intention of dealing in humor at all. Of one or other, or both

of these kinds, are, I conceive, all that vast pile of books
which pass under the names of voyages, travels, adventures,

lives, memoirs, histories, etc., some of which a single traveler
sends into the world in many volumes, and others are, by

judicious booksellers, collected into vast bodies in folio, and
inscribed with their own names, as if they were indeed their own

travels: thus unjustly attributing to themselves the merit of others.
Now, from both these faults we have endeavored to steer clear in

the following narrative; which, however the contrary may be
insinuated by ignorant, unlearned, and fresh-water critics, who

have never traveled either in books or ships, I do solemnly
declare doth, in my own impartial opinion, deviate less from

truth than any other voyage extant; my lord Anson's alone being,
perhaps, excepted. Some few embellishments must be allowed to

every historian; for we are not to conceive that the speeches in
Livy, Sallust, or Thucydides, were literallyspoken in the very

words in which we now read them. It is sufficient that every
fact hath its foundation in truth, as I do seriously aver is the

ease in the ensuing pages; and when it is so, a good critic will
be so far from denying all kind of ornament of style or diction,

or even of circumstance, to his author, that he would be rather
sorry if he omitted it; for he could hence derive no other

advantage than the loss of an additional pleasure in the perusal.
Again, if any merely common incident should appear in this

journal, which will seldom I apprehend be the case, the candid
reader will easily perceive it is not introduced for its own

sake, but for some observations and reflections naturally
resulting from it; and which, if but little to his amusement,

tend directly to the instruction of the reader or to the
information of the public; to whom if I choose to convey such

instruction or information with an air of joke and laughter, none
but the dullest of fellows will, I believe, censure it; but if

they should, I have the authority of more than one passage in
Horace to allege in my defense. Having thus endeavored to

obviate some censures, to which a man without the gift of
foresight, or any fear of the imputation of being a conjurer,

might conceive this work would be liable, I might now undertake a
more pleasing task, and fall at once to the direct and positive

praises of the work itself; of which indeed, I could say a
thousand good things; but the task is so very pleasant that I

shall leave it wholly to the reader, and it is all the task that
I impose on him. A moderation for which he may think himself

obliged to me when he compares it with the conduct of authors,
who often fill a whole sheet with their own praises, to which

they sometimes set their own real names, and sometimes a
fictitious one. One hint, however, I must give the kind reader;

which is, that if he should be able to find no sort of amusement
in the book, he will be pleased to remember the public utility

which will arise from it. If entertainment, as Mr. Richardson
observes, be but a secondaryconsideration in a romance; with

which Mr. Addison, I think, agrees, affirming the use of the
pastry cook to be the first; if this, I say, be true of a mere

work of invention, sure it may well be so considered in a work
founded, like this, on truth; and where the political reflections

form so distinguishing a part. But perhaps I may hear, from some
critic of the most saturnine complexion, that my vanity must have

made a horrid dupe of my judgment, if it hath flattered me with
an expectation of having anything here seen in a grave light, or

of conveying any useful instruction to the public, or to their
guardians. I answer, with the great man whom I just now quoted,

that my purpose is to conveyinstruction in the vehicle of
entertainment; and so to bring about at once, like the revolution

in the Rehearsal, a perfect reformation of the laws relating to
our maritime affairs: an undertaking, I will not say more

modest, but surely more feasible, than that of reforming a whole
people, by making use of a vehicular story, to wheel in among

them worse manners than their own.
INTRODUCTION

In the beginning of August, 1753, when I had taken the duke of
Portland's medicine, as it is called, near a year, the effects of

which had been the carrying off the symptoms of a lingering
imperfect gout, I was persuaded by Mr. Ranby, the king's premier

sergeant-surgeon, and the ablest advice, I believe, in all
branches of the physicalprofession, to go immediately to Bath.

I accordingly wrote that very night to Mrs. Bowden, who, by the
next post, informed me she had taken me a lodging for a month

certain. Within a few days after this, whilst I was preparing
for my journey, and when I was almost fatigued to death with

several long examinations, relating to five different murders,
all committed within the space of a week, by different gangs of

street-robbers, I received a message from his grace the duke of
Newcastle, by Mr. Carrington, the king's messenger, to attend his

grace the next morning, in Lincoln's-inn-fields, upon some
business of importance; but I excused myself from complying with

the message, as, besides being lame, I was very ill with the
great fatigues I had latelyundergone added to my distemper.

His grace, however, sent Mr. Carrington, the very next morning,
with another summons; with which, though in the utmost distress,

I immediately complied; but the duke, happening, unfortunately
for me, to be then particularly engaged, after I had waited some

time, sent a gentleman to discourse with me on the best plan
which could be invented for putting an immediate end to those

murders and robberies which were every day committed in the
streets; upon which I promised to transmit my opinion, in

writing, to his grace, who, as the gentleman informed me,
intended to lay it before the privy council.

Though this visit cost me a severe cold, I, notwithstanding, set
myself down to work; and in about four days sent the duke as

regular a plan as I could form, with all the reasons and
arguments I could bring to support it, drawn out in several

sheets of paper; and soon received a message from the duke by Mr.
Carrington, acquainting me that my plan was highly approved of,

and that all the terms of it would be complied with. The
principal and most material of those terms was the immediately

depositing six hundred pound in my hands; at which small charge I
undertook to demolish the then reigning gangs, and to put the

civil policy into such order, that no such gangs should ever be
able, for the future, to form themselves into bodies, or at least

to remain any time formidable to the public.
I had delayed my Bath journey for some time, contrary to the

repeated advice of my physicalacquaintance, and to the ardent
desire of my warmest friends, though my distemper was now turned

to a deep jaundice; in which case the Bath waters are generally
reputed to be almost infallible. But I had the most eager desire

of demolishing this gang of villains and cut-throats, which I was
sure of accomplishing the moment I was enabled to pay a fellow

who had undertaken, for a small sum, to betray them into the
hands of a set of thief-takers whom I had enlisted into the

service, all men of known and approved fidelity and intrepidity.
After some weeks the money was paid at the treasury, and within a

few days after two hundred pounds of it had come to my hands, the
whole gang of cut-throats was entirely dispersed, seven of them

were in actualcustody, and the rest driven, some out of the
town, and others out of the kingdom. Though my health was now

reduced to the last extremity, I continued to act with the utmost
vigor against these villains; in examining whom, and in taking

the depositions against them, I have often spent whole days, nay,
sometimes whole nights, especially when there was any difficulty

in procuring sufficient evidence to convict them; which is a very
common case in street-robberies, even when the guilt of the party

is sufficientlyapparent to satisfy the most tender conscience.
But courts of justice know nothing of a cause more than what is

told them on oath by a witness; and the most flagitious villain
upon earth is tried in the same manner as a man of the best

character who is accused of the same crime. Meanwhile, amidst
all my fatigues and distresses, I had the satisfaction to find my

endeavors had been attended with such success that this hellish
society were almost utterly extirpated, and that, instead of

reading of murders and street-robberies in the news almost every
morning, there was, in the remaining part of the month of