than the love of the public to push me on: I will therefore confefs to him, that my private affairs at the beginning of the winter had but a gloomy aspect; for I had not plundered the public or the poor of thofe fums which men, who are always ready to plunder both as much as they can, have been pleafed to fufpect me of taking: on the contrary, by compofing, inftead of inflaming, the quarrels of porters and beggars (which I blush when I |