Даниэль Дефо: Colonel Jack

The major was a merry, thoughtless fellow, always cheerful; whether he had any victuals or no, he never complained; and he recommended himself so well by his good carriage that the neighbours loved him, and he got victuals enough, one where or other. Thus we all made a shift, though we were so little, to keep from starving; and as for lodging, we lay in the summer-time about the watch-houses and on bulkheads and shop-doors, where we were known. As for a bed, we knew nothing what belonged to it for many years after my nurse died; and in winter we got into the ash-holes and nealing-arches in the glass-house, called Dallow’s Glass-house, in Rosemary Lane, or at another glass-house in Ratcliff Highway.

In this manner we lived for some years; and here we failed not to fall among a gang of naked, ragged rogues like ourselves, wicked as the devil could desire to have them be at so early an age, and ripe for all the other parts of mischief that suited them as they advanced in years.

I remember that one cold winter night we were disturbed in our rest with a constable and his watch crying out for one Wry-neck, who, it seems, had done some roguery, and required a hue-and-cry of that kind; and the watch were informed he was to be found among the beggar-boys under the nealing-arches in the glass-house.

The alarm being given, we were awakened in the dead of the night with «Come out here, ye crew of young devils; come out and show yourselves»; so we were all produced. Some came out rubbing their eyes and scratching their heads, and others were dragged out; and I think there was about seventeen of us in all, but Wry-neck as they called him, was not among them. It seems this was a good big boy, that used to be among the inhabitants of that place, and had been concerned in a robbery the night before, in which his comrade, who was taken, in hopes of escaping punishment, had discovered him, and informed where he usually harboured; but he was aware, it seems, and had secured himself, at least for that time. So we were allowed to return to our warm apartment among the coal-ashes, where I slept many a cold winter night; nay, I may say, many a winter, as sound and as comfortably as ever I did since, though in better lodgings.

In this manner of living we went on a good while, I believe two years, and neither did or meant any harm. We generally went all three together; for, in short, the captain, for want of address, and for something disagreeable in him, would have starved if we had not kept him with us. As we were always together, we were generally known by the name of the three Jacques; but Colonel Jacque had always the preference, upon many accounts. The major, as I have said, was merry and pleasant, but the colonel always held talk with the better sort – I mean the better sort of those that would converse with a beggar-boy. In this way of talk I was always upon the inquiry, asking questions of things done in public, as well as in private; particularly, I loved to talk with seamen and soldiers about the war, and about the great sea-fights or battles on shore that any of them had been in; and, as I never forgot anything they told me, I could soon, that is to say, in a few years, give almost as good an account of the Dutch war, and of the fights at sea, the battles in Flanders, the taking of Maestricht, and the like, as any of those that had been there; and this made those old soldiers and tars love to talk with me too, and to tell me all the stories they could think of, and that not only of the wars then going on, but also of the wars in Oliver’s time, the death of King Charles I., and the like.

By this means, as young as I was, I was a kind of an historian; and though I had read no books, and never had any books to read, yet I could give a tolerable account of what had been done and of what was then a-doing in the world, especially in those things that our own people were concerned in. I knew the names of every ship in the navy, and who commanded them too, and all this before I was fourteen years old, or but very soon after.

Captain Jacque in this time fell into bad company, and went away from us, and it was a good while before we ever heard tale or tidings of him, till about half a year, I think, or thereabouts. I understood he was got among a gang of kidnappers, as they were then called, being a sort of wicked fellows that used to spirit people’s children away; that is, snatch them up in the dark, and, stopping their mouths, carry them to such houses where they had rogues ready to receive them, and so carry them on board ships bound to Virginia, and sell them.

This was a trade that horrid Jacque, for so I called him when we were grown up, was very fit for, especially the violent part; for if a little child got into his clutches, he would stop the breath of it, instead of stopping its mouth, and never troubled his head with the child’s being almost strangled, so he did but keep it from making a noise. There was, it seems, some villainous thing done by this gang about that time, whether a child was murdered among them, or a child otherwise abused; but it seems it was a child of an eminent citizen, and the parent somehow or other got a scent of the thing, so that they recovered their child, though in a sad condition, and almost killed. I was too young, and it was too long ago, for me to remember the whole story, but they were all taken up and sent to Newgate, and Captain Jacque among the rest, though he was but young, for he was not then much above thirteen years old.

What punishment was inflicted upon the rogues of that gang I cannot tell now, but the captain, being but a lad, was ordered to be three times soundly whipped at Bridewell, my Lord Mayor, or the Recorder, telling him it was done in pity to him, to keep him from the gallows, not forgetting to tell him that he had a hanging look, and bid him have a care on that very account; so remarkable was the captain’s countenance, even so young, and which he heard of afterwards on many occasions. When he was in Bridewell I heard of his misfortune, and the major and I went to see him; for this was the first news we heard of what became of him.

The very day that we went he was called out to be corrected, as they called it, according to his sentence; and as it was ordered to be done soundly, so indeed they were true to the sentence; for the alderman who was the president of Bridewell, and whom I think they called Sir William Turner, held preaching to him about how young he was, and what pity it was such a youth should come to be hanged, and a great deal more; how he should take warning by it, and how wicked a thing it was that they should steal away poor innocent children, and the like; and all this while the man with a blue badge on lashed him most unmercifully, for he was not to leave off till Sir William knocked with a little hammer on the table.

The poor captain stamped and danced, and roared out like a mad boy; and I must confess I was frighted almost to death; for though I could not come near enough, being but a poor boy, to see how he was handled, yet I saw him afterwards with his back all wealed with the lashes, and in several places bloody, and thought I should have died with the sight of it; but I grew better acquainted with those things afterwards.

I did what I could to comfort the poor captain when I got leave to come to him. But the worst was not over with him, for he was to have two more such whippings before they had done with him; and indeed they scourged him so severely that they made him sick of the kidnapping trade for a great while; but he fell in among them again, and kept among them as long as that trade lasted, for it ceased in a few years afterwards.

The major and I, though very young, had sensible impressions made upon us for some time by the severe usage of the captain, and it might be very well said we were corrected as well as he, though not concerned in the crime; but it was within the year that the major, a good-conditioned, easy boy, was wheedled away by a couple of young rogues that frequented the glass-house apartments, to take a walk with them, as they were pleased to call it. The gentlemen were very well matched; the major was about twelve years old, and the oldest of the two that led him out was not above fourteen. The business was to go to Bartholomew Fair, and the end of going to Bartholomew Fair was, in short, to pick pockets.