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

The other, that is to say, the youngest of us Johns, was called Major Jacque, by the accident following: The lady that had deposited him with our nurse had owned to her that it was a major of the Guards that was the father of the child, but that she was obliged to conceal his name, and that was enough. So he was at first called John the Major, and afterwards the Major; and at last, when we came to rove together, Major Jacque, according to the rest, for his name was John, as I have observed already.

Major Jacque was a merry, facetious, pleasant boy, had a good share of wit, especially off-hand-wit, as they call it; was full of jests and good humour, and, as I often said, had something of a gentleman in him. He had a true manly courage, feared nothing, and could look death in the face without any hesitation; and yet, if he had the advantage, was the most generous and most compassionate creature alive. He had native principles of gallantry in him, without anything of the brutal or terrible part that the captain had; and, in a word, he wanted nothing but honesty to have made him an excellent man. He had learned to read, as I had done; and as he talked very well, so he wrote good sense and very handsome language, as you will see in the process of his story.

As for your humble servant, Colonel Jacque, he was a poor, unhappy, tractable dog, willing enough, and capable too, to learn anything, if he had had any but the devil for his schoolmaster. He set out into the world so early, that when he began to do evil, he understood nothing of the wickedness of it, nor what he had to expect for it. I remember very well that when I was once carried before a justice, for a theft which indeed I was not guilty of, and defended myself by argument, proving the mistakes of my accusers, and how they contradicted themselves, the justice told me it was a pity I had not been better employed, for I was certainly better taught; in which, however, his worship was mistaken, for I had never been taught anything but to be a thief; except, as I said, to read and write, and that was all, before I was ten years old; but I had a natural talent of talking, and could say as much to the purpose as most people that had been taught no more than I.

I passed among my comrades for a bold, resolute boy, and one that durst fight anything; but I had a different opinion of myself, and therefore shunned fighting as much as I could, though sometimes I ventured too, and came off well, being very strong made and nimble withal. However, I many times brought myself off with my tongue, where my hands would not have been sufficient, and this as well after I was a man as while I was a boy.

I was wary and dexterous at my trade, and was not so often catched as my fellow-rogues-I mean while I was a boy, and never after I came to be a man; no, not once for twenty-six years, being so old in the trade, and still unhanged, as you shall hear.

As for my person, while I was a dirty glass-bottle-house boy, sleeping in the ashes, and dealing always in the street dirt, it cannot be expected but that I looked like what I was, and so we did all; that is to say, like a "black-your-shoes-your-honour," a beggar-boy, a blackguard-boy, or what you please, despicable and miserable to the last degree; and yet I remember the people would say of me, "That boy has a good face; if he was washed and well dressed, he would be a good, pretty boy. Do but look; what eyes he has; what a pleasant, smiling countenance! 'Tis a pity. I wonder what the rogue's father and mother was," and the like. Then they would call me, and ask me my name, and I would tell them my name was Jacque. "But what's your surname, sirrah?" says they. "I don't know," says I. "Who is your father and mother?" "I have none," said I. "What, and never had you any?" said they. "No," says I, "not that I know of." Then they would shake their heads and cry, "Poor boy!" and "'Tis a pity," and the like; and so let me go. But I laid up all these things in my heart.

I was almost ten years old, the captain eleven, and the major about eight, when the good woman my nurse died. Her husband was a seaman, and had been drowned a little before in the Gloucester frigate, one of the king's ships which was cast away going to Scotland with the Duke of York in the time of King Charles II., and the honest woman dying very poor, the parish was obliged to bury her; when the three young Jacques attended her corpse, and I, the colonel (for we all passed for her own children), was chief mourner; the captain, who was the eldest son, going back very sick.

The good woman being dead, we, the three Jacques, were turned loose to the world. As to the parish providing for us, we did not trouble ourselves much about that; we rambled about all three together, and the people in Rosemary Lane and Ratcliff, and that way, knowing us pretty well, we got victuals easily enough and without much begging.

For my particular part, I got some reputation for a mighty civil, honest boy; for if I was sent off an errand, I always did it punctually and carefully, and made haste again; and if I was trusted with any thing, I never touched it to diminish it, but made it a point of honour to be punctual to whatever was committed to me, though I was as arrant a thief as any of them in all other cases.

In like case, some of the poorer shopkeepers would often leave me at their door, to look after their shops till they went up to dinner, or till they went over the way to an alehouse, and the like, and I always did it freely and cheerfully, and with the utmost honesty.

Captain Jacque, on the contrary, a surly, ill-looking, rough boy, had not a word in his mouth that savoured either of good manners or good humour; he would say "Yes" and "No," just as he was asked a question, and that was all, but nobody got any thing from him that was obliging in the least. If he was sent off an errand he would forget half of it, and it may be go to play, if he met any boys, and never go at all, or if he went, never come back with an answer, which was such a regardless, disobliging way that nobody had a good word for him, and everybody said he had the very look of a rogue, and would come to be hanged. In a word, he got nothing of anybody for goodwill, but was, as it were, obliged to turn thief for the mere necessity of bread to eat; for if he begged, he did it with so ill a tone, rather like bidding folks give him victuals than entreating them, that one man, of whom he had something given, and knew him, told him one day, "Captain Jacque," says he, "thou art but an awkward, ugly sort of a beggar, now thou art a boy; I doubt thou wilt be fitter to ask a man for his purse than for a penny when thou comest to be a man."

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.