The difficulty of deciding arises from the improbability that a great lady should so suddenly have abandoned the guidance of her counsellors, who (as they were paid for it) were bound to give her proper advice, and put herself under the care of a "feu Lord Maire;" but that difficulty is met by the consideration that Matthew's eloquence was very celebrated in his day, and that, as his mind was set upon bringing over the prodigy, he doubtlessly exerted its whole force and energy in representing to her the respectability which would infallibly attach itself to her through the rest of her life, from the circumstance of her having been brought into the capital of England under the immediate protection of a man renowned as he was both in his mercantile and political character, and whose important station in the country was so well suited to the introduction of such a personage. Add to his arguments, his conduct on the occasion; and our surprise at her complying with his wishes will be materially diminished. Could a woman of sense and feeling refuse to throw herself into the care of the man, who, with that wonderful intrepidity and almost incredible presence of mind, which obtained for him the appellation of the _brave_ Whittington, ventured his existence for upwards of three hours and a half upon the water, and undertook a voyage of nearly thirty-two miles (starting late in the evening), in a vessel of not more than one hundred and seventy tons burthen, for her sake! an enterprise which, though in these enlightened days we might be inclined to ridicule, was in those times considered the most surprisingly valorous feat ever compassed by an Alderman.[39] As for the Cat, whatever shape she took (and there can be little doubt, as my readers will hereafter see, which form she really did assume), she suffered not much from the effects of the water carriage. She had been a great traveller in her time, and, amongst other good company into which she had fallen during her progresses, had been admitted into the Serail at Algiers, where, according to an old poem, it appears, she "Passed herre tyme amydst ye throng, As happie as ye deye was long."[40] Nevertheless, Whittington, after he had been in her society for a short time, began to doubt (as well he might) her supernatural powers. He argued, from a knowledge of the sex's little weaknesses, that if she had had the ability to have assumed any form she had chosen, she doubtlessly would have adopted a more agreeable one than that which she actually appeared under; but then, on the other hand, he contended with himself, that by as much as her real claims upon notice and attention were weak and groundless, by so much must her magic be potent, for that unless the Devil himself had taken possession of the rabble (at her instigation) they never could have seen anything to admire or respect about her.