ght the collector might be on his return, and steered his course
towards Weymouth, where he made his application to the collector, and
after being handsomely treated, and a present given to him, sent the
officers to Squire Groves's, near White-street, and Squire Barber's, on
the Chase, both in Wiltshire. And as soon as they were gone, he set out
for Poole; and sent the collector and officers of that place to Sir
Edward Boobey's, who lived in the road between Salisbury and Hendon; they
gave him two guineas in hand, and a promise of more upon their return
with the booty; in the mean time they recommended him to an inn, and gave
orders that he should have any thing the house afforded, and they would
make satisfaction for it; but this adventure had like not to have ended
so well for him as the former; for, being laid down upon a bed to nap,
having drunk too freely, he heard some people drinking and talking in the
next room of the great confusion there was in all the sea-ports in the
west of England, occasioned by a trick put on the king's officers by one
Bampfylde Carew, and that this news was brought to Poole by a Devonshire
gentleman, who accidently came that way. Mr. Carew hearing this, rightly
judged Poole was no proper place to make a longer stay in; he therefore
instantly arose, and, by the help of a back door, got into a garden, and
with much difficulty climbed over the wall belonging thereto, and made
the best of his way to Christchurch, in Hampshire; here he assumed the
character of a shipwrecked seaman, and raised considerable contributions.
Coming to Ringwood, he inquired of the health of Sir Thomas Hobbes, a
gentleman in that neighbourhood, who was a person of great hospitality;
he was told that some of the mendicant order, having abused his
benevolence, in taking away a pair of boots, after he had received a
handsome present from him, it had so far prejudiced Sir Thomas, that he
did not exercise the same hospitality as formerly. This greatly
surprised and concerned Mr. Carew, that any of his subjects should be
guilty of so ungrateful an action: he was resolved therefore to inquire
strictly into it, that, if he could find out the offender, he might
inflict a deserved punishment upon him; and therefore resolved to pay a
visit to Sir Thomas the next morning, hoping he should get some light
into the affair. When he came to the house, it was pretty early in the
day, and Sir Thomas had not come out of his chamber; h