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The History and Remarkable Life of the Truly Honourable Colonel Jacque, Commonly called Colonel Jack

I was really affected with her case very much, but struggled hard with myself to hide it, and turned the discourse to something else. In the meantime, though I did not go to her the next day, nor till the third day, yet I studied day and night how to act, and what I should do in this remarkable case.

When I came to the house, which was the third day, she came into the room I was in, clothed all over with my things which I had ordered her, and told me she thanked God she was now my servant again and wore my livery, thanked me for the clothes I had sent her, and said it was much more than she had deserved from me.

I then entered into discourses with her, nobody being present but ourselves; and first I told her she should name no more of the unkind things that had passed, for she had humbled herself more than enough on that subject, and I would never reproach her with anything that was past. I found that she had been the deepest sufferer by far. I told her it was impossible for me, in my present circumstances, to receive her there as a wife who came over as a convict, neither did she know so little as to desire it; but I told her I might be instrumental to put an end to her misfortunes in the world, and especially to the miserable part of it which was her present load, provided she could effectually keep her own counsel and never let the particulars come out of her mouth, and that from the day she did she might date her irrevocable ruin.

She was as sensible of the necessity of that part as I was, and told me all she could claim of me would be only to deliver her from her present calamity that she was not able to support; and that then, if I pleased, she might live such a life as that she might apply the residue of what time she should have wholly to repentance; that she was willing to do the meanest offices in the world for me; and though she should rejoice to hear that I would forgive her former life, yet that she would not look any higher than to be my servant as long as she lived; and, in the meantime, I might be satisfied she would never let any creature so much as know that I had ever seen her before.

I asked her if she was willing to let me into any part of the history of her life since she and I parted; but I did not insist upon it otherwise than as she thought convenient. She said, as her breach with me began first in folly and ended in sin, so her whole life afterwards was a continued series of calamity, sin and sorrow, sin and shame, and at last misery; that she was deluded into gay company and to an expensive way of living which betrayed her to several wicked courses to support the expenses of it; that after a thousand distresses and difficulties, being not able to maintain herself, she was reduced to extreme poverty; that she would many times have humbled herself to me in the lowest and most submissive manner in the world, being sincerely penitent for her first crime, but that she could never hear of me, nor which way I was gone; that she was by that means so abandoned that she wanted bread, and those wants and distresses brought her into bad company of another kind, and that she fell in among a gang of thieves, with whom she herded for some time, and got money enough a great while, but under the greatest dread and terror imaginable, being in the constant fear of coming to shame; that afterwards what she feared was come upon her, and for a very trifling attempt in which she was not principal, but accidentally concerned, she was sent to this place. She told me her life was such a collection of various fortunes-up and down, in plenty and in misery, in prison and at liberty, at ease and in torment-that it would take up a great many days to give me a history of it; that I was come to see the end of it, as I had seen the best part of the beginning; that I knew she was brought up tenderly and fared delicately; but that now she was, with the prodigal, brought to desire husks with swine, and even to want that supply. Her tears flowed so strongly upon this discourse that they frequently interrupted her, so that she could not go on without difficulty, and at last could not go on at all. So I told her I would excuse her telling any more of her story at that time; that I saw it was but a renewing of her grief, and that I would rather contribute to her forgetting what was past, and desired her to say no more of it; so I broke off that part.

In the meantime I told her, since Providence had thus cast her upon my hands again, I would take care that she should not want, and that she should not live hardly neither, though I could go no further at present; and thus we parted for that time, and she continued in the business of housekeeper; only that, to ease her, I gave her an assistant; and, though I would not have it called so, it was neither more or less than a servant to wait on her and do everything for her; and told her, too, that it was so.

After she had been some time in this place she recovered her spirits and grew cheerful; her fallen flesh plumped up, and the sunk and hollow parts filled again, so that she began to recover something of that brightness and charming countenance which was once so very agreeable to me; and sometimes I could not help having warm desires towards her, and of taking her into her first station again; but there were many difficulties occurred which I could not get over a great while.

But in the meantime another odd accident happened which put me to a very great difficulty, and more than I could have thought such a thing could be capable of. My tutor, a man of wit and learning, and full of generous principles, who was at first moved with compassion for the misery of this gentlewoman, and, even then, thought there were some things more than common in her, as I have hinted; now when, as I say, she was recovered, and her sprightly temper restored and comforted, he was charmed so with her conversation that, in short, he fell in love with her.

I hinted in my former account of her that she had a charming tongue, was mistress of abundance of wit, that she sung incomparably fine, and was perfectly well-bred. These all remained witli her still, and made her a very agreeable person; and, in short, he came to me one evening and told me that he came to ask my leave to let him marry the housekeeper.

I was exceedingly perplexed at this proposal, but, however, I gave him no room to perceive that. I told him I hoped he had considered well of it before he brought it so far as to offer it to me, and supposed that he had agreed that point so that I had no consent to give, but as she had almost four years of her time to serve.

He answered no; he paid such a regard to me that he would not so much as take one step in such a thing without my knowledge, and assured me he had not so much as mentioned it to her. I knew not what answer indeed to make to him, but at last I resolved to put it off from myself to her, because then I should have opportunity to talk with her beforehand. So I told him he was perfectly free to act in the matter as he thought fit; that I could not say either one thing or another to it, neither had I any right to meddle in it. As to her serving out her time with me, that was a trifle, and not worth naming, but I hoped he would consider well every circumstance before he entered upon such an affair as that.

He told me he had fully considered it already, and that he was resolved, seeing I was not against it, to have her whatever came of it, for he believed he should be the happiest man alive with her. Then he ran on in his character of her, how clever a woman she was in the management of all manner of business, how admirable conversation she was, what a wit, what a memory, what a vast share of knowledge, and the like; all which I knew to be the truth, and yet short of her just character too; for, as she was all that formerly when she was mine, she was vastly improved in the school of affliction, and was all the bright part, with a vast addition of temper, prudence, judgment, and all that she formerly wanted.

I had not much patience, as you may well imagine, till I saw my honest housekeeper, to communicate this secret to her, and to see what course she would steer on so nice an occasion. But I was suddenly taken so ill with a cold which held for two days that I could not stir out of doors; and in this time the matter was all done and over; for my tutor had gone the same night and made his attack; but was coldly received at first, which very much surprised him, for he made no doubt to have her consent at first word. However, the next day he came again, and again the third day, when, finding he was in earnest, and yet that she could not think of anything of that kind, she told him, in few words, that she thought herself greatly obliged to him for such a testimony of his respect to her, and should have embraced it willingly, as anybody would suppose one in her circumstances should do, but that she would not abuse him so much, for that she must acknowledge to him she was under obligations that prevented her; that was, in short, that she was a married woman and had a husband alive.

This was so sincere but so effectual an answer that he could have no room to reply one word to it, but that he was very sorry, and that it was a very great affliction to him, and as great a disappointment as ever he met with.

The next day after he had received this repulse I came to the plantation-house, and, sending for the housekeeper, I began with her, and told her that I understood she would have a very advantageous proposal made to her, and that I would have her consider well of it, and then told her what my tutor had said to me.

She immediately fell a-crying, at which I seemed to wonder very much. "Oh, sir!" says she, "how can you name such a thing to me?" I told her that I could name it the better to her because I had been married myself since I parted from her. "Yes, sir," says she; "but the case alters; the crime being on my side, I ought not to marry; but," says she, "that is not the reason at all, but I cannot do it." I pretended to press her to it, though not sincerely, I must acknowledge, for my heart had turned toward her for some time, and I had fully forgiven her in my mind all her former conduct; but, I say, I seemed to press her to it, at which she burst out in a passion. "No, no," says she; "let me be your slave rather than the best man's wife in the world." I reasoned with her upon her circumstances, and how such a marriage would restore her to a state of ease and plenty, and none in the world might ever know or suspect who or what she had been. But she could not bear it; but, with tears, again raising her voice that I was afraid she would be heard, "I beseech you," says she, "do not speak of it any more. I was once yours, and I will never belong to any man else in the world. Let me be as I am, or anything else you please to make me, but not a wife to any man alive but yourself."

I was so moved with the passion she was in at speaking this that I knew not what I said or did for some time. At length I said to her, "It is a great pity you had not long ago been as sincere as you are now; it had been better for us both. However, as it is, you shall not be forced to anything against your mind, nor shall you be the worse treated for refusing; but how will you put him off? No doubt he expects you will receive his proposal as an advantage; and as he sees no farther into your circumstances, so it is." "Oh, sir!" says she, "I have done all that already. He has his answer, and is fully satisfied. He will never trouble you any more on that head;" and then she told me what answer she had given him.

From that minute I resolved that I would certainly take her again to be my wife as before. I thought she had fully made me amends for her former ill conduct, and she deserved to be forgiven (and so indeed she did, if ever woman did, considering also what dreadful penance she had undergone, and how long she had lived in misery and distress); and that Providence had, as it were, cast her upon me again, and, above all, had given her such an affection to me and so resolved a mind that she could refuse so handsome an offer of deliverance rather than be farther separated from me.

As I resolved this in my mind, so I thought it was cruel to conceal it any longer from her. Nor, in deed, could I contain myself any longer, but I took her in my arms: "Well," says I, "you have given me such a testimony of affection in this that I can no longer withstand. I forgive you all that ever was between us on this account, and, since you will be nobody's but mine, you shall be mine again as you were at first."

But this was too much for her the other way, and now she was so far overcome with my yielding to her that, had she not got vent to her passion by the most vehement crying, she must have died in my arms; and I was forced to let her go and set her down in a chair, where she cried for a quarter of an hour before she could speak a word.

When she was come to herself enough to talk again, I told her we must consider of a method how to bring this to pass, and that it must not be done by publishing there that she was my wife before, for that would expose us both, but that I would openly marry her again. This she agreed was very rational, and accordingly, about two months after, we were married again, and no man in the world ever enjoyed a better wife or lived more happy than we both did for several years after.

And now I began to think my fortunes were settled for this world, and I had nothing before me but to finish a life of infinite variety, such as mine had been, with a comfortable retreat, being both made wiser by our sufferings and difficulties, and able to judge for ourselves what kind of life would be best adapted to our present circumstances, and in what station we might look upon ourselves to be most completely happy.

But man is a short-sighted creature at best, and in nothing more than in that of fixing his own felicity, or, as we may say, choosing for himself. One would have thought, and so my wife often suggested to me, that the state of life that I was now in was as perfectly calculated to make a man completely happy as any private station in the world could be. We had an estate more than sufficient, and daily increasing, for the supporting any state or figure that in that place we could propose to ourselves or even desire to live in; we had everything that was pleasant and agreeable, without the least mortification in any circumstances of it; every sweet thing, and nothing to embitter it; every good, and no mixture of evil with it; nor any gap open where we could have the least apprehensions of any evil breaking out upon us. Nor indeed was it easy for either of us, in our phlegmatic, melancholy notions, to have the least imagination how anything disastrous could happen to us in the common course of things, unless something should befall us out of the ordinary way of Providence, or of its acting in the world.

But, an unseen mine blew up all this apparent tranquillity at once; and though it did not remove my affairs there from me, yet it effectually removed me from them and sent me a-wandering into the world again-a condition full of hazards, and always attended with circumstances dangerous to mankind, while he is left to choose his own fortunes and be guided by his own short-sighted measures.

I must now return to a circumstance of my history which had been past for some time, and which relates to my conduct while I was last in England.

I mentioned how my faithful wife Moggy, with her tears and her entreaties, had prevailed with me not to play the madman and openly join in the rebellion with the late Lord Derwentwater and his party when they entered Lancashire, and thereby, as I may say, saved my life. But my curiosity prevailed so much at last that I gave her the slip when they came to Preston, and at least thought I would go and look at them, and see what they were likely to come to.

My former wife's importunities, as above, had indeed prevailed upon me from publicly embarking in that enterprise and joining openly with them in arms; and by this, as I have observed, she saved my life to be sure, because I had then publicly espoused the rebellion, and had been known to have been among them, which might have been as fatal to me afterwards, though I had not been taken in the action, as if I had.

But when they advanced and came nearer to us to Preston, and there appeared a greater spirit among the people in their favour, my old doctor, whom I mentioned before, who was a Romish priest, and had married us, inspired me with new zeal, and gave me no rest till he obliged me, with only a good horse and arms, to join them the day before they entered Preston, he himself venturing in the same posture with me.

I was not so public here as to be very well known, at least by any one that had knowledge of me in the country where I lived; and this was indeed my safety afterwards, as you will soon hear. But yet I was known too among the men, especially among the Scots, with some of whom I had been acquainted in foreign service. With these I was particularly conversant, and, passing for a French officer, I talked to them of making a select detachment to defend the pass between Preston and the river and bridge, upon maintaining which, as I insisted, depended the safety of the whole party.

It was with some warmth that I spoke of that affair, and as I passed among them, I say, for a French officer and a man of experience, it caused several debates among them. But the hint was not followed, as is well known, and from that moment I gave them all up as lost, and meditated nothing but how to escape from them, which I effected the night before they were surrounded by the royal cavalry. I did not do this without great difficulty, swimming the river Ribble at a place where, though I got well over, yet I could not for a long while get to a place where my horse could land himself-that is to say, where the ground was firm enough for him to take the land. However, at length I got on shore, and riding very hard, came the next evening in sight of my own dwelling. Here, after lying by in a wood till the depth of night, I shot my horse in a little kind of a gravel pit, or marl pit, where I soon covered him with earth for the present, and marching all alone, I came about two in the morning to my house, where my wife, surprised with joy and yet terribly frighted, let me in; and then I took immediate measures to secure myself upon whatever incident might happen, but which, as things were ordered, I had no need to make use of, for the rebels being entirely defeated, and either all killed or taken prisoners, I was not known by anybody in the country to have been among them; no, nor so much as suspected. And thus I made a narrow escape from the most dangerous action, and most foolishly embarked in, of any that I had ever been engaged in before.

It was very lucky to me that I killed and buried my horse, for he would have been taken two days after, and would, to be sure, have been known by those who had seen me upon him at Preston. But now, as none knew I had been abroad, nor any such circumstance could discover me, I kept close, and as my excursion had been short and I had not been missed by any of my neighbours, if anybody came to speak with me, behold I was at home.

However, I was not thoroughly easy in my mind, and secretly wished I was in my own dominions in Virginia, to which, in a little time, other circumstances occurring, I made preparations to remove with my whole family.

In the meantime, as above, the action at Preston happened, and the miserable people surrendered to the king's troops. Some were executed for examples, as in such cases is usual, and the government extending mercy to the multitude, they were kept in Chester Castle, and other places a considerable time, till they were disposed of, some one way, some another, as we shall hear.

Several hundreds of them after this were, at their own request, transported, as it is vulgarly expressed, to the plantations-that is to say, sent to Virginia and other British colonies to be sold after the usual manner of condemned criminals, or, as we call them there, convicts, to serve a limited time in the country, and then be made freemen again. Some of these I have spoken of above; but now, to my no little uneasiness, I found, after I had been there some time, two ships arrived with more of these people in the same river where all my plantations lay.

I no sooner heard of it but the first step I took was to resolve to let none of them be bought into my work or to any of my plantations; and this I did, pretending that I would not make slaves every day of unfortunate gentlemen who fell into that condition for their zeal to their party only, and the like. But the true reason was, that I expected several of them would know me, and might perhaps betray me, and make it public that I was one of the same sort, but had made my escape; and so I might be brought into trouble, and, if I came off with my life, might have all my effects seized on, and be reduced to misery and poverty again at once, all which I thought I had done enough to deserve.

This was a just caution, but, as I found quickly, was not a sufficient one, as my circumstances stood, for my safety; for though I bought none of these poor men myself, yet several of my neighbours did, and there was scarce a plantation near me but had some of them, more or less, among them; so that, in a word, I could not peep abroad hardly but I was in danger to be seen, and known too, by some or other of them.

I may be allowed to say that this was a very uneasy life to me, and such that, in short, I found myself utterly unable to bear; for I was now reduced from a great man, a magistrate, a governor or master of three great plantations, and having three or four hundred servants at my command, to be a poor self-condemned rebel, and durst not show my face; and that I might with the same safety, or rather more, have skulked about in Lancashire where I was, or gone up to London and concealed myself there till things had been over. But now the danger was come home to me, even to my door, and I expected nothing but to be informed against every day, be taken up, and sent to England in irons, and have all my plantations seized on as a forfeited estate to the Crown.

I had but one hope of safety to trust to, and that was, that having been so little a while among them, done nothing for them, and passing for a stranger, they never knew my name, but only I was called the French colonel, or the French officer, or the French gentleman by most, if not by all, the people here. And as for the doctor that went with me, he had found means to escape too, though not the same way that I did, finding the cause not likely to be supported, and that the king's troops were gathering on all sides round them like a cloud.

But to return to myself; this was no satisfaction to me, and what to do I really knew not, for I was more at a loss how to shift in such a distressed case as this, now it lay so close to me, than ever I was in any difficulty in my life. The first thing I did was to come home and make a confidence of the whole affair to my wife; and though I did it generously without conditions, yet I did not do it without first telling her how I was now going to put my life into her hands, that she might have it in her power to pay me home for all that she might think had been hard in my former usage of her; and that, in short, it would be in her power to deliver me up into the hands of my enemies, but that I would trust her generosity, as well as her renewed affection, and put all upon her fidelity, and without any more precaution I opened the whole thing to her, and particularly the danger I was now in.

A faithful counsellor is life from the dead, gives courage where the heart is sinking, and raises the mind to a proper use of means; and such she was to me indeed upon every step of this affair, and it was by her direction that I took every step that followed for the extricating myself out of this labyrinth.

"Come, come, my dear," says she, "if this be all, there is no room for any such disconsolate doings as your fears run you upon;" for I was immediately for selling off my plantations and all my stock and embarking myself forthwith, and to get to Madeira or to any place out of the king's dominions.

But my wife was quite of another opinion, and encouraging me on another account, proposed two things, either my freighting a sloop with provisions to the West Indies, and so taking passage from thence to London, or letting her go away directly for England and endeavour to obtain the king's pardon, whatever it might cost.

I inclined to the last proposal; for though I was unhappily prejudiced in favour of a wrong interest, yet I had always a secret and right notion of the clemency and merciful disposition of his Majesty, and, had I been in England, should, I believe, have been easily persuaded to have thrown myself at his foot.

But going to England as I was circumstanced must have been a public action, and I must have made all the usual preparations for it, must have appeared in public, have stayed till the crop was ready, and gone away in form and state as usual, or have acted as if something extraordinary was the matter, and have filled the heads of the people there with innumerable suggestions of they knew not what.

But my wife made all this easy to me from her own invention; for, without acquainting me of any thing, she comes merrily to me one morning before I was up: "My dear," says she, "I am very sorry to hear that you are not very well this morning. I have ordered Pennico" (that was a young negro girl which I had given her) "to make you a fire in your chamber, and pray lie still where you are a while till it is done." At the same instant the little negro came in with wood and a pair of bellows, &c., to kindle the fire, and my wife, not giving me time to reply, whispers close to my ear to lie still and say nothing till she came up again to me.

I was thoroughly frighted, that you may be sure of, and thought of nothing but of being discovered, betrayed, and carried to England, hanged, quartered, and all that was terrible, and my very heart sunk within me. She perceived my disorder and turned back, assuring me there was no harm, desired me to be easy, and she would come back again presently and give me satisfaction in every particular that I could desire. So I composed myself a while as well as I could, but it was but a little while that I could bear it, and I sent Pennico downstairs to find out her mistress, and tell her I was very ill and must speak with her immediately; and the girl was scarce out of the room before I jumped out of bed and began to dress me, that I might be ready for all events.

My wife was as good as her word, and was coming up as the girl was coming down. "I see," says she, "you want patience, but pray do not want government of yourself, but take that screen before your face, and go to the window and see if you know any of those Scotchmen that are in the yard, for there are seven or eight of them come about some business to your clerk."

I went and looked through the screen, and saw the faces of them all distinctly, but could make nothing of them other than that they were Scotchmen, which was easy to discern. However, it was no satisfaction to me that I knew not their faces, for they might know mine for all that, according to the old English proverb, "That more knows Tom Fool than Tom Fool knows;" so I kept close in my chamber till I understood they were all gone.

After this my wife caused it to be given out in the house that I was not well; and when this not being well had lasted three or four days, I had my leg wrapped up in a great piece of flannel and laid upon a stool, and there I was lame of the gout; and this served for about six weeks, when my wife told me she had given it out that my gout was rather rheumatic than a settled gout, and that I was resolved to take one of my own sloops and go away to Nevis or Antigua, and use the hot baths there for my cure.

All this was very well, and I approved my wife's contrivance as admirably good, both to keep me within doors eight or ten weeks at first, and to convey me away afterwards without any extraordinary bustle to be made about it; but still I did not know what it all tended to, and what the design of it all was. But my wife desired me to leave that to her; so I readily did, and she carried it all on with a prudence not to be disputed; and after she had wrapped my legs in flannel almost three months, she came and told me the sloop was ready and all the goods put on board. "And now, my dear," says she, "I come to tell you all the rest of my design; for," added she, "I hope you will not think I am going to kidnap you, and transport you from Virginia, as other people are transported to it, or that I am going to get you sent away and leave myself in possession of your estate; but you shall find me the same faithful, humble creature which I should have been if I had been still your slave, and not had any hopes of being your wife, and that in all my scheme which I have laid for your safety, in this new exigence, I have not proposed your going one step but where I shall go and be always with you, to assist and serve you on all occasions, and to take my portion with you, of what kind soever our lot may be."

This was so generous, and so handsome a declaration of her fidelity, and so great a token, too, of the goodness of her judgment in considering of the things which were before her, and of what my present circumstances called for, that, from that time forward, I gave myself cheerfully up to her management without any hesitation in the least, and after about ten days' preparation we embarked in a large sloop of my own of about sixty tons.