Procession, she begins her Military exercises, and goes through the
whole Catechism (if I may be allowed the Expression) with so much
Dexterity and Address, and with so little Hesitation or Default, that
great Numbers even of Veteran Soldiers, who have resorted to the Wells
out of mere curiosity only, have frankly acknowledged that she executes
what she undertakes to Admiration, and that the universal Applause
which she meets with is by no means the Result of Partiality to her
in Consideration of her Sex, but is due to her, without Favour or
Affection, as the Effect of her extraordinary Merit.
‘As our Readers may be desirous of being informed in what Dress she
now appears, we think it proper to inform them that she wears Men’s
Cloaths, being, as she says, determined so to do, and having bought new
Cloathing for that Purpose.’
This theatrical performance, of course, could not last long; so, with
her savings, she took a public-house at Wapping, which she christened
‘The Widow in Masquerade,’ and on one side of the sign she was
delineated in her full regimentals, on the other in plain clothes.
She afterwards married, for in the _Universal Chronicle_ (November
3/10, 1759, p. 359, col. 3) may be read: ‘Marriages. At Newbury, in the
county of Berks, the famous Hannah Snell, who served as a marine in the
last war, and was wounded at the siege of Pondicherry, to a carpenter
of that place.’ His name was Eyles. In 1789 she became insane, and was
taken to Bethlehem, where she died on the 8th of February, 1792, aged
sixty-nine.
The examples quoted of women joining the army are by no means singular,
for in 1761 a lynx-eyed sergeant detected a woman who wished to enlist
under the name of Paul Daniel, in the hope that she might be sent to
Germany, where her husband was then serving in the army. And in the
same year a woman named Hannah Witney was masquerading at Plymouth
in man’s attire, and was laid hold of by a press-gang and lodged in
Plymouth gaol. She was so disgusted at the treatment she received
that she disclosed her sex, at the same time telling the astonished
authorities that she had served as a marine for five years.
There is a curious little chap-book, now very rare, of the ‘Life and
Adventures of Maria Knowles ... by William Fairbank, Sergeant-major of
the 66th Regiment of Foot,’ and, as it is very short, it may be as well
to give its _ipsissima verba_.
‘The heroine of the following story is the only daughter of Mr. John
Knowles, a reputed farmer,[36] of the parish of Bridworth, in the
county of Cheshire, where Maria was born, and was her father’s only
daughter. At an early age she lost her mother, and was brought up under
the care of a mother-in-law, who treated her with more kindness than is
usually done to motherless children. Her father having no other child,
his house might have proved a comfortable home for one of a more sober
disposition. At the age of nineteen she was so very tall that she was
styled the ‘Tall Girl.’ She had a very handsome face, which gained her
plenty of sweethearts. Many young men felt the weight of her fists for
giving her offences. She refused many offers of marriage, and that from
persons of fortune.
‘Being one day at the market in Warrington, she saw one Cliff, a
sergeant of the Guards on the recruiting service, with whom she fell
deeply in love; he in a short time was called to join the regiment,
and she, not being able to bear her love-sick passion, eloped from
her father’s house, immediately went up to London, disguised in man’s
apparel, and enlisted in the same regiment with her sweetheart, in
which she made a most martial appearance in her regimentals; her height
covered the deception. As a red coat captivates the fair sex, our
female soldier made great advances, being a lover of mirth and a smart
girl....
‘A part of the Guards were ordered to Holland, with whom sailed Maria
and her sweetheart. The British troops were stationed at Dort, and a
party was sent in gunboats to annoy the French, who were then besieging
Williamstadt. From Holland they were ordered to French Flanders, where
Maria was at several desperate battles and sieges. At Dunkirk she was
wounded in three different parts, in her right shoulder, in her right
arm, and thigh, which discovered her sex, and, of course, her secret.
‘After being recovered from her wounds, and questioned by her
commanding officer, she related to him the particulars of her life, and
the reason of her being disguised, and entering for a soldier, which
was to seek her fortune, and share the fate of the man on whom she had
irrevocably fixed her affection.
‘The news soon reached her lover, who flew to the arms of so faithful
a girl, whom he embraced with the most ardent zeal, vowing an eternal
constancy to her; and, in order to reward such faithful love, the
officers raised a handsome subscription for them, after which they
were married by the chaplain of the regiment, to their great joy....
‘But this was not all, for the adjutant of the 66th Regiment of Foot
dying of his wounds, Sergeant Cliff was promoted to that berth, and
Sergeant Fairbank to sergeant-major, as Cliff and him were always
comrades together. In a little time the regiment was sent to Gibraltar,
where they stayed most part of the year, during which Mrs. Cliff was
delivered of a fine son, after which the regiment was sent to the West
Indies, and, after a passage of twenty-eight days, landed safely on the
island of St. Vincent, where they remained some time; but, the yellow
fever raging among the troops, Mr. Cliff died, to the great grief of
his disconsolate wife and her young son. She was still afraid of the
raging distemper, but, happily for her and her son, neither of them
took it.
‘Great indulgence was given her, and also provisions allowed them
both; but this did not suffice, for Mrs. Cliff, losing the man she
had ventured her life so many times for, was now very unhappy, and
made application to the commanding officer for her passage to England;
and a great many men, unfit for duty, coming home, she was admitted
a passenger. I, being unfit to act as sergeant-major, on account of
a wound that I received in my left leg, the same day Mrs. Cliff was
wounded, and although it was cured, as soon as I came into a hot
country it broke out again, and I, being unfit for duty, was sent
home, and recommended.[37] So I came home in the same ship, with this
difference, that she was in the cabin, and I among the men. We sailed
in the _Eleanor_ on the 25th of January, 1798, and, after forty days’
sail, we reached Spithead, and, after performing a short quarantine, we
landed at Portsmouth on the 16th of March, where I left Mrs. Cliff to
pursue her journey to her father’s, and I came to London.’
I have been unable to trace the fate of this heroine any further.
There is yet another woman of the eighteenth century, who acted the
part both of soldier and sailor; and we read of her in the _Times_, 4th
of November, 1799.
‘There is at present in the Middlesex Hospital a young and delicate
female, who calls herself Miss T--lb--t, and who is said to be related
to some families of distinction; her story is very singular:--At an
early period of her life, having been deprived, by the villainy of a
trustee, of a sum of money bequeathed to her by a deceased relation
of high rank, she followed the fortunes of a young naval officer to
whom she was attached, and personated a common sailor before the mast,
during a cruise in the north seas. In consequence of a lover’s quarrel
she quitted the ship, and assumed, for a time, the military character;
but her passion for the sea prevailing, she returned to her favourite
element, did good service, and received a severe wound on board Earl
St. Vincent’s ship, on the glorious 14th of February,[38] and again
bled in the cause of her country in the engagement off Camperdown. On
this last occasion her knee was shattered, and an amputation is likely
to ensue. This spirited female, we understand, receives a pension of
£20 from an illustrious lady, which is about to be doubled.’
_Voilà comment on écrit l’histoire!_ This newspaper report is about
as truthful as nine-tenths of the paragraphs now-a-days; there is a
substratum of truth, but not ‘the whole truth and nothing but the
truth.’ But this can be read in a little tractate entitled, ‘The Life
and Surprising Adventures of Mary Ann Talbot, in the name of John
Taylor. Related by herself.’ London, 1809. This pamphlet is extracted
from ‘Kirby’s Wonderful Museum of Remarkable Characters, &c.,’ and
professes to be an autobiography. It is highly probable that it is so,
as she was a domestic servant in Mr. Kirby’s house for three years
before her death.
According to this relation she was the youngest of sixteen natural
children whom her mother had by Lord William Talbot, Baron of Hensol,
steward of his Majesty’s household, and colonel of the Glamorganshire
Militia. She was born the 2nd of February, 1778, and her mother died
on giving her birth. She was put out to nurse in the country, until
she was five years of age, when she was placed in a boarding-school at
Chester, where she remained nine years, being looked after by a married
sister who lived at Trevalyn, county Denbigh. At her death a man named
Sucker, living at Newport, county Salop, became her guardian, and he
behaved to her with such severity that she cordially hated him. He
introduced her to a Captain Bowen, of the 82nd Regiment of Foot, who
took her to London in January, 1792, where, friendless and alone, she
soon became his victim.
His regiment was ordered to embark for Santo Domingo, and he had
so thoroughly subjugated her to his will, and she was so utterly
helpless, that she accompanied him on board as his ‘little foot page.’
Captain Bowen made John Taylor (for such was the name Miss Talbot then
took) thoroughly act up to her assumed character, and she had to live
and mess with the lowest of the ship’s company, and, what was more, had
to do her turn of duty with the ship’s crew.
After a stormy voyage, with short provisions, they arrived at
Port-au-Prince, but stayed there a very short time, as orders came for
them to return to Europe, and join the troops on the Continent, under
the command of His Royal Highness the Duke of York. Then it was that
Captain Bowen made her enrol herself as a drummer in his regiment,
threatening her unless she did so he would sell her up-country for
a slave. There was nothing for her but to comply, so she put on the
clothes and learned the business of a drummer-boy, having, besides,
still to be the drudge of her paramour.
At the siege of Valenciennes she received two wounds, neither of them
severe enough to incapacitate her from serving, and she cured them,
without going into hospital, with a little basilicon, lint, and Dutch
drops. In this siege Captain Bowen was killed, and she, finding the key
of his desk in his pocket, searched the desk and found several letters
relating to her, from her quondam guardian, Sucker.
Being now released from her servitude, she began to think of quitting
the service, and, having changed her military dress for one she had
worn on ship-board, she deserted, and, after some wandering, reached
Luxembourg, but, it being in the occupation of the French, she was not
permitted to go further. Being thus foiled in her design of reaching
England, and destitute of every necessary of life, she was compelled
to engage on board a French lugger, a cruiser. In the course of their
voyage, they fell in with the British fleet under the command of Lord
Howe. The French vessel made a show of fighting, and John Taylor
refused to fight against her countrymen, for which she received a
severe thrashing from the French captain.
After a very faint resistance the lugger was captured, and she,
as being English, was taken on board the _Queen Charlotte_ to be
interrogated by Lord Howe. Her story, being backed up by the French
captain, gained her release, and she was allowed to join the navy, a
berth being found for her on board the _Brunswick_ as powder-monkey,
her duty being to hand powder, &c., for the guns when in action.
Captain Harvey, of the _Brunswick_, noticed the pseudo lad, and
straightly examined her as to whether she had not run away from school,
or if she had any friends; but she disarmed his suspicions by telling
him her father and mother were dead, and she had not a friend in the
world; yet the kindly captain took such a friendly interest in her that
he made her principal cabin-boy.
In the memorable fight off Brest, on the ‘Glorious First of June,’
Captain Harvey was killed, and our heroine severely wounded both in the
ankle by a grape-shot and in the thigh a little above the knee. She
was, of course, taken to the cockpit; but the surgeon could not extract
the ball in the ankle, and would not venture to cut it out; nor, when
they arrived home, and she was taken to Haslar Hospital, could they
extract the ball. Partially cured, she was discharged, and shipped on
board the _Vesuvius_ bomb, belonging to Sir Sydney Smith’s squadron,
where she acted as midshipman, although she did not receive the pay
which should have accompanied the position; and, while thus serving,
a little anecdote she tells give us a fair idea of what stuff she was
made.
‘It was necessary for some one on board to go to the jib-boom to catch
the jib-sheet, which in the gale had got loose. The continual lungeing
of the ship rendered this duty particularly hazardous, and there was
not a seaman on board but rejected this office. I was acting in the
capacity of midshipman, though I never received pay for my service in
this ship but as a common man. The circumstance I mention only to show
that it was not my particular duty to undertake the task, which, on the
refusal of several who were asked, I voluntarily undertook. Indeed,
the preservation of us all depended on this exertion. On reaching the
jib-boom I was under the necessity of lashing myself fast to it, for
the ship every minute making a fresh lunge, without such a precaution
I should inevitably have been washed away. The surges continually
breaking over me, I suffered an uninterrupted wash and fatigue for six
hours before I could quit the post I occupied. When danger is over, a
sailor has little thought or reflection, and my mess-mates, who had
witnessed the perilous situation in which I was placed, passed it off
with a joke observing, “that I had only been sipping sea broth”; but it
was a broth of a quality that, though most seamen relish, yet few, I
imagine, would like to take it in the quantity I was compelled to do.’
By the fortune of war the _Vesuvius_ was captured, and the crew were
conveyed to Dunkirk, where they were lodged in the prison of St.
Clair, and the rigour of their captivity seems to have been extreme,
especially in the case of Mary Anne Talbot, who perhaps partially
deserved it, as she attempted, in company with a mess-mate, to escape.
‘We were both confined in separate dungeons, where it was so dark that
I never saw daylight during the space of eleven weeks, and the only
allowance I received was bread and water, let down to me from the top
of the cell. My bed consisted only of a little straw, not more than
half a truss, which was never changed. For two days I was so ill in
this dreadful place that I was unable to stir from my wretched couch
to reach the miserable pittance, which, in consequence, was drawn up
in the same state. The next morning, a person--who, I suppose, was the
keeper of the place--came into the dungeon without a light (which way
he came I know not, but I suppose through a private door through which
I afterwards passed to be released), and called to me, “Are you dead?”
To this question I was only able to reply by requesting a little water,
being parched almost to death by thirst, resulting from the fever which
preyed on me. He told me he had none, and left me in a brutal manner,
without offering the least relief. Nature quickly restored me to
health, and I sought the bread and water with as eager an inclination
as a glutton would seek a feast. About five weeks after my illness, an
exchange of prisoners taking place, I obtained my liberty.’
She then shipped to America as steward, and from thence to England, and
was going on a voyage to the Mediterranean, when she was seized by a
press-gang, and sent on board a tender. But she had no wish to serve
His Majesty at sea any more, and, discovering her sex, she was examined
by a surgeon, and of course at once discharged.
Her little stock of money getting low, she applied at the Navy
pay-office, in Somerset House, for the cash due to her whilst serving
in the _Brunswick_ and _Vesuvius_, as well as her share of prize-money,
arising from her being present on the ‘glorious 1st of June.’ She was
referred to a prize-agent, who directed her to call again; this not
being to her taste, she returned to Somerset House, and indulged in
very rough language, for which she was taken off to Bow Street. She
told her story, and was ordered to appear again, when a subscription
was got up in her behalf; and she was paid twelve shillings a week,
until she received her money from the Government.
Her old wound in the leg became bad again, and she went into St.
Bartholomew’s Hospital, and on her discharge, partially cured, she
petitioned the King and the Duke of York for relief. The latter gave
her five pounds. Then she cast about for the means of earning a
livelihood, and bethought her that, when she was a prisoner at Dunkirk,
she had watched a German make little ornaments out of gold-wire, which
he sold at a good profit; and she did the same, working at the shop
of a jeweller in St. Giles’s, and so expert was she that she made the
chains for a gold bracelet worn by Queen Charlotte. But the old wound
still broke out, and she went into St. George’s Hospital for seven
months. When she came out, she led a shiftless, loafing existence,
always begging for money--of Mr. Dundas, of the Duke of York, or
anyone else that might possibly be generous.
At last these kind friends got her case introduced in the very highest
quarters, and she kissed the Queen’s hand at Buckingham House, as it
was then called; and soon afterwards she was directed to apply at the
War Office, in her sailor’s dress, to receive a half-year’s payment of
a pension the Queen had granted her, in the name of John Taylor. Still
her wound kept breaking out, and twice she had to go into Middlesex
Hospital. She had some idea of going on the stage, and performed
several parts at the Thespian Society in Tottenham Court Road, but she
gave it up, finding begging a more profitable business; but even then
she had to go to Newgate for a small debt. She took in washing, but the
people did not pay her, and misfortune pursued her everywhere.
One night, in September, 1804, she was thrown from a coach into a hole
left by the carelessness of some firemen, in Church Lane, Whitechapel,
and she broke her arm, besides bruising herself badly. The fire office
would give her no compensation, but many people were interested in
her case, among them a Mr. Kirby, a publisher in Paternoster Row, who
employed her as a domestic servant. In 1807, she fell into a decline,
doubtless induced by the very free life she had led; and she died on
the 4th of February, 1808, having just completed her thirtieth year.
It is not to be thought that England enjoyed the monopoly of these
viragos--the country of Jeanne d’Arc was quite equal to the occasion,
and Renée Bordereau affords an illustration for the last century. She
was born, of peasant parents, in 1770, at the village of Soulaine, near
Angers; and at the time of the insurrection in La Vendée, when the
royalists were so cruelly punished, she lost forty-two relations in the
struggle, her father being murdered before her eyes.
This crushed out of her any soft and feminine feelings she might
have possessed, and she vowed vengeance on the hated Republicans.
She obtained a musket, taught herself how to use it, learned some
elementary drill, and then, donning man’s attire, joined the royalists.
Among them she was known by the name of Langevin, and where the
fight was fiercest, there she would be, and none suspected that the
daring trooper was a woman. On horseback, and on foot, she fought in
above two hundred battles and skirmishes, frequently wounded, but
seldom much hurt. Such was the terror with which she inspired the
Bonapartists, that, when the rebellion was put down, Napoleon specially
exempted Langevin from pardon, and she languished in prison until the
Restoration. She died in 1828.
THE ‘TIMES’ AND ITS FOUNDER.
A discursive book anent the eighteenth century, as this is, would be
incomplete without a mention of one of the greatest powers which it
produced. This marvellous newspaper, whose utterances, at one time,
exercised a sensible influence over the whole of the civilised world,
and which, even now, is the most potent of all the English press, was
founded by Mr. John Walter, on January 1, 1788.
This gentleman was born either in 1738 or 1739, and his father followed
the business of a ‘coal buyer,’ which meant that he bought coals at
the pit’s mouth, and then shipped them to any desired port, or market.
In those days almost all coals came, by sea, from Newcastle, and its
district, because of the facility of carriage; the great inland beds
being practically unworked, and in many cases utterly unknown: it
being reserved for the giant age of steam to develop their marvellous
resources.
His father died in 1755, John Walter then being seventeen and, boy
though he was, he at once succeeded to his father’s business. In it
he was diligent and throve well, and he so won the confidence and
respect of his brother ‘coal buyers’ that when a larger Coal Exchange
was found necessary, in order to accommodate, and keep pace with
its increasing business, the whole of the arrangements, plans, and
directions were left in his hands. When the building was completed, he
was rewarded by his brethren in trade with the position of manager, and
afterwards he became Chairman to the Body of Coal Buyers.
He married, and, in 1771, things had gone so prosperously with him
that he bought a house with some ground at Battersea Rise, and here he
lived, and reared his family of six children, until his bankruptcy,
when it was sold. He also took unto himself partners, and was the head
of the firm of Walter, Bradley, and Sage. For some time all went well,
but competition arose, and the old-fashioned way of doing business
could not hold its own against the keenness, and cutting, of the new
style. Let us hear him tell his own story.[39]
‘I shall forbear relating the various scenes of business I was engaged
in prior to my embarking in Lloyd’s Rooms; sufficient it is to remark
that a very extensive trade I entered into at the early age of
seventeen, when my father died, rewarded a strong spirit of industry,
and, for the first ten or twelve years, with a satisfactory increase
of fortune; but a number of inconsiderable dealers, by undermining the
fair trader, and other dishonourable practices, reduced the profits,
and made them inadequate to the risque and capital employed. It
happened unfortunately for me, about that time, some policy brokers,
who had large orders for insurances on foreign Indiamen and other
adventures, found their way to the Coal Market, a building of which I
was the principal planner and manager.
‘I was accustomed, with a few others, to underwrite the vessels
particularly employed in that trade, and success attended the step,
because the risque was fair, and the premiums adequate. This was my
temptation for inclining to their solicitations of frequenting Lloyd’s
Rooms.[40] With great reluctance I complain that I quitted a trade
where low art and cunning combated the fair principles of commerce,
which my mind resisted as my fortune increased; but from the change I
had to encounter deception and fraud, in a more dangerous but subtle
degree.