She travelled through the South from plantation to plantation, with plentiful promises of future English offices and court favors to all who assisted her progress; and liberal sums of money were placed at her disposal, to be repaid by Queen Charlotte; and she seems to have been universally welcomed and feasted.
But the fame of the royal visitor spread afar and found its way to Bush Creek, to the ears of Mr. Duvall, and he promptly suspected that he had found trace of his ingenious runaway servant. As was the custom of the day, he advertised for her and a reward for her capture. The notice reads thus:—
Bush Creek, Frederick County, Maryland, October 11, 1771. Ran away from the subscriber a convict servant named Sarah Wilson, but has changed her name to Lady Susannah Caroline Matilda, which made the public believe that she was her Majesty’s sister. She has a blemish in her right eye, black roll’d hair, stoops in the shoulders, and makes a common practice of writing and marking her clothes with a crown and a B. Whoever secures the said servant woman or will take her home, shall receive five pistoles, besides all cost of charges. William Duvall.
I entitle Michael Dalton to search the city of Philadelphia, and from there to Charleston, for the said woman.
Beauty readily inspires confidence, and dignity commands it. But a woman with such scant personal charms, with a blemish in her eye and stooping shoulders, must have been most persuasive in conversation to have surmounted such obstacles. It is said that she was most gracious, yet commanding.
To elude Michael Dalton’s authorized search from Philadelphia to Charleston, Sarah Wilson fled from her scenes of success, but also of too familiar and extensive acquaintance, to New York. But New York proved still too near to Maryland, so she took passage for Newport. Here her fame preceded her, for in the Newport Mercury of November 29, 1773, is this notice:—
Last Tuesday arrived here from New York the lady who has passed through several of the southern colonies under the name and character of Caroline Matilda, Marchioness de Waldgrave, etc., etc.
I do not know the steps that led to her capture and removal, but at the end of the year the Marchioness was back on William Duvall’s plantation, and bound to serve a redoubled term of years. It seems to be probable that she also suffered more ignoble punishment, for Judge Martin says in his History of Louisiana:—
A female driven for her misconduct from the service of a maid of honor of Princess Matilda, sister of George III., was convicted at the Old Bailey and transported to Maryland. She effected her escape before the expiration of her time, and travelled through Virginia and both the Carolinas personating the Princess, and levying contributions on the credulity of the planters and merchants and even some of the king’s officers. She was at last arrested in Charleston, prosecuted and whipped.
I often wonder what became of the Brummagem princess, with her jewels and her personal blemishes; and I often fancy that I find traces of her career, still masquerading, still imposing on simple folk. For instance, Rev. Manasseh Cutler wrote, at his home in Ipswich Hamlet, Mass., on January 25, 1775: