THE HISTORY And REMARKABLE LIFE Of the truly Honourable COLONEL JACQU E, COMMONLY CALL'D COLONEL JACK, WHO WAS Born a Gentleman, put 'Prentice to a PICK-POCKET, was Six-and-Twenty Years a THIEF, and then Kidnapp'd to VIRGINIA. Came back a Merchant; was Five times married to Four Whores; went into the Wars, behav'd bravely, got Preferment, was made Colonel of a Regiment, came over, and fled with the Chevalier, is still abroad compleating a Life of Wonders, and resolves to dye a GENERAL. LONDON: Printed and Sold by J. BROTHERTON, at the Royal CHETWOOD, in Covent- THE PREFACE. PREFACES are so customary before books of this nature, to introduce them into the world by a display of their excellencies, that it might be thought too presuming to send this. performance abroad, without some such preliminary. And yet I may venture to say, it needs this good office as little as any that has ever gone before it. The pleasant and delightful part speaks for itself; the useful and instructive is so large, and has such a tendency to improve the mind, and rectify the manners, that it would employ a volume, large as itself, to particularize the instructions that may be drawn from it. Here is room for just and copious observations, on the blessings and advantages of a sober and well-governed education, and the ruin of so many thousands of all ranks in this nation for want of it; here, also, we may see how much public schools and charities might be improved to prevent the destruction of so many unhappy children, as, in this town, are every year bred up for the executioner. The miserable condition of multitudes of youth, many of whose natural tempers are docible, and would lead them to learn the best things rather than the worst, is truly deplorable, and is abundantly seen in the history of this man's childhood; where, though circumstances formed him by necessity to be a thief, surprising rectitude of principles remained with him, and made him early abhor the worst part of his trade, and at length to forsake the whole of it. Had he come into the world with the advantage of a virtuous education, and been instructed how to improve the generous principles he had in him, what a figure might he not have made, either as a man, or a Christian. The various turns of his fortune in different scenes of life, make a delightful field for the reader to wander in; a garden where he may gather wholesome and medicinal fruits, none noxious or poisonous; where he will see virtue, and the ways of wisdom, everywhere applauded, honoured, encouraged, and rewarded; vice and extravagance attended with sorrow, and every kind of infelicity; and at last, sin and shame going together, the offender meeting with reproach and contempt, and the crimes with detestation and punish ment. Every vicious reader will here be encouraged to a change, and it will appear that the best and only good end of a impious misspent life is repentance; that in this, there is comfort, peace, and oftentimes hope, and that the penitent shall be received like the prodigal, and his latter end be better than his beginning. A book founded on so useful a plan, calculated to answer such valuable purposes as have been specified, can require no apology: Nor is it of any concern to the reader, whether it be an exact historical relation of real facts, or whether the hero of it intended to present us, at least in part, with a moral romance. On either supposition, it is equally serviceable for the discouragement of vice and the recommendation of virtue. DANIEL DE FOR THE LIFE OF COLONEL JACK. SOON CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION-I AM DESERTED BY MY PARENTS ALMOST AS AS BORN-NICKNAMED BY MY NURSE, COLONEL JACK-CHARACTERS OF THE THREE JACKS-COLONEL JACK, CAPTAIN JACK, AND MAJOR JACK-NURSE DIES, AND WE ARE TURNED LOOSE UPON THE WORLD-CAPTAIN JACK FLOGGED FOR ROGUERY-WE PICK POCKETS. SEEING my life has been such a chequer-work of nature, and that I am able now to look back upon it from a safer distance, than is ordinarily the fate of the clan to which I once belonged; I think my history may find a place in the world, as well as some, which I see are every day read with pleasure, though they have in them nothing so diverting, or instructing, as I believe mine will appear to be. My original may be as high as anybody's for aught I know, for my mother kept very good company, but that part belongs to her story, more than to mine; all I know of it is by oral tradition. My nurse told me my mother was a gentlewoman, that my father was a man of quality, and she (my nurse) had a good piece of money given her to take me off his hands, and deliver him and my mother from the im、 portunities that usually attend the misfortune of having a child to keep, that should not be seen or heard of. |