Tth Life and Adventures of Joseph Emin

III. 1751-1752.

[Lodging at Wapping with a Swede - Penny dinners – Stephanos - An academy – Twopence halfpenny a day - Stephanos turns Roman Catholic - Emin in great distress and homeless - A soldier’s sympathy - Discomforts of beer-drinking to gain respect of common people - A master bricklayer - Emin called a German because indefatigable - Three halfpence a day - Escapes kidnapping - Sir John Evelyn’s grandsons - Emin adrift again - A porter on ։8 a year. ]

On Monday morning, a Swede, who was married to an English woman, came with a boat, and took them both to his house in Wapping (at the sign of Wapping Old Stairs): he was a very honest man, his wife a very good sort of a woman. Emin, with Masseh, his countryman, lived there upon bread and cheese about a week, and paid a shilling a week for sleeping. The landlord took them to the India House, to receive six months pay, at 9s. per month, which made 3 l. 14s. In their way back, they met with the Swedish master of the house, who said to them, "My lads, this small sum is hardly enough to buy you a second-hand suit of old clothes in Ragfair; what then will you do to live, as you are to stay in this country, to be educated and brought up genteelly? Your best way I think will be, not to lose the opportunity of returning to Bengal with the rest of the lascars. A regulation is made by the Honourable Company, to work the ship in day-time only, and not to keep watch in the night, for a free passage without pay; otherwise you must do one of two things, either beg or starve. If you enter as a common servant or footman into gentlemen’s houses, in the first place, nobody knows you to give you a character. Supposing that there were, what would you do for want of the language, for you are hardly understood. I find it was a wild notion which some wicked man contrived to put into your head, to leave behind you a country equal to paradise, and to come into this confounded could region, where one is obliged to work like a horse, to break his heart for a livelihood only. I myself, for fifteen years, have worked hard and with great difficulty made a little money, and married that good English widow. I became an able housekeeper at last, and it is through her prudence and good economy, that we live somehow happily, so as to bring both ends to meet; for even a man of great fortune, if he is not careful enough in the management of it, will soon become a bankrupt, and be sent to gaol to be pickled. "

The author heard all this with indifference, till they reached the house in Wapping. The two moneyless Armenians walked up to their rooms, consulting what to do; immediately after, the maid-servant of the house, the beautiful Sally, lately married to a sailor who was gone to sea, came and stood before them, saying in a pathetic, good-natured manner like to an angel, "Good young men, my master and mistress, particularly myself, observing this week, that each of you have eaten but a pennyworth of bread and cheese, my poor heart burns for you. I have heard my good master and mistress telling your deplorable situation of life; which puts me in mind of the distress of my sweetheart, the dear sailor, " (meaning her husband, ) and then the tears trickled down like pearls from her lovely eyes over her delicate cheeks, and deeply affected the spectators, who sympathized with her, admiring her unaffected fidelity to her lawful love. "What will you please to have? (said she). Give me some money, I will go to market, buy you some meat, and dress it myself for you, to save you from killing yourselves; don’t be uneasy at having but little; God will provide for you, and take care of my dear sailor too - bless him!" fetching a very deep sigh.

Emin begged of her to go downstairs, stay half an hour, and then come up again. After she was gone, he dived into his mind with deep reflection; surprized to find in a week’s time so much goodness, and truth of love, in the females of that blessed Island, who labour as hard as any to preserve the sacred tie of matrimony with faithfulness; and consequently formed an honourable idea in his mind, which he, in the space of several years, happily found realized by many, both high and low. After his contemplation on the subject, he called the lovely Sally, with as much affection as a brother to a sister. "Well, my dear, (said he, ) take this money, " which was exactly three-pence; "please to buy a pennyworth of beef stakes, a pennyworth of potatoes, and with the third penny, two halfpenny rolls; dress the meat well, and let us have it as soon as possible; for, as you observe, we are really very hungry. " Sally, hearing the writer’s stately orders, ran down like lightning, and told her mistress of the unaccountable extravagances of Emin and his countryman. The landlady could not help laughing; but good Sally, still in great concern, came up again, and conducted them to about fifteen doors higher, to a very neat Dutch woman who kept a cook’s shop, chiefly selling broth, a large bason for a halfpenny; so, with a halfpennyworth more of bread, broke and put into it, they made a tolerable dinner.

In this manner they passed another week; during that time, Sally took great pains, and when she had an opportunity to come and stand by, she comforted them with as much sincerity as if they had been her dear brothers. She was endowed with a talent, which he thinks it would be ungenerous if he should omit mentioning: - As she was obliged to rise early in the morning to work, she always, in her choice of songs, warbled the song, "All in the Downs the fleet was moored, " etc., with so fine a voice, and so pathetic manner without any affectation, that the hearer of it might have snapped his fingers at the most admired Italian singing girl. The reader may very well suppose that the author was in love; and he owns it; and so would any one else of a well-meaning heart have been, to find so great fortitude and virtue in a poor innocent servant - the genuine produce of a famous country he is really in love with; which, true enough, is torment and plague to those who are ungratefully wicked in their erroneous way of judging. It is true, the English nation, by their extensive learning, are sensible of the difference between the goodness of the admirable laws of their own mother country, and the miseries of others: yet it is impossible to judge perfectly by theory, unless (which God avert) they had proved it by experience.

At the end of a fortnight, they met an Armenian at the Royal Exchange, named Stephenus, who shipped off Masseh to Amsterdam, and took Emin to his lodging, at one Mr. Newman’s on Dowgate Hill, facing Skinner’s Hall. The author had about fifty-two rupees, besides a few shillings, the remainder of his pay; he gave them all to Stephenus, out of which he paid three guineas to Mr. Middleton, master of an academy in Bishopsgate-street, beforehand, agreeably to the rule established; and afterwards three more, when he had finished some learning, and agreed to pay a shilling a-day to Mrs. Newman for lodging, washing and boarding. He lived in that house exactly fifty days when the Armenian began to change his mind. Mrs. Newman found fault with his eating, which she thought was more than a shilling’s worth. Stephenus said, "I will give you a guinea a-month, but cannot afford more: manage as well as you can. " He contented himself even with that, better than with nothing, lodging in the same house, and paying a shilling a-week to sleep in the garret, two shillings and six-pence for washing and mending, and a shilling for shaving twice a-week, making in all fifteen shillings; there remained six shillings to live on, little more than two-pence halfpenny a-day. Almost for seven months he made a shift, in that miserable starving condition, and diligently attended the academy; when, to his sorrow, Mrs. Newman, his landlady, gave him a mouth’s warning to leave the lodging, and said: "The Armenian petty merchant will not stay with us on your account: as he pays thirty pounds sterling a-year for his table, should he leave the house, it will go against the grain with us. " Poor Mrs. Newman made many apologies, and shewed great uneasiness for the author’s distressed situation.

This circumstance was owing to the unhappy Armenian’s being turned papist, and wishing him to be in the same way of thinking; but could by no means prevail on him to become a turn-coat like himself. He remembered the same ill usage from some Mahomedan Persians, when he was persecuted in the city of Cashan; but, trusting in God, he did not despair. He was obliged to absent himself from the academy, and try if he could get any employ. Mr. Newman and his good wife advised him to go to the register-office, a little mean room behind the Royal Exchange, and promised to give him a good character. Miss Newman, their daughter, was sent by them with Emin to have his name registered in a book, where several gentlemen who wanted servants had set their names and directions. According to the custom, he paid a shilling, which he had found in one of the winter nights, about nine o’clock, walking in the Exchange in order to keep himself warm, as he was not permitted, by the severe order of the Armenian, to enter the room, or go near the kitchen fire; a barbarity neither a Turk nor a Jew would leave been guilty of. The register master, laughing and making a jest of him all the time, directed him every day, in the morning, for a week, to different gentlemen; when he, with great difficulty, for want of proper food to keep him in strength, found the house being chiefly at a great distance, almost at the other end of the town, the gentlemen said, you are made a fool by the register, we are provided with servants. Some of them said, he looked very ugly; some swore; some said, he looked nine ways for a Sunday; and another said, "If anybody should chance to see your countenance, he would not have good luck for a fortnight together. "

In this unspeakable condition he was directed at last to go to Drury Lane, to a broken house, where he found a carpenter working and a labourer, who was a soldier. When they were acquainted with his errand, they told him that their master was not a fine gentleman to keep a footman, but a bricklayer. Emin’s answer to the honest soldier was, "that he did not care if the person was a scavenger, to get bread by industry he would work at anything; but if he should not get business, he was resolved rather to die with hunger, like a man, than to beg. " This moved the brave soldier to such a degree, that it made him cry like a child; and turning himself towards the carpenter, "It is hard", he said, "to be a stranger; for I was in the same situation once in Flanders. " He treated Emin with a pint of beer, which he drank against his will; in the mean time, he promised to speak a good word to his master. While he was comforting Emin, in came a gentleman, named Mr. Emir, a fresh looking man, about thirty years of age. The honest soldier accosted him, and began his mediation; but no sooner did he hear the name of a foreigner, than he flew into a passion, kicking about the rubbish, damning Emin for a Frenchman. He assured him of the contrary, and that he was an Armenian; that he had nothing in the world but a good character. The gentleman took the appellation for a German, and said, "Very well, I am very glad you are not a Frenchman; step in the next door. " He then called for a pint of beer; and seeing the author almost wasted away, ordered some bread and cheese; and stood by the bar. While Emin was eating, and again drinking up strong beer, to have his good opinion, (since the common people in London have the conceit, that if any labouring man does not drink strong beer, he will not be able to work, ) Mr. Emir, the master bricklayer, was standing by looking at him, and pitying him with as much concern as if had been his brother. Emin could not be persuaded that he should pay all; he paid for the bread, and the master for the beer.

This happened in the month of May, when he was twenty-six years of age; the days being long, the carpenter and soldier left off work and went away at the settled hour. Master Emir ordered Emin to sit on the rubbishing ground to work, and gave him a pickax to make holes at the narrow ends of slates to fasten pegs into them, which serve to fix them on the tops of houses. The author sat himself down contentedly to work; but while the bricklayer was taken up with other things, he broke, in half an hour’s time, near 200 slates, not knowing how to manage the tool. When his master came back to look how he was going on, he cried out, "O Lord, you ruin me; you have spoiled three shillings worth of materials! - come, come, that is not your business, it does not signify, I only did it to try you; I can see that you are willing to work; what you told me agrees with your industrious motions, you appear indefatigable; never mind it, you will be able to live in our country, for you seem to be a true German. " The author trying to correct the misunderstanding, said, "Sir, I am not a German; " he answered, "Well, well, Germans and Armenians are all alike, as long as you are not a Frenchman, I am glad of it. " He added, This is Saturday, to-morrow is Sunday, when all good Christians must go to church, and I hope you are one?" "Yes, master, " said Emin. "Then, " said he, "if you will come on Monday morning, you shall have half-a-crown a-day, like the rest of the workmen; " bidding a good afternoon, which made him in some degree happy.

Emin had at that time two shillings left out of a guinea, the remainder of last month’s allowance by Stephenus: and, when he went home and told his mother-like Mrs. Newman what had happened, seeming to be pretty cheerful too, she said, "The work is very laborious, and equally dangerous: as you are not used to climb up high ladders, who knows but you may fall down, and break your neck into the bargain. Your best way will be to go to Blackwall or Deptford, and work with the people loading and unloading ships; and consider you have but a fortnight more to stay in my house, for your Jew countryman every day threatens to leave us if you don’t go away. " He said nothing, went up to his garret, which, although very clean, to him appeared a loathsome dungeon, in which he hardly enjoyed comfort of bed for the space of nine months. He could not close his eyes that whole night, nor the next following, partly through hunger, partly vexation of mind; but praying to God, he bore it as well as he could.

Disappointing Emir the bricklayer, two hours before sunrise on Monday morning, he set out for Deptford. When he came to an ale-house by the side of the Thames, he called for a pint of porter like a lusty fellow, to appear well in the eyes of the housekeeper, sensible that for two days before he had not digested the same liquor, so that he poured poison upon poison. When he thought he could speak with assurance, he said to the woman, "Pray, madam, is there any vessel here, to be unloaded?" drinking up the pint, and calling for another, to appear more generous. She said, "No, Sir, you are too early, the Indiamen are not yet arrived; you have no occasion to spend your money in vain; I see you drink against your will, and are not very well. " He begged to lay himself down on the bench; she had no objection, and said to him, in a grave manner, "After you have rested a little, step into the next long room, there you will see many men lying and rolling upon dry hard boards, all for want of work. " A few minutes after, he got up and visited the mansion, with its owner. It was a real purgatory, where, if he should escape dying with hunger, he must share the same misery with them. His heart was filled with the distracting portion of beer, without a soul, in a plentiful country, to be found, who would bestow on him a drop of the antidote of hope. He can hardly recollect how he reached the lodging on Dowgate Hill, where he had just sense enough to throw himself down in the house. The darling drink of porters, the medical barley wine, had such an effect on him and took away his strength to such a degree, that he was not able to walk upstairs, and lay down upon the stone pavement in the yard, at the office door.

The kitchen window, on the first floor, was over that place; where he could hear the Armenian speaking to the people, murmuring against Emin, dropping unbecoming expressions enough to poison the hearer, hallooing loudly to Mrs. Newman, and saying, "What is become of your garret-lodger? your honest husband was foolish enough to believe him, and give him a good character for honesty; who knows now where he is pleasuring?" Mrs. Newman answered, with a loud voice, "Say what you will, he is an honest young man; what you say is all spite, because he would not be a papist like you; nor do I care a pin for your staying or not in my house; and I am assured, nobody else in this city will let you board so reasonably as we do, I am an Englishwoman, do not like your overbearing temper; hold your tongue. "

To this dialogue he listened five minutes, and lay down, from half an hour after six, to almost eleven o’clock, in the most tormenting pain. Just as they were going to supper, the servant maid came down to shut the back door, and saw him sprawling on the stones. She was frightened at first, but when she knew who he was, she ran up, screaming, and told her mistress that Mr. Emin was dead. This happened aptly to her boarder’s reflection, and her good-will towards the author; she immediately ran downstairs, with her husband, daughter, and servant, who took him up in their arms, carried and laid him on his bed; made him to take a glass of wine, with some rhubarb, and with a little care, cured him of the disorder and saved his life.

He reprimanded lightly the old unthinking cruel man, who meditated another method of revenging himself upon Emin, and the next morning called him to his room. Emin supposed his compassion to have been moved, or inclined to reconciliation. But on the contrary, he produced an account of the expences he had been at, and made the balance due to be seventeen pounds sterling: he then said to Emin, "As you cannot afford to pay me now, it is necessary to draw a bond in form, on condition to pay the balance in six months. " Well knowing he could not pay it in six years, (Mrs. Newman was then standing behind the door, and heard all that passed, ) Emin said to him, "Sir, since you depart from your word, as you have departed from your father’s religion, I give my word, that I will pay the sum when I am able; as to a writing under my hand, that is not to be expected. " And added, "That he was sensible of his wicked intention, and that, if he would not be easy with the answer he received, he would give him a good thrashing, and expose his character on the Royal Exchange among all the merchants. " Upon which Stephenus looked as pale as death, resembling Shylock the avaricious Jew in the Merchant of Venice. When he came out of the room, he saw the landlady standing in the way; she stepped in, and said to the Armenian, "He served you right. " Then she came out, and said to Emin, "Well done! now you have behaved like a man of spirit. "

The author seeing it was impossible for him to get any sort of employment in the light service of a gentleman, made it his business to go upon the Royal Exchange every day except Sundays, his finances being reduced so low as that he was obliged to make a more pinching calculation, and lived upon three halfpence a-day for three weeks, in order to linger away by degrees to the welcome gates of death. He found at last, on the ’Change, a sailor in a blue jacket, belonging to Crisp’s office, talking to some other countrymen, perhaps no less destitute than himself. Curiosity as well as necessity, led him to know what they were about. The man in the blue jacket said to him, "Well, my friend, will you do as they do?" "What is it?" said Emin. "They have no friends in London, like yourself, " answered he; "and are desirous to go to Jamaica: they are to sign indentures for so many years, some ten, some fifteen, some twenty. After the time limited shall be over, they will have a piece of land given them for their service. Though it is a little hard in that hot country, yet if they survive, and behave soberly, they may make their fortune. " By that sort of dog rhetorick he filled the author’s head full of sense, and his belly full of victuals. He said he would consider.

Three days after, as the month was expired, he left the lodging; for that day he made a shift to walk in the ’Change, saw the man again, agreed to go on board the next day, and ashamed to tell the fellow that he had no place to steep in, was obliged to walk in the streets of London for the whole night, from one end to the other, like a watchman, having no more than three halfpence in his pocket. The next morning providentially he met Mr. Middleton’s son William. Now he hoped to live in England, as William stopped him, at the top of Bishopsgate-street, and was very inquisitive to know the reason of his pale look, and the cause of his absence three weeks from the academy. At first he hesitated, but to no purpose but when he told his case, the young gentleman cried; forced him to the academy, told his father, and Mrs. Middleton the mother who pitied him extremely, and were sorry for not knowing his distress before. The father said to the son, "Will, take him to your room, let him have some victuals first, then we will talk the matter over. "

The wandering writer took great care in eating, for fear of ill consequences. The young gentleman conducted him to his own room, treated him with great humanity (being then hardly twelve years of age); which behaviour could not have been surprising if he had been a full grown man. He brought breakfast, dinner and supper with his own hands for several days after. Emin slept in the house that night.

The next morning, Mr. Middleton the father asked him the reason of his falling out with the Armenian Stephenus. He said, "Sir, I will not trouble you with the story; please to send and ask the people of the house of Mr. Newman; they will tell you at once. " Immediately an elderly servant maid was sent for that purpose. When she came back, she related all the circumstances, and Mr. Middleton was made easy in regard to his character. He then said, "What do you intend to do now, Mr. Emin?" He answered, "Sir I am obliged to this young gentleman for his hospitality, which saved me from dying in the street for want. I beg it as a favour to take quarter in your house three or four days more, if it is not troublesome, and then I will go away about my business. " "Whither do you intend to go, " said he, "let me know it?" Emin then proceeded thus: "The bread of idleness is poison to a man who would rather starve than yield to it. I have agreed to sell myself on the ’Change to work in the West-India plantations for a livelihood. " He then repeated his grateful thanks. Mr. Middleton said, "Can you bring to me the person with whom you have made the agreement?" "I don’t know, Sir, " said Emin; "if you please I will go for him. " He went; and when he had found him on the ’Change, he said to him, "Come, let us go to a friend of mine just by, who is desirous to know the nature of the indenture which is to be signed. " The man no sooner heard the name "a friend" mentioned, than he flew in a passion, and said, "We have nothing to do with any one that has even an acquaintance in the place. Get away! don’t trouble my head about it. " But when the author went back and told Mr. Middleton of it, he very gladly expressed himself thus: "You have escaped being kidnapped; for those soul-buyers make harmless creatures believe them till they get them on board, and then by compulsion oblige them to sign the wicked indenture, instead of ten or fifteen years, as had been settled a-shore, and according to their ages, make them write forty or fifty years, so that the poor simple slaves must live and die in misery. In my opinion, your best way will be, if you do not think yourself demeaned by it, to stay in my house, and wait on the gentlemen, keep the key of your desk, and when you have an opportunity, sit in the academy and mind your learning with them: you will then have boarding and education by your own industry, without being beholden to any one, and the servant will not be long before he goes away; you shall have the same wages that he has, which is nine pounds a-year. "

All this passed before the gentlemen in the academy, above forty-five or fifty in number, half of them boarders, and half day-scholars. The author accepted the offer with cheerfulness; his young friend expressed great joy, and made him in a manner his companion, treating him with civility, while the old servant continued in the house. The gentlemen thought it rather unpolite of Mr. Middleton, to say that he should wait on them, and with great reluctance could bring themselves to send him even on an errand, as he had been a school-fellow of theirs for nine months before that happened. But Emin took pains to inure their delicate minds to command him as their waiting servant, expostulating, and showing the difference between his former and his present station; begging, in the mean time, that they would be so good as to consider his present preferable situation to a life of slavery, which, if he had not escaped, they would have been continually calling him to mind, and saying, "Oh, poor Emin! he is gone, and lost for ever; though the artful kidnapper said, he would be a great man. "

Among the boarders there were two brothers, the grandchildren of the late old Sir John Evelyn; the name of the youngest was John, amazingly considerate for his infant age; he took more notice of everything than the rest; was surprisingly exact in his morning and evening prayers; yet very cautious not to be seen by any: he used to comfort Emin, when now and then he found him a little thoughtful.

One day, as the author, after school, was sitting at his table writing some accounts in his book, both brothers came in and sat upon the desk before him, teasing him. As not being in one of his best humours, he begged of them to let him alone; they still persisted to play and laugh; when, by accident or intention, his young friend even set the inkhorn on the page of the book, and daubed it from top to bottom, which wrought upon his wild Asiatic temper to strike the face of his best friend, and set the poor innocent’s nose bleeding. He wished that very instant the elder brother had been strong enough to have beaten him heartily for that unaccountable conduct; but he, seeing the poor child in that bloody condition, took him by the hand to carry him to Mr. Middleton and make a complaint. The author then took for granted, that without fail he must prepare for an asylum on board of the crimp ship for the West India plantation. The harmless bleeding lamb, instead of concurring, made this very speech: "Dear brother, I have received the blow of that ironhand according to my desert; we plagued him first; what business had we here after the academy was over? Your heart I am sure is sorry for me, but consider Mr. Emin’s case; what will become of him, if Mr. Middleton were shewn the condition I am in? He will be turned out into the street, without a friend; what shall we get by that? Come, Mr. Emin, do not make yourself uneasy, it is all our fault: upon my honour I will not open my lips about it to any one in the school, and you shall have a new book from me: come, give me your hand, let us be friends, again; do not mind, it is all over. " What will the candid reader think of this singularity? It is to be hoped he cannot avoid being sensible of the author’s meaning: in endeavouring to write the rough narrative of his life, he inadvertently comes in the way of truth, and spreads the light of it upon every page, without which every line of it would appear as dark as midnight.

The man went away a few weeks after: Emin succeeded to the office, cleaning twenty-four pairs of shoes, and twice the number of knives and forks, and running on errands for all the gentlemen, who, though he did not think it reasonable to be paid, yet would by force make him accept some, saying, "If you refuse, upon our honour we will never speak to you any more. "

Twice a-week he carried some eatables in a hand-basket to the country-house for the family, nine or ten miles, down to Aldborough Hatch; sometimes he walked, and at other times rode on horseback.

In that situation he passed life very comfortably, and more so through the good-nature of his school-fellows, and their amicable expressions. As he could not sit at table to dinner with them, they honoured him by turns with inviting him to drink tea every afternoon in their separate apartments. But, to his great sorrow, Mr. Middleton broke; and, being indebted to some tradesmen to the amount of 4000 l. was obliged to conceal himself till a commission of bankrupt was taken out. As Mrs. Middleton could not trust the secret to any one in the house, she deposited a note with the faithful Emin, who by direction found the tavern where the gentleman was (he believes somewhere near St. Paul’s), and delivered the note to the waiter. Presently after came out Mr. Middleton, who treated Emin with half a pint of wine, and a present of half-a-guinea, giving him an answer to the note, which he brought to the lady. No soul knew of the secret from him for the space of thirty-five years.

A fortnight after, Mr. Middleton came out. Mr. Reeves, another academy master, took the house; and Emin lost his wages, 6 l. 10 s. which were then due; ill-natured fortune making him a sufferer as well as other creditors. At that time he had no more than 10 s. 6 d. in his pocket, with an old Rag-fair coat and waistcoat, and six sack-cloth shirts, darned by a good washer-woman in an hundred places, like the late king of Persia Carim Khan’s head-shawl, or the patched shoes of Peter the Great in the battle of Poltowa.

The Armenian merchant Stephenus, like Charles XII. of Sweden, pressing very hard for his 17 l. the author offered himself to the new schoolmaster to stay in the house as a servant; he answered very coolly, that he was provided. The young gentlemen, his dear comforters, were all gone to their respective homes; and he was left alone again to his fate, with a hungry stomach. But fortunately, Mr. Warren, a barber, happened to know him at the academy, where he used to do some little errands. As the gentlemen were his customers, and he frequented the house, often dining there, and walking in the place, he knew Emin’s character, and asked him, if he was strong enough to do porter’s work? He answered without hesitation, yes; to save himself from going to take a survey of the streets of London again, after running eighteen months up and down. Oh! could he but catch that imaginary goddess Fortune, like one of flesh and blood, in a place where no soul should be but God alone, he would make her sensible of the cruel bitterness of the distress which she inflicts!

As the author thought he could not do otherwise, he consented to Mr. Warren’s proposal; and was conducted by him to one Mr. Robert’s, at the corner of Sun-yard, in the same street, a grocer, to whom he was recommended properly for his good character, agreeing to serve at the rate of 8 l. a year. The master said, "If the porter behaves well, I promise to make his wages 10 l. next year. " He then began to work like a horse: in eighteen months he cleared his debt, partly by wages, partly by vails; and managed so as to save a little from his wages to pay for his trifling learning, whenever he had an opportunity.

When the government ordered a lottery to raise money for the purchase of Sir Hans Sloane’s curiosities, he had courage to buy half a ticket, which cost him a guinea, and had a small prize of 4 l. 10 s.

His upper garment began to appear a little decent, but his linen was in the same plight, darning over darning; and not to use those faithful companions too ill, he thought it necessary through compassion never to wear them in the night-time, lest some unforeseen casualty should befal them, and deprive the author of their agreeable company.

NOTE.

Page 40. GRANDSONS OF SIR JOHN EVELYN. Not succeeding in tracing both these grandsons of Sir John Evelyn from the History of the Evelyn Family, by Miss Helen Evelyn, I referred to this lady, who very kindly sent me the following family tree, saying that she thought that the boys mentioned must have been the sons of Charles Evelyn. Later on, at Leghorn in 1760, my ancestor renewed his friendship with the elder of the two brothers, and he writes of the death of the second one, John, having taken place at school of smallpox.