The History and Remarkable Life of the Truly Honourable Colonel Jacque, Commonly Called Colonel JackDefoe, Daniel
General
The History and Remarkable Life of the Truly Honourable Colonel Jacque, Commonly Called Colonel Jack
Defoe, Daniel
Adventure stories, English; England -- Social life and customs -- 18th century -- Fiction; Picaresque fiction
We divided this booty equally; for though the gaining it was mine, yet
the improving of it was his, and his management brought the money; for
neither he or I could have made anything proportionable of the thing
any other way. As for the bills, there was no room to doubt but unless
they had been carried that minute to the goldsmith’s for the money, he
would have come with notice to stop the payment, and perhaps have come
while the money was receiving, and have taken hold of the person. And
then as to the diamonds, there had been no offering them to sale by us
poor boys to anybody but those who were our known receivers, and they
would have given us nothing for them compared to what they were worth;
for, as I understood afterwards, those who made a trade of buying
stolen goods took care to have false weights, and cheat the poor devil
that stole them at least an ounce in three.
Upon the whole, we made the best of it many ways besides. I had a
strange kind of uninstructed conscience at that time; for though I made
no scruple of getting anything in this manner from anybody, yet I could
not bear destroying their bills and papers, which were things that
would do them a great deal of hurt, and do me no good; and I was so
tormented about it that I could not rest night or day while I made the
people easy from whom the things were taken.
I was now rich, so rich that I knew not what to do with my money or
with myself. I had lived so near and so close, that although, as I
said, I did now and then lay out twopence or threepence for mere
hunger, yet I had so many people who, as I said, employed me, and who
gave me victuals and sometimes clothes, that in a whole year I had not
quite spent the 15s. which I had saved of the custom-house gentleman’s
money; and I had the four guineas which was of the first booty before
that still in my pocket—I mean the money that I let fall into the tree.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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