to offer the hand to those that fall; to repress the proud, and to lift
up the lowly; and the sword they were girt with, was to protect the
liberties of their people, to defend and help widows and orphans, restore
the things which have gone to decay, maintain those which are restored,
and confirm things that are in good order.

As to our hero, he so fully put on the character of a shipwrecked seaman,
that in his first excursion he gained a very considerable booty, having
likewise ingeniously imitated the passes and certificates that were
necessary for him to travel with unmolested.

After about a month's travel, he accidentally, at Kingsbridge, in
Devonshire, met with Coleman, his late school-fellow, one of those who
entered with him into the community, as before related, but had, after a
year and a half's sojourn, left them and returned to his friends:
however, not finding that satisfaction among them as with the gipseys, he
had again joined that people--great was the joy, therefore, of these two
friends at their meeting, and they soon agreed to travel together for
some time; and accordingly proceeded to Totness, from thence to the city
of Exeter, where they raised a contribution in one day amounting to
several pounds.

Having obtained all he could desire from this stratagem, his fruitful
invention soon hinted another. He now became the plain honest country
farmer, who, living in the Isle of Sheppy, in Kent, had the misfortune to
have his grounds overflowed, and all his cattle drowned. His habit was
now neat but rustic; his air and behaviour simple and inoffensive; his
speech in the Kentish dialect; his countenance dejected; his tale
pitiful--wondrous pitiful; a wife and seven helpless infants being
partakers of his misfortunes; so that if his former stratagem answered
his wishes, this did still more so, he now getting seldom less than a
guinea a day.

Having raised a considerable booty by these two stratagems, he made the
best of his way towards Straton, in Devonshire, where was soon to be held
a general assembly of the gipseys: here he was received with great
applause, on account of the successful stratagems he had executed, and he
had an honourable mark of distinction bestowed upon him, being seated
near the king.

Though our hero, by means of these stratagems, abounded with all the
pleasures he could desire, yet he began now to reflect with himself on
that grand and noble maxim of life, that we are not born