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They are ship’d from Palermo to Naples, by the way Mistress Dorothy continues the story of her Hostess who was hanged with her Husband for a Murder, the like was never heard of, her notorious confessionconfession at the Gallows of all her former Villanies: Latroons reflections on it. Mistress Dorothy and her Companion the Souldier, return for London.

Our Mulletteer was very well rewarded by our Entertainer, for the prevention of so much mischief, which had undoubtedly befel the Gentleman, had not this fellow gone down at that unseasonable time to stuff his insatiate guts. And now taking our leaves (the Gentleman and his friends being very unwilling and sorrowful to part with our Companies) away we came shaping our course for Palermo, where being arriv’d and finding out those Friends we had left too long, infinite was our satisfaction of meeting thus together again, but I I thought my Jinny would have been transported with joy when she saw me, but recovering her self, she check’d me severely for staying so long from her beyond my promise. Our caresses were accompanied with what choice Viands and Wine the City could produce.

Having now pleased our sight with the curiosities of this place, we concluded upon a remove; and the next place pitcht on was Naples, and to the intent we might convey our moneys with greater safety thither, we took up Bills at Palermo for 5000 pounds, drawn upon a Merchant of Naples, payablepayable ten days after sight. Having shipp’d our selves, with all conveniences, that our Voyage might not seem tedious, I desired Mistress Dorothy to divert the Company with the continuation of her Story. Ah Master Latroon! (said she) your Request renews my grief, by putting me in mind of the loss of my dear Companion Mall, however I shall endeavour to satisfie your desire, and having given a summary account to the Captain and the rest, which had not heard anything of her former relation, of what was before discovered, she commenc’d her following discourse where she before left off, viz. her coming acquainted with the Soldier, and then she thus proceeded.

Being rid of my great Belly, and having now gotten me a good round sum of money, I took my pleasure with as much freedom as my unlimited desires could prompt me to, I was frequently at the old womans the Hostess, (alias my Procuress) where I found conveniences for all my secret, crafty, and pleasant Designs, and indeed to give her her due, she was no Back-friend to me, this was the place which I made my general Rendezvouz; here I did use to meet with my Friends, and here did I converse with my Soldier of Fortune (as I have already told you) before I make any further progress, give me leave to rehearse a Copy of Verses (which I got by heart) of his own composition, which he made upon the cunning trick he found in conjuring for food for his hungry Landlord and his own half famisht worship, which were these:

Hunger’s a Whetstone that so sharpens Wit,

It cuts away for some to feed by it.

For stomacks cramm’d with Lethargies do blind

The active wit, and hebetates the mind.

The Grammer-school when it hath spawn’d the Fry

Either to Oxford or to Cambridge hye:

Where lest they should by too much food grow dull,

They scarce in seven years have their belly full.

That Barresters at Bar may louder bawl,

See the short Commons that art in the Hall.

’Tis plenty rusts our Valour, when we need,

Rather than starve, we there can bravely bleed:

For food we fight, for which we Centry stand,

Want makes our wit as active as our hand.

Thus did my wit shew to my wants a way

To fill its belly, and increase my pay,

Hence I may say that I do live by wit,

For I’ve got money, and a Wench with it.

Grammercy Wit, help and assist me still,

He ne’re can want that hath but Wit at will.

This Souldier was a Gentleman of a good house, though fallen to decay, whose education might have renderd him capable of considerable employments, had not his Heroick inclination to the Wars taken his thoughts clearly off from every thing else. I appointed a day for this man of war, to attend me some few miles into the Countrey, having got leave of his Captain we went together, in the mean time my Hostess was spinning of Hemp, and by return had finisht a Rope for her self and Husband: and thus it was.

A single Gentleman came as a Traveller to lodge in her Inn, having set up his Horse, and his Portmantua carried to his Chamber, he knocks for his Landlady, who coming up to him he acquaints her that he thought he should make a stay for two or three days, and therefore delivers into her hands a bag of one hundred pounds, desiring her to lay it up safe for him, she took the Bag and promised to keep it safe, and so she did from him: The Devil was one of her Privy Councel who advised her to perswade her Husband to murder the Gentleman for his money, which thus they cunningly effected as they thought, but he that did set them at work will pay them their wages.

At midnight she and her Husband entred the Gentlemans Chamber through a private door which was hid behind the hangings, a Sally-port for a thousand Rogueries they committed; mine Host with a Pillow he had brought with him, and the assistance of his wife, smothered the Gentleman as he lay in his bed, having so done, and putting on his Cloathes, they laid him down into the Stable, and there with a Rope ty’d to a beam, they hung him up, and so went to Bed; In the morning the Hostler going into the Stable found a Gentleman there hanging, upon sight whereof he ran into the house with an Outcry, which quickly reacht the ears of the Neighbourhood, so that in an instant the house was filled with people, every one giving his Verdict as his imagination prompted him; the general Vogue was that for some discontent he had thus desperately made away with himself. This old Beldam had the impudence to come into the Throng of the people, and there declare her Hypocritical sorrow for the death of her Guest, protesting that she would have given an hundred pounds with all her heart, that no such thing had hapned in her house. I took notice, said the Host, of his extraordinary melancholy last night, and reproving him for his unsociableness, he clapt his hand upon his breast, and with erected eyes to heaven, he groaned so loud and long that I thought it would have been his last. This prodigious lye would have wrought wonderfully upon the belief of the People, being a strong Circumstance of his despair or great discontent, had not this unlucky boy which I told you of before, cryed out, true good people, I heard him groan too, but it was when my Master and Mistress were hanging him up in the Stable, what they had been doing with him before I know not, but I saw them as I lay under the manger bring in his body, which seem’d to me as dead, and had they seen me, I believe I had not been now living; my Mistress had the chiefest hand in this work as I judge, for she got up into the Rack, and stradling the beam tyed the Rope, then did my Master raise the body in his Arms for her to put the noose about his neck; this is a truth said he, for which I will rather dy then deny.

His Master hearing this, and being conscious to himself that this was no ly which the boy said, betook himself to his heels, whilst his wife with a brazen countenance was justifying her innocence. The people seeing the flight of one, and the matchless impudence of the other, concluded them guilty; and laying hands on her first, and hold of him after, they secured them with the boy till the Constable was fetched, who came immediately and carried them before a Justice, where being examined they stood out stiffly in their own vindication, maugre the boys peremptory and undaunted accusation; In fine their guilty consciences would not let them longer persist in their justification, but confest the Fact that it was an hundred pounds which was committed to their charge by the Gentleman, that first tempted them to smother him, the Devil helping them to way they thought undiscoverable. They were committed to a Goal, where they lay till Assizes; at which time they were both sentenced to dye.

Glad was I that it should come into my head to ramble into the Countrey at that nick of time, for my extraordinary familiarity with them might have raised a suspition to the endangering of my person, besides the boy which accused them had a spight against me for causing him to be soundly bang’d sometimes for some Roguish trick he served me; one he play’d a little before this Murder was committed, and being basted for it, I heard him say mutteringly, he would find a time to be even, judge you whether he be not, however thus he was an unhappy Roguish boy, yet Heaven judged him a fit Instrument to discover a deed so bloody and horribly wicked.

Coming to the place of Execution, I could not see in my Hosts face any considerable marks of remorse or penitency, only the fear of Death had screwed his face into a hundred ugly affrighting formes: She for her part ascended the Ladder after she had seen the death of her Husband, with magnanimity and Courage; having been in Prison according to report, the greatest Penitent that ever was known to go thence and suffer as a Malefactor, I say she standing undauntedly on the Ladder, spake to the People after this manner, which I here recount as carrying some very remarkable things in it.

The Speech of a Notoriously-wicked Woman

at her Execution.

Christian People, the greatness of my sins have cry’d loud to Heaven for Vengeance a long time, but Mercy hath interceded for the prolongation of my life, to give me a long and fair opportunity for Repentance, but this long forbearance hath but hardned my heart, and made it obdurate; so that my black and horrid Sins grew so numerous that they awakened divine Justice (which hitherto seemed to sleep) to find me out, and bring me to this shameful and condign punishment. As I am here before you a sad spectacle of misery, so I hope you will beg of God mercy for my poor sinful soul, which from my Cradle to this time hath been polluted not with Crimes of a common Die, but such as were conceived in the Womb of Hell, and Midwiv’d by me into this wicked world. What Tragical unpattern’d Mischiefs they have acted on the Theatre of my native Countrey, my tongue (that cursed Accessary in the ruine of some Families) shall not conceal from you, since I cannot hide them from the knowledge of God Allmighty.

When I was so young I wanted power to perpetrate Villany, I had strong inclinations to the acting thereof; I was no sooner wean’d, but I had like to have killed that Mother who gave me life, by pricking her in the naked breast with a Bodkin I took out of her Head-cloaths, she being then half asleep, holding me in her Lap, when I arrived to the age of fifteen, the boiling of my blood would not let me rest till I had somewhat qualified its heat in the unlawful reception of a young man, after which sinful act I found my self with Child, to prevent the shame whereof I murdered it, thinking to hide one smaller sin by the greatness of another; the death I am about to suffer should have been the reward of that execrable murder; and I now wish it had been so, for then I had not strangled in the very birth (to abscond my whoredom from my Husband) a Child, the product of my insatiate lust with a Blackmoor, who afterwards lost his own life in the destructions of my Husbands; neither had I been the cause of the death of two more, had I not been the basely obscene Prostitute to them both.

But one more remarkable murder then any yet I have related, I must not conceal, the burden whereof lies like a mountain on my already over-loaded Conscience. Passing one time for a maid, though then a common debauched whore, this Inn-keeper, (my fellow-sufferer, and justly so, since he was my Co-partner and Complotter in a thousand Roguish Contrivances) courted me to be his Wife: being informed of his wealth I easily condescended, not regarding his goodness so much as his Goods, and lest he might find what I was on our Nuptial Night; I caused a pure, but poor Virgin whom I hired to lye in my place for that time, but over-sleeping her prefixt time I had appointed for my exchanging places with her, I was forc’d to fire the house, in which confusion she running down to a Well in the yard to get water, I pursued her, and partly to be revenged, and partly to be secured from her future discovery, I tumbled her into the Well, and there she perished: As to the last murther of this Gentlemen, I must needs confess my Husband, though superlatively wicked, had no inclination thereunto, had I not perswaded him; nay, upbraided him with pusillanimity and cowardize if he would not be my Coadjutor and Assistant therein. Now do I wish from the bottom of my disconsolate Soul, I had as many lives as deaths I have occasioned, to offer up as a Sacrifice which might expiate so many crying sins of murder, as I have committed in my life time, this one is too small a satisfaction for the loss of so many. And had I not forfeited it to the Law, yet I ought not to live, considering the debauched course of life I ever liv’d, being no more than a rank stinking weed, which hindred, nay choak’d the growth of wholesom herbs and flowers, which otherwise might have proved delightful in their fragrancy.

And now to conclude, if you intend to escape this shameful punishment, and not to be made an example to others, as I am now to you, shun all these Vices and Debaucheries which have dragged me to this accursed end, and do not promise to your selves a better conclusion, if from the beginning thereof you continue the prosecution of vicious and debauched Courses; I was as confident as any he or she here, that hanging was too ignominious a death for such a piece of Gallantry as I was, but assure your self Heaven has no respect of persons; the Sword of Justice spares no more the shining Gallant and huffing Bravo, than the meanest smutty Tinker; And so desiring the Prayers of the Spectators for her, having rendred her private Applications for her eternal concern, she gave the sign to the Hangman, and she was so turned off.

This speech of the dying person Mistress Dorothy rehearsed to me, with so much passion, giving each word so becoming an accent, that I must confess to you it wrought wonderfully on me, nay it so startled me, that I now began to consider what would become of me since laying aside murder, (having never imbrewed my hands in blood) I was more notorious in all manner of Vice than the narrowness of a female Soul could be capable of imagining much less of acting, why should I then humor myself into a fancy of escaping, since I have seen so many dismal Examples of this nature, some whereof I have told you, and more I shall of my intimates in the prosecution of my Story, who notwithstanding they have craftily endeavoured to conceal their nefarious actions and projections, yet have been found out by the omnipotent, nay then when they thought him to sleep over their hainous transgressions, which puts me in mind of an excellent passage of Juvenal, though he be a Heathen, in his Satyr 13.

———————Fatebere tandem

Nec surdum, nec tiresiam, quenquam esse Deorum.

Let us confess, since we at last shall finde,

None of the Gods are either deaf, or blind.

Craving pardon of Mistress Dorothy, I desired her to proceed, which she did in this manner: Having staid the Execution of my old friend (which was no small trouble to me,) but durst not be present lest she should discover my Rogueries too, since she was so ingenious to acknowledge her own to the world; I say, I staid no longer than to get what things I had ready, and desiring the Soldier to attend me to London, he had so much favor from his Office, as to get a furlow for eight weeks, and so away we march’d: Immediately after our arrival, I took Lodgings in Covent-Garden, and having cloath’d him like a Gentleman as he was, we agreed to call each other Cousin, lodging under one and the same Roof. His company was very agreeable and complaisant, which made me take a great delight in his society. He had a good command of his Mother-tongue, expressing every thing eloquently and facetely, which his invention furnished his mouth withal; when at any time we were alone, he would be continually telling me one Story or other, but chiefly a great many beyond Sea Cheats, some whereof he was an eye-witness, but because they all concerned his own Sex, I desired that he would give himself the trouble to recount something of ours; undoubtedly, said I, you were acquainted with the females abroad as well as at home, and I cannot be so ignorant to believe you have not conversed with them. Yes, replyed he, or else I had been to blame, and should have lost one of the principal ends I went for, If I had not been acquainted as well with the Madam, as the Monsieur; but, continued he, I do not think it proper to recount any of the frailties of women to one of that Sex, that discourse is more proper with men when we triumph and boast of our witty encounters, and waggish over-reachings of that Sex. But, replyed I to him, as you have done all this, and spent some time in the recitals, so I pray let me further engage you to acquaint me with somewhat of that nature. That you may see, replyed he, how much I am your Servant, I will obey you, and tell you two Stories of two women, who were excellent, and their Stories considerable different.