Another adventure he related was this. Being taken prisoner by the French, and carried to one of their frontier garrisons, a treaty shortly being expected to be settled, to relieve the miseries he endured, Barton got into the service of a Gascon officer who proved at bottom almost as poor as himself. However, after Barton's coming he quickly found a way to live as well as anybody in the garrison, which he accomplished thus. All play at games of chance was, in the score of some unlucky accidents proceeding from quarrels which it had occasioned, absolutely forbidden, and the provosts were enjoined to visit all quarters, in order to bring the offenders to shameful punishments. The Gascon captain took advantage of the severity of this order, and having concerted the matter with a countryman and comrade of his, a known gamester, plundered all the rest who were addicted to that destructive passion; for gaining intelligence of the private places where they met, from his friend, he putting himself, Barton and another person into proper habits, attacked these houses suddenly almost every night with a crowd of the populace at his heels, and raised swinging contributions on those who being less wicked than himself never had any suspicion of his actions, but took him and his comrades for the proper officer and his attendants. Barton's greatest unhappiness was his marriage. He was too uxorious, and too solicitous for what concerned his wife, how well so ever she deserved of him; for not enduring to see her work honestly for her bread he would needs support her in an easy state of life, though at the hazard of the gallows. There is, however, little question to be made but that he had learned much in his travels to enable him to carry on his wicked designs with more ease and dexterity, for no thief, perhaps, in any age, managed his undertakings with greater prudence and economy. And having somewhere picked up the story of the Pirate and Alexander the Great, it became one of Will's standing maxims that the only difference between a robber and a conqueror was the value of the prize. Being one day on the road with a comrade of his, who had served also with him abroad in the Army, and observing a stage coach at a distance, in right of the seniority of his commission as a Knight of the Pad, Barton commanded the other to ride forward in order to reconnoitre. The young fellow obeyed him as submissively as if he had been an aide de camp, and returning, brought him word that the force of the enemy consisted of four beau laden with blunderbusses, two ladies and a footman. _Then_, quoth Will, _we may e'en venture to attack them. Let us make our necessary disposition. I will ride slowly up to them, while you gallop round that hill, and as soon as you come behind the coach, be sure to fire a pistol over it, and leave the rest to me._