Note 31 — Chapter III · MARRIAGE.

We will suppose our toast to escape the perils to which her position exposed her, and not forcibly carried off by some bold knight, as had been known in this reign[31]—'Same evening Sir Alexander Cumming, Knight of the Shire for Aberdeen, carried off from the Ring in Hyde Park madam Dennis and married her; she is said to be worth about £16,000.' Probably his position stood him in good stead, for it fared differently with one Haagen Swendsen,[32] who was, in 1702, convicted and executed for stealing Mrs. Rawlins, an heiress. Nowadays, he would have been unhesitatingly acquitted, even if he had ever been prosecuted, as there was no real case against him, and Mrs. Rawlins married him of her own free will.