CHAP. XVII. Gives an account of what became of Tom, who meets with an unexpected acquaintance, and a new mistress; is restored to his liberty; goes a whoring, and is lost.

The Jew having been plentifully and designedly plied with liquor, (for he was permitted to drink the most part of ten pots to himself) never missed the hero of our history, till the next morning, and he went to bed that night as David’s sow, for he was not of David’s line. His name was Abram Judah, but his descent was from Ishmael, the hand-maid’s bastard son; and there are very few Jews who can truly and really boast any other descent, tho’ they, like all other people in this respect, when abroad, and far from their own home, affect and boast a pedigree to which they have no title.—There is not an English vagrant, on the common tramp (as they express it) but pretends to be well born, well bred, and worthy a better fate, than that to which he was then subject, even those under the dominion of Jack Ketch, though born of the most profligate and abandoned rogues, and prostitutes, and who have learned under the influence of their example, those vices, which brought them to that end, shall die with a lie in their mouths, and boast the honesty, if not the gentility of their parents: But of this flagrant piece of bravado, none are more guilty than the Welch, Irish and Scotch, who being reduced under the English yoke, and deprived of all other titles to worldly respect, hold fast a sprig of the tree of genealogy, and are all gentlemen born to estates, which they are kept out of by right owners, from Shenkin ap Shones, who has but three goats in the world, to the meanest Highlander.

Far be it from the writer of this history to make national reflections, but if these annals should happen to light into the hands of any of the three nations, let such remember, that it is absurd, and ridiculous to the last degree, to claim that respect which the world will give them on an imaginary title, either an estate on the mountain of Penmanmure, or a family descent, which, if it ever existed, is long since extinct, and dead to all intents and purposes.

But the Jews of all others run into the greatest extravagancies in this hypothetical system. Each and every of them, from the meanest pedlar up to S—— G—— will tell you the very identical spot in the land of Canaan, which was alloted to them by their legislator, long before the days of David: Nay, some of them shall boast of such and such of their female relations, who had the honour to be of the seraglio of king Solomon; nor can I neglect this favourable opportunity which offers itself of relating a secret memoir, of two or three of their richest people, which may serve as a specimen of their disinterested loyalty to the present prince, under whose auspicious government they enjoy all the reasonable privileges of natural subjects.

There was a traitor condemned to be executed at Tyburn, for having in this city watched our armaments by sea and land, and sent timely notice to the French king of all our intended expeditions. When he found that there was no hopes left, he privately sent to a proper person, to acquaint him, that he had something of moment to impart, which regarded the welfare of the nation. He was admitted, heard, and examined, and actually gave information of the particular people concerned in the French loan, at the head of which were the chief people of the Jews, and principally three of their richest and most opulent traders. The traytor by this discovery saved his life, at the time that the people at Tyburn had paid for their places to see the execution of so notorious a malefactor. The person to whom the information was delivered, turned the discovery to the prudent ends of government. He sent for the three principal money-lenders, who being confronted by the informer, were obliged to confess their treachery, and thus the loan intended for the French king, immediately changed its channel, and by the dexterity of the minister, became subservient to the expences of a tedious war.

Yet these loyal subjects are the very people, to whom we were on the point of linking ourselves, by a voluntary act of naturalization, as if we had entertained a presumptuous design of frustrating all prophecies, and making null the predictions of their dispersion, and of these people being a scattered people over the face of the whole earth. It was in vain for the son of Ishmael to lament the loss of his favourite Cat. Tom was irretrievably lost. His search was fruitless, and the more he stirred in the search, the more he became the object of ridicule.

Our hero was no sooner brought to his new lodings, than he found himself in the arms of his old fellow-servant Dolly Tinder, by whose subtilty the whole scheme was laid and executed by her agents, Split-Hair, and Quasimodo; the favorable representations she had made to the mistress with whom she now lived, of the beauty and excellence of our hero, captivated the lady with the strongest desire to have him in her own possession. She had indicated this desire to Split-Hair, and Quasimodo, two schoolmasters who attended her son, the one in Latin, the other in writing and accounts. She gave them a guinea to carry on this design with more facility, and to bribe proper instruments to bring off our hero; which was accordingly performed in the manner related.

Had Dolly Tinder given her mistress the most valuable present, she could not more have ingraciated herself than by this new acquisition; she fed him, caressed him, and did every thing endearing to cultivate a good acquaintance with her favourite. He even rivalled her darling parot in her affection; and ’tis said Poll took umbrage at this unnatural desertion, and did not speak a word to his mistress for two days. He refused even to be fed by her, and fell into the deepest melancholy. However, in some few days more, Tom behaved with that deference and respect to the parrot, whose plumage he greatly admired, and whose interests he was somewhat afraid of, that they entered into a very great friendship, and correspondence soon after, and he permitted Poll to take some of his best morsels, nay, brought it to his very cage, so that in a short time after, Poll would walk all over him as he lay stretched by the fire side, and suffered himself to be carried on his back as Tom walked along the parlour. But it happened one evening in the dusk, that he espied a beautiful young female, who seemed by her careless air to be disposed for a night’s ramble. Our hero, therefore, with his usual complaisance, went up to her, and made his inclinations known, that he should be glad to share that night’s adventure in company with so fair a creature, and she giving a half unwilling consent, he followed her to a dark ally; and was never more seen or heard of by his disconsolate mistress.