Memoirs of James Hardy Vaux. Written by himself.

by James Hardy Vaux

1819.

CONTENTS
OF
THE FIRST VOLUME.

Advertisement, [page vii].

Preface, [page xi].

Dedication, [page xv].

CHAPTER I.

Some account of my family—My birth, and subsequent adventures, until I attain my ninth year, [page 1].

CHAP. II.

I am taken from school, and return to my Grandparents—Remove to Cambridgeshire—From thence again to London, and a second time to S⸺shire—Different plans proposed for my settlement in life—Friendship of the Moultrie family—I am sent to Liverpool on liking, [page 9].

CHAP. III.

My employment in my new situation—Seduced by an apprentice in the house to neglect my business, and keep irregular hours—Become a frequenter of the Cockpit—Repeated losses at this place induce me to recruit my finances by embezzling my employer’s money—Remonstrances on my misconduct producing no effect, am seriously admonished, and sent back to my friends, [page 16].

CHAP. IV.

I prevail on my grandfather to let me visit London—Am provided with letters of recommendation—Received into the office of a respectable attorney, my kinsman—Quit that employment, and engage with a wholesale stationer—Obtain clothes, &c., on credit, without any intention of paying for them—Bilk my lodgings repeatedly—Return to the law—Obliged to live by my wits—Become a hackney waiter—Resort nightly to the Blue-Lion, [page 24].

CHAP. V.

The trip to Portsmouth, [page 32].

CHAP. VI.

Still much embarrassed to support appearances—Meet with a surgeon of a frigate—Our conversation and its result—Negotiation set on foot with the captain—I obtain an appointment as midshipman—Fitted out by my friends in the most liberal manner—Join my ship—Delighted with my new situation—Account of my messmates, and other matters, [page 53].

CHAP. VII.

My rapid progress in navigation—Become a good sailor in theory—The approach of a severe winter somewhat damps my pleasure—Begin to repent my bargain—Duty excessively fatiguing, and situation uncomfortable—Advised to alter my course—Appointed captain’s clerk, and find myself at home to a peg—The frigate ordered up the river Thames—I visit London—Become enamoured of a fair Cyprian—Desert my ship on her account, [page 63].

CHAP. VIII.

Consequences of my imprudent secession—Reduced to great distress—Become a billiard player—Associate with sharpers—Engage with a country attorney—Take leave of London once more, [page 74].

CHAP. IX.

Account of my situation at Bury St. Edmunds—Obstinately determine to relinquish it, and return to London—Defraud several tradesmen—Quit the town, and arrive in the metropolis—Obtain a quantity of wearing apparel under false pretences, [page 91].

CHAP. X.

Live gaily for a few weeks on the spoils of my late excursion—Again obliged to seek employment—Engage with a conveyancer in the Temple—Apprehended by my late master—Compromise the affair, through the friendship of a relation, [page 103].

CHAP. XI.

Obtain an employment as clerk and shopman—Rob my employers, and embezzle several sums of money—Quit this service, and am soon after taken in custody, and committed to the Bastile, [page 112].

CHAP. XII.

Fully committed for trial—Acquitted for want of evidence—Fatal consequences of consigning a young person to a gaol—Meet with a fellow-prisoner, who introduces me to the company of professed thieves—Live by fraud and robbery—Trip to Staines—Am at length apprehended for what I am innocent of, [page 128].

CHAP. XIII.

Examined before the Lord Mayor—Fully committed—Tried and cast—My father’s faith and assurances—My disappointment on being transported for seven years—Contract the gaol distemper, and am reduced to the point of death—Recover my health, and am sent on board a transport for Botany Bay, [page 155].

CHAP. XIV.

Sail from England—Account of our voyage—Arrive at Port Jackson—Write in my own behalf to Commissary Palmer—That gentleman is pleased to notice my application—Land at Sydney, and am carried before Governor King—A curious dialogue between His Excellency and myself—Ordered to Hawkesbury, as Store-keeper’s Clerk, [page 168].

CHAP. XV.

My conduct at Hawkesbury—Continue for three years to give satisfaction to my principal—Ordered by Governor King into the Secretary’s Office—Give way to the temptations with which I am surrounded, and begin to lead a dissipated life, in company with some other clerks.—Concert a system of fraud upon the King’s stores, which we practise successfully for some time—The imposition is at length detected—I am in consequence dismissed the office, and sent to hard labour for the first time in my life, [page 176].

CHAP. XVI.

Draughted to Castle-hill—Variously employed there—Appointed clerk to the Settlement—Again noticed by the Governor—Summoned to Parramatta by the Rev. Mr. Marsden—Appointed Magistrate’s Clerk, and begin once more to lead an easy life—Preparations for the Governor’s departure—Mr. Marsden gives me hopes of accompanying himself and the Governor to England in His Majesty’s Ship Buffalo—My pleasing sensations at the prospect of revisiting my native land, [page 186].

CHAP. XVII.

The Buffalo being ready for sea, I receive an intimation from Mr. Marsden, that the late Governor obtained a remission of my unexpired time, and consents to take me home as his clerk—I wait on his Excellency accordingly, and receive orders to go on board—We set sail, [page 194].

CHAP. XVIII.

Receive a free pardon from the hands of Captain (late Governor) King—Account of our passage home—Suffer a great deal from the want of provisions—Leaky state of the ship—Double Cape Horn—Fall in with an English frigate, bound to the river Plate—Arrive at Rio de Janeiro, [page 199].

CHAP. XIX.

Account of my adventures at San Sebastian—Form acquaintance with a Portuguese family—Their affection for me—Overtures made to induce my stay in South America—The ship being repaired and victualled, we re-imbark and sail for Europe, [page 209].

CHAP. XX.

The ship becomes as leaky as before—All hands in turn at the pumps—Means adopted to reduce the leaks—I offend the late Governor, who orders me before the mast—Fall in with the Thisbe a second time in company with several transports—Unhappy fate of one of them—Arrive at Spithead, [page 225].

CHAP. XXI.

Captain King leaves the ship, which proceeds to Portsmouth harbour—My melancholy reflections on my confinement to the service—Preparations for paying off the Buffalo—Employed by the Purser in arranging the ships’ books—Write to London, and receive an answer from my mother—Obtain leave to go ashore very unexpectedly, and effect my escape through the friendly aid of a total stranger, [page 237].

ADVERTISEMENT.

It has been thought that the Public would benefit in more ways than one, by the publication of a work, in which the philosopher may read the workings of an unprincipled conscience, the legislator be let into the operations of the laws upon the criminal’s mind, and the citizen derive a key to the frauds by which he is so easily and constantly beset; and it is not often that thieves are possessed of sufficient truth, memory, vanity, and literature, to tell the story of their own lives. It will be seen that Mr. Vaux, together with an excellent memory, possesses a good share of vanity, and sufficient literature. In the following pages, the former (I think) often magnifies the latter, particularly in the account of the author’s readership at the printing-office; but it is only justice to him to say, that I have found occasion to make very few alterations in his manuscript, which came to my hands ready prefaced and dedicated, and chaptered, as if ripe for his old master’s printing-office—that it was exceedingly well and fairly transcribed; and, (with one or two exceptions) correctly spelled and punctuated.

When Mr. Vaux’s predilection for low company comes to be observed, the reader will justly doubt the great liberality of education and taste for reading, upon which he so often vaunts himself. The quotations in his narrative are all common-place; and I have struck out a few as profaned by misapplication.