I must preface what I have to say by a few remarks about the author of the book. The Rev. Richard Cobbold was the son of John Cobbold, a wealthy brewer of the Cliff House, Ipswich, by his second wife, who plays so important a part in the story I am about to put before you. Mrs. Cobbold was a very remarkable woman, a friend of Sir Joshua Reynolds, an author of some repute; and, what was most unusual at the time, an eloquent public speaker. She married Mr. Cobbold when he was a widower with fourteen children and had by him a large family herself--six sons and a daughter. Richard was the youngest son, being born in 1797 and dying in his eightieth year in 1877. He was Rector of Wortham, a parish in the north of Suffolk, an author of repute in his day, highly respected as a devoted clergyman, a strong churchman, and a keen and active sportsman. In 1845 he brought out “Margaret Catchpole.” In his preface he says: “The public may depend upon the truth of the main features of this narrative; indeed, most of the facts recorded were matters of public notoriety at the time of their occurrence. The author who details them is a son with whom this extraordinary female lived and from whose hands he received the letters and facts here given.” The story of Margaret Catchpole told in the novel is briefly as follows: She was born at Nacton, a village not far from Ipswich, on what was then a somewhat desolate heath on the north bank of the Orwell. Her father was head ploughman to a farmer named Denton, a well-known breeder of Suffolk cart horses. From childhood she was known as a good rider, and she obtained her first place as a servant by catching a very spirited pony of Mr. Denton’s, whose wife was taken suddenly ill, and riding at a gallop to the town and through the streets crowded on a market day to fetch the doctor. As she had not had time to saddle or bridle her steed, she rode him bareback with a halter to guide him--a really remarkable feat for a child of fourteen. As she grew up, she found a suitor in a clever sailor named William Laud, originally a boat builder, who had been a pupil in navigation, says the author, under a Mr. Crabbe, a brother of the poet’s.[12] Laud’s education and abilities seem to have been above his station in life, and had he been able to keep straight he would have risen to the command of a merchant ship, and possibly even to officer’s rank in the Royal Navy. As it was, he attached himself to a man named Bargood, an unscrupulous employer of smugglers, and became one of the leaders of that highly organized body which in the war with France was bent on defrauding the revenue. Laud’s influence was singularly bad for the Catchpole family. Two brothers came to a bad end, another enlisted and disappeared for years, and the whole household fell under suspicion of being in league with the smugglers.