Eighteenth Century Waifs

by John Ashton

‘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.