In 1771, after passage in a convict ship, Sarah Wilson was sold to a Mr. William Duvall, of Bush Creek, Frederick County, Maryland, for seven years’ servitude. After a short time, in which she apparently developed her plans of fraud, she escaped from her master, and went to Virginia and the Carolinas, where she assumed the title of Princess Susannah Caroline Matilda, and asserted she was the sister of the Queen of England. She still owned the miniature of the Queen, and some rich jewels, which gave apparent proof of her assertion, and it is said some rich clothing. It is indeed mysterious that a transported convict could retain in her possession, through all her reverses, the very jewels for whose theft she was punished; yet the story can scarcely be doubted. She travelled through the South from plantation to plantation, with plentiful promises of future English offices and court favors to all who assisted her progress; and liberal sums of money were placed at her disposal, to be repaid by Queen Charlotte; and she seems to have been universally welcomed and feasted. But the fame of the royal visitor spread afar and found its way to Bush Creek, to the ears of Mr. Duvall, and he promptly suspected that he had found trace of his ingenious runaway servant. As was the custom of the day, he advertised for her and a reward for her capture. The notice reads thus:-- Bush Creek, Frederick County, Maryland, October 11, 1771. Ran away from the subscriber a convict servant named SARAH WILSON, but has changed her name to Lady Susannah Caroline Matilda, which made the public believe that she was her Majesty’s sister. She has a blemish in her right eye, black roll’d hair, stoops in the shoulders, and makes a common practice of writing and marking her clothes with a crown and a B. Whoever secures the said servant woman or will take her home, shall receive five pistoles, besides all cost of charges. William Duvall. I entitle Michael Dalton to search the city of Philadelphia, and from there to Charleston, for the said woman. Beauty readily inspires confidence, and dignity commands it. But a woman with such scant personal charms, with a blemish in her eye and stooping shoulders, must have been most persuasive in conversation to have surmounted such obstacles. It is said that she was most gracious, yet commanding. To elude Michael Dalton’s authorized search from Philadelphia to Charleston, Sarah Wilson fled from her scenes of success, but also of too familiar and extensive acquaintance, to New York. But New York proved still too near to Maryland, so she took passage for Newport. Here her fame preceded her, for in the _Newport Mercury_ of November 29, 1773, is this notice:-- Last Tuesday arrived here from New York the lady who has passed through several of the southern colonies under the name and character of CAROLINE MATILDA, Marchioness de Waldgrave, etc., etc.