I think it was on the 31st of December in that same year of grace, seventeen hundred and fifty, in which I had come to the Liberties, and twenty-nine full years with some eleven months since the poor ladies had been incarcerated. I well remember the day, though not certain of the date. It was evening: we had finished work: supper was on the table when we should care to take it--bread and an excellent Dutch cheese; the candle was extinguished, and we were sitting before the fire. Mrs. Esther was talking, as women love sometimes to talk, about the little things they remember: she was telling me--not for the first time--of the great frost of 1714, when she was a young girl, and of the fair which they held upon the ice; of the dreadful scare there was in 1718 from the number of highwaymen and footpads, for whose apprehension the Government offered as much as £100 a head; of Orator Henley, who began to preach in Clare Market shortly after the ladies came to the Fleet; of the dreadful storm in 1739, which killed the famous colony of sparrows in the Mile End Road; of the long frost of 1739, when from Christmas unto February the poor watermen and fishermen could not earn a single penny; of the fever of 1741; of the banishment of papists before the Pretender's landing, in 1744; of the great Rebellion of 1745, when the city so nobly did its duty. "My dear," she said, "we, that is the citizens, because the prisoners of the Fleet and the persons who enjoy the Liberties could hardly be expected to contribute money or aught but prayers--and most of the poor creatures but little used to praying!--raised twelve thousand shirts with as many garments to correspond, ten thousand woollen caps (to serve, I suppose, as nightcaps for our brave fellows when they slept in the open air), ten thousand pairs of stockings, twelve thousand gloves, a thousand blankets--which only makes one blanket for twelve men, but I hope they took turns about--and nine thousand spatterdashes. There was a camp on Finchley Common, of which we heard but did not visit; the militia were kept in readiness--a double watch was set at every one of the city gates; there were some in the Liberties, who thought that a successful invasion of England might lead to the burning of account-books, registers, ledgers, and warrants, in which case we might all get out and keep out. For my own part, my dear, and for my sister Deborah's part, I am happy to say that we preferred the Protestant succession even to our own freedom, and wished for no such lawless ending to a captivity however unjust, but prayed night and day for the confusion of the young Pretender. Happily our prayers were answered, and great George preserved."