And the catchpole, rather
than risk his carcase, consented to discharge the debt, comforting
himself with the hope of making me prisoner again. There, however,
he was disappointed. I kept snug, and laughed at his escape-warrant,
until I was ordered abroad with the regiment, when I conveyed myself
in a hearse to Gravesend, where I embarked for Flanders; but, being
obliged to come over again on the recruiting service, I was nabbed
on another score. And all the satisfaction my first captor has been
able to obtain, is a writ of detainer, which, I believe, will fix
me in this place, until the parliament, in its great goodness,
shall think proper to discharge my debts by a new act of insolvency."
Everybody owned, that the captain's success was equal to the
hardiness of his enterprise, which was altogether in the style of
a soldier; but one of the merchants observed, that he must have been
a bailiff of small experience, who would trust a prisoner of that
consequence in such an unguarded place. "If the captain," said he,
"had fallen into the hands of such a cunning rascal as the fellow
that arrested me, he would not have found it such an easy matter
to escape; for the manner in which I was caught is perhaps the most
extraordinary that ever was practised in these realms.
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