their
old Bailey, or Chatelet, with the Question (that is, the torture)
ordinary and extraordinary, with the galleys for life as a wind-up, even
if I escaped the gibbet in the place de Greve. Luckily for me, at this
time the Gentleman of the Chamber fell into disgrace with Father la
Chaise for eating a Chicken Sausage in Lent; and to spite him and the
Minister, and the Cardinal and the Opera Dancer, and the Abbe and the
Doctor of the Sorbonne, and the Posture Master all together, His
Reverence, having his Majesty's ear, moves the Most Christian King to
Clemency, and a Royal warrant comes down to the Madelonettes, and I was
sent about my business with strict injunctions not to show myself again
in Paris, under penalty of the Pillory, branding on the cheek with a
red-hot iron, and the galleys in perpetuity.

"I had been nearly ten years abroad, and having, by the charity of some
Ladies of the Irish Convent in Paris, found means to quit France, landed
one morning in the year '90 at Wapping, below London. I had never been
in England before, and mighty little I thought of it when I became
acquainted with that proud, belly-god country. I found that there was
little enough to be done to make a poor Irishwoman able to earn her own
living; and that there was besides a prejudice against natives of
Ireland, both on account of their Extraction and their Religion, which
made the high and mighty English unwilling to employ them, either as
day-labourers or as domestic servants. For awhile, getting into loose
company, I went about the country to wakes and Fairs, picking up a
livelihood by Rope-dancing, back and broadsword fighting, and now and
then sword swallowing and fire eating; but since my misadventure with
the Posture Master I had taken a dislike to the Mountebank life, and
could not settle down to it again. My old love for soldiering revived
again, and being at Plymouth where a Recruiting Party was beating up for
King William's service in his Irish wars, took a convenient opportunity
of quitting my female apparel, resuming that of a man, and listing in
Lord Millwood's Regiment of Foot as a private Fusilier. As I knew my
drill, and made no secret of my having served in the Maison du Roy, I
was looked upon rather as a good prize, for in war time 'tis Soldiers
and Soldiers only that are of real value, and they may have served the
very Devil himself so that they can trail a pike and cast a grenade:
'tis all one to the Recruiting Ca