o run away from a bad one, and shift for his bread ever
since; so if she is my daughter, he is my son, and to oblige you, my
lord, I own her, and to please myself I will own him, and they two are
brother and sister." I had no sooner done speaking, than Thomas fell
down before me, and asked my blessing, after which, he addressed himself
to my lord as follows:

"My lord," said he, "out of your abundant goodness you took me into your
service at Dover. I told you then the circumstances I was in, which will
save your lordship much time by preventing a repetition; but, if your
lordship pleases, it shall be carefully penned down, for such a variety
of incidents has happened to me in England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland,
Holland, France, and the Isle of Man, in which I have travelled for
about eighteen years past, as may prove an agreeable amusement to you,
when you are cloyed with better company; for as I have never been
anything above a common servant, so my stories shall only consist of
facts, and such as are seldom to be met with, as they are all in low
life."

"Well, Thomas," said my lord, "take your own time to do it, and I will
reward you for your trouble."

"Now, madam," said my lord to my daughter, "if you please to proceed."
"My lord," continued she, "my mother's third child, which was a
daughter, lived with the relation I did, and got a place to wait upon a
young lady whose father and mother were going to settle at Boulogne, in
France; she went with them, and having stayed at this gentleman's (who
was a French merchant) two years, was married to a man with the consent
of the family she lived in; and her master, by way of fortune, got him
to be master of a French and Holland coaster, and this was the very
person whose ship you hired to come to Holland in; the captain's wife
was my own sister, consequently my lady's second daughter; as to my
youngest sister, she lived with the uncle and aunt Thomas ran away from,
and died of the smallpox soon after. My youngest brother was put out
apprentice to a carpenter, where he improved in his business, till a
gentlewoman came to his master and mistress (which I take by the
description they gave me, to be Mrs. Amy), who had him put out to an
education fit for a merchant, and then sent him to the Indies, where he
is now settled, and in a fair way to get a large estate. This, my lord,
is the whole account I can at present give of them, and although it may
seem very strange, I assure