“The Stature of our Hero is tall and majestic, his Limbs strong and well proportioned, his Features regular, his Countenance open and ingenuous, bearing all those characteristical Marks which Physiognomists assert denote an honest and good-natured Mind; and tho’ Hardships, and even Age itself (he being now sixty) have made some Alterations in his Features, yet we venture to compare his Countenance with Mr. Thomas Jones’s, tho’ the Author of that Gentleman’s Life asserts he is the finest Figure he ever beheld.” He was an adept at all sorts of disguises. Sometimes he postured as a shipwrecked seaman and begged for relief, sometimes he was a householder whose dwelling had been destroyed by fire, sometimes, dressed in little more than a blanket, he acted the madman. Then he was a Kent farmer, whose lands had been overflowed by the tide. The only trade he acquired was that of rat-catching. In this, “our Hero, by his close Application, soon attained so considerable a Knowledge in his Profession, that he practised it with Success and Applause, to the great Advantage of the Public in general, not confining the good Effects of his Knowledge to his own Community only, but extending them universally to all Sorts of People wheresoever they were wanted; for though the Mendicants are in a constant State of Hostility with all other People, and Mr. Carew was as alert as any one in laying all Manner of Schemes and Stratagems to carry off a Booty from them, yet he thought, as a Member of the grand Society of Human Kind, he was obliged to do them all the Good in his Power, when it was not opposite to the Interest of that particular Community of which he was a Member.” Carew kept a watchful eye on the papers, and so soon as he heard of a disaster anywhere, he at once assumed the disguise of one who had suffered in this disaster, and appealed for relief. To assist him in his deception, he produced letters authenticating his story, forged by himself in the name of magistrate and nobleman, clergy and country gentlemen of good repute. It next occurred to him that it would serve his purpose if he made a voyage to Newfoundland, so as to be able the better to personate an unfortunate sailor who had been wrecked on his way home. He went there accordingly and picked up all the local knowledge he could, the names of the merchants and dealers and agents there, and returned. At once he figured in the character of a seaman lost in a vessel homeward bound, sometimes belonging to Poole, sometimes to Dartmouth, at other times to other ports, and under such and such commander, according as the newspapers gave accounts of such accidents.