riends in Poictou, where I
was born, who would take care to have justice done me in England out of
his estate.

I should have observed that, as soon as the news was public of a man
being murdered, and that he was a jeweller, fame did me the favour as to
publish presently that he was robbed of his casket of jewels, which he
always carried about him. I confirmed this, among my daily lamentations
for his disaster, and added that he had with him a fine diamond ring,
which he was known to wear frequently about him, valued at one hundred
pistoles, a gold watch, and a great quantity of diamonds of inestimable
value in his casket, which jewels he was carrying to the Prince of
----, to show some of them to him; and the prince owned that he had
spoken to him to bring some such jewels, to let him see them. But I
sorely repented this part afterward, as you shall hear.

This rumour put an end to all inquiry after his jewels, his ring, or his
watch; and as for the seven hundred pistoles, that I secured. For the
bills which were in hand, I owned I had them, but that, as I said I
brought my husband thirty thousand livres portion, I claimed the said
bills, which came to not above twelve thousand livres, for my _amende_;
and this, with the plate and the household stuff, was the principal of
all his estate which they could come at. As to the foreign bill which he
was going to Versailles to get accepted, it was really lost with him;
but his manager, who had remitted the bill to him, by way of Amsterdam,
bringing over the second bill, the money was saved, as they call it,
which would otherwise have been also gone; the thieves who robbed and
murdered him were, to be sure, afraid to send anybody to get the bill
accepted, for that would undoubtedly have discovered them.

By this time my maid Amy was arrived, and she gave me an account of her
management, and how she had secured everything, and that she had quitted
the house, and sent the key to the head manager of his business, and
let me know how much she had made of everything very punctually and
honestly.

I should have observed, in the account of his dwelling with me so long
at ----, that he never passed for anything there but a lodger in the
house; and though he was landlord, that did not alter the case. So that
at his death, Amy coming to quit the house and give them the key, there
was no affinity between that and the case of their master who was newly
killed.

I got good advice at