house, to prevent any thing from being conveyed away, and that it would be proper he should be present to show the particular place where every thing was deposited. This appeared quite right to the collector; he therefore contented himself with fastening his horse to the garden rails, and proceeded with the rest of the officers, in great form, to search the dog-kennel, coal-house, dove-house, stables, and all other suspicious places, expecting every minute to see the informing sailor, who by this time had nearly got back to Newton-Bushel, having turned his horse’s head that way as soon as he was out of sight of the collector. He stopped at the Bull, where they had been the preceding night, and drank a bottle of wine; then, ordering a handsome dinner to be got ready for his company, whom he said he had left behind, because his business called him with urgent haste to Exeter, he clapped his spurs to his horse, and did not stop till he reached that city, where he put up at the Oxford inn, then kept by Mr. Buckstone, to whom both himself and friends were well known; he acquainted Mr. Buckstone that he was now reformed, and lived at home with his friends, and spent the night very jovially, calling for the best of every thing. In the morning he desired Mr. Buckstone to do him the favour of lending him a couple of guineas, till he could receive some of a merchant in the city upon whom he had a bill, for the merchant was gone out of town. As Mr. Buckstone had a mare in his custody worth ten or twelve pounds, he made no scruple of doing it; and soon after Mr. Carew thought proper to change his quarters, without bidding the landlord good-bye.
Leaving the mare to discharge the reckoning and the loan he had borrowed, he repaired immediately to a house of usual resort for his community, where he pulls off the fine clothes the collector had lent him, and rigged himself again in a jacket and trowsers; then setting out for Topsham, about three miles from the city of Exeter, he there executed the same stratagem upon Mr. Carter and the other officers there; informing them also of some great concealments at Sir Coppleston Bampfylde’s house, at Poltimore, for which they rewarded him with a good treat and a couple of guineas.
The Exeter officers (whom, as we have before said, he left without the least ceremony at Squire Gary’s) having searched all the out-houses, and even in the dwelling-house, very narrowly, without finding any prohibited goods, began to suspect the sailor had outwitted them; therefore they returned in a great hurry to Newton-Bushel, all their mirth being turned into vexation, and their great expectations vanished into smoke. Soon after they had dismounted from their horses, the landlord brought in the dinner, which he said their companion had ordered to be got ready for them; but though it was a very elegant one, yet they found abundance of faults with every thing; however, as it was too late to reach Exeter that night, they were obliged to take up their quarters there; but, instead of the jollity and good humour that reigned among them the night before, there now succeeded a sullen silence, interrupted now and then by some exclamations of revenge, and expressions of dislike of every thing that was brought them: when they came into Exeter the next day, they had intelligence
brought them of the mare, which was safe enough at the Oxford inn; but they were obliged to disburse the money Mr. Carew had made her surety for.
From Topsham Mr. Carew proceeded to Exmouth, where he also succeeded, and from thence to Squire Stucky’s, a justice of peace at Brandscombe, about four miles from Sidmouth; and, being introduced, acquainted his worship with several discoveries he could make; the justice thereupon immediately dispatched a messenger for Mr. Duke, an officer in Sidmouth; in the mean time he entertained him very handsomely, and pressed him to accept of two guineas, as a small token of kindness, often shaking him by the hand, and saying, he thought himself very much obliged to him for making this discovery: and that, as a reward for his loyalty to the king, he would engage to get him a place, having many friends at London. About two o’clock the next morning, Mr. Duke, the sailor, and servant of the squire’s, set forward towards Honiton, it being at Squire Blagdon’s, near the town, where they were to find the hidden treasure. Mr. Carew was mounted on a good horse of Justice Stucky’s, and, while the officer and servant were very busy in searching the out-houses and stables, Mr. Carew gave them the slip, and posted away to Honiton, and took some refreshment at the Three Lions; then leaving the justice’s horse to answer for it, hasted away to Lime, in Dorsetshire; where he applied to Mr. Jordan, the collector of the place, whom he sent upon the same errand some miles off, to Colonel Brown’s, at Frampton; but the collector, not judging it proper
for him to accompany him, for fear of creating suspicion, left him at his own house till his return, giving his servant orders to let him want for nothing; at the same time making him a handsome present, as an earnest of a greater reward when he returned. Mr. Carew enjoyed himself very contentedly at the collector’s house for several hours, both eating and drinking of the best, as he knew Frampton was at too great a distance for him to return presently; but he prudently weighed his anchor when he thought the collector might be on his return, and steered his course towards Weymouth, where he made his application to the collector, and after being handsomely treated, and a present given to him, sent the officers to Squire Groves’s, near White-street, and Squire Barber’s, on the Chase, both in Wiltshire. And as soon as they were gone, he set out for Poole; and sent the collector and officers of that place to Sir Edward Boobey’s, who lived in the road between Salisbury and Hendon; they gave him two guineas in hand, and a promise of more upon their return with the booty; in the mean time they recommended him to an inn, and gave orders that he should have any thing the house afforded, and they would make satisfaction for it; but this adventure had like not to have ended so well for him as the former; for, being laid down upon a bed to nap, having drunk too freely, he heard some people drinking and talking in the next room of the great confusion there was in all the sea-ports in the west of England, occasioned by a trick put on the king’s officers by one Bampfylde Carew, and that this news was brought
to Poole by a Devonshire gentleman, who accidently came that way. Mr. Carew hearing this, rightly judged Poole was no proper place to make a longer stay in; he therefore instantly arose, and, by the help of a back door, got into a garden, and with much difficulty climbed over the wall belonging thereto, and made the best of his way to Christchurch, in Hampshire; here he assumed the character of a shipwrecked seaman, and raised considerable contributions. Coming to Ringwood, he inquired of the health of Sir Thomas Hobbes, a gentleman in that neighbourhood, who was a person of great hospitality; he was told that some of the mendicant order, having abused his benevolence, in taking away a pair of boots, after he had received a handsome present from him, it had so far prejudiced Sir Thomas, that he did not exercise the same hospitality as formerly. This greatly surprised and concerned Mr. Carew, that any of his subjects should be guilty of so ungrateful an action: he was resolved therefore to inquire strictly into it, that, if he could find out the offender, he might inflict a deserved punishment upon him; and therefore resolved to pay a visit to Sir Thomas the next morning, hoping he should get some light into the affair. When he came to the house, it was pretty early in the day, and Sir Thomas had not come out of his chamber; however, he sent up his pass, as a shipwrecked seaman, by one of the servants, who presently returned with half-a-crown. As he had been always wont to receive a large present from Sir Thomas, whenever he had applied to him, he thought there was some unfair practice at the bottom; he therefore
asked the footman for a copper of ale to drink the family’s health, hoping Sir Thomas might come down by that time; the servant pretended to be in so great a hurry, that he could not attend to draw any, but he was of too humane a nature to permit the poor sailor to suffer by his hurry, so gave him a shilling out of his own pocket to drink at the next public-house. This extraordinary generosity of the footman increased Mr. Carew’s suspicion; he therefore kept loitering about the door, and often looking up at the window, in hopes of seeing Sir Thomas, which accordingly happened, for at length he flung up the sash, and accosted him in a free familiar manner, called him Brother Tar, and told him he was very sorry for his misfortunes, and that he had sent him a piece of money to assist him in his journey towards Bristol. Heaven bless your honour, replied he, for the half-crown your honour sent me; upon which Sir Thomas ran down in his morning gown, and with great passion seized the footman by the throat, and asked him what he had given the sailor. The fellow was struck dumb with this, and indeed there was no need for his tongue on the present occasion, as his looks, and the trembling of his limbs, sufficiently declared his guilt; however he at last owned it with his tongue; and excused himself by saying, he knew there was an ill use made of the large bounties his honour gave. Sir Thomas, enraged at the insolence of his servant, bestowed upon him the discipline of the horse-whip, for his great care and integrity in not seeing his bounty abused; adding, he now saw by whose villany he had lost his boots. He then made the footman return the
whole guinea to the sailor, and discharged him from any further service in his family; upon which Mr. Carew took his leave with great thankfulness, and went his way, highly pleased with his good success in this adventure.—Here we cannot forbear wishing that there was no higher character in life than Sir Thomas’s footman, to whose hands gold is apt to cling in passing through them; that there was no steward who kept back part of his master’s rent, because he thinks he has more than he knows what to do with; no managers of charities, who retain part of the donors’ benefactions in their own hands, because it is too much for the poor; nor officers of the public, who think they may squander the public treasure without account, because what is everybody’s is nobody’s.
Mr. Carew having laid aside his sailor’s habit, put on a long loose vest, placed a turban on his head, dignified his chin with a venerable long beard, and was now no other than a poor unfortunate Grecian, whose misfortunes had overtaken him in a strange country. He could not utter his sorrowful tale, being unacquainted with the language of the country; but his mute silence, his dejected countenance, a sudden tear that now and then flowed down his cheek, accompanied with a noble air of distress, all pleaded for him in more persuasive eloquence than perhaps the softest language could have done, and raised him considerable gains; and indeed benevolence can never be better exerted than towards unfortunate strangers, for no distress can be so forlorn as that of a man in necessity in a foreign country; he has no friends to apply to, no laws to shelter him under, no means to provide