truments, and she had very
little difficulty in the search, for telling her story in general to a
couple of gossips in the neighbourhood, it was the chat of the
tea-table all over that part of the town, and I met with it wherever I
visited; also, as it was known that I was acquainted with the young
lady herself, my opinion was asked very often, and I confirmed it with
all the necessary aggravations, and set out his character in the
blackest colours; but then as a piece of secret intelligence, I added,
as what the other gossips knew nothing of, viz. that I had heard he was
in very bad circumstances; that he was under a necessity of a fortune
to support his interest with the owners of the ship he commanded; that
his own part was not paid for, and if it was not paid quickly, his
owners would put him out of the ship, and his chief mate was likely to
command it, who offered to buy that part which the captain had promised
to take.

I added, for I confess I was heartily piqued at the rogue, as I called
him, that I had heard a rumour, too, that he had a wife alive at
Plymouth, and another in the West Indies, a thing which they all knew
was not very uncommon for such kind of gentlemen.

This worked as we both desire it, for presently the young lady next
door, who had a father and mother that governed both her and her
fortune, was shut up, and her father forbid him the house. Also in one
place more where he went, the woman had the courage, however strange it
was, to say No; and he could try nowhere but he was reproached with his
pride, and that he pretended not to give the women leave to inquire
into his character, and the like.

Well, by this time he began to be sensible of his mistake; and having
alarmed all the women on that side of the water, he went over to
Ratcliff, and got access to some of the ladies there; but though the
young women there too were, according to the fate of the day, pretty
willing to be asked, yet such was his ill-luck, that his character
followed him over the water and his good name was much the same there
as it was on our side; so that though he might have had wives enough,
yet it did not happen among the women that had good fortunes, which was
what he wanted.

But this was not all; she very ingeniously managed another thing
herself, for she got a young gentleman, who as a relation, and was
indeed a married man, to come and visit her two or three times a week
in a very fine chariot and good liveri