The history of the life and adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell : $b a gentleman, who, tho' deaf and dumb, writes down any stranger's name at first sight, with their future contingencies of fortune
General
The history of the life and adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell : $b a gentleman, who, tho' deaf and dumb, writes down any stranger's name at first sight, with their future contingencies of fortune
Campbell, Duncan, 1680?-1730; Deaf people -- Great Britain -- Biography; Occultism -- Early works to 1900; Prophets -- Great Britain -- Biography
Accordingly, in a few days afterwards, they went on board, and having a
speedy and an easy passage, arrived soon at Rotterdam. Duncan met with
some of his English acquaintance in that town, and his mind being pretty
much bent upon rambling, and seeing all the curiosities, customs, and
humours he could, in all the foreign places he was to pass through, he
went, out of a frolic, with some gentlemen, next day, in a boat to an
adjacent village, to make merry over a homely Dutch entertainment, the
intended repast being to consist of what the boors there count a great
delicacy, brown bread and white beer. He walked out of sight from his
company, and they lost one another; and strolling about by himself at an
unseasonable hour, as they call it there after the bell has tolled,
Duncan Campbell, who neither knew their laws, nor if he had, was capable
of being guided by the notice which their laws ordain, was taken into
custody in the village, for that night, and carried away the next day to
Williamstadt, where he was taken for a spy, and put into a close
imprisonment for three or four days.
But some Scotch gentlemen, who had been in company with Mr. Campbell at
Mr. Cloysterman's, a painter in Covent-garden, made their application to
the magistrate and got him released; he knew his friends the officers,
that carried him over, were gone forward to the camp, and that there was
no hope of finding them at Rotterdam, if he should go thither, and so he
resolved, since he had had so many days punishment in Williamstadt, to
have three or four days pleasure there too, by way of amends, before he
would set out on his journey after his friends. But on the third night
he got very much in drink; and as he went very boisterously and
disorderly along, a sentry challenged him; and the want of the sense of
hearing had like to have occasioned the loss of his life. The sentry
fired at him and narrowly missed him; he was taken prisoner, not without
some resistance, which was so far innocent, as that he knew not any
reason why he should be seized; but very troublesome and unwarrantable
in so orderly a town; so the governor's secretary, after the matter was
examined into, judging it better for the unhappy gentleman's future
safety, advised him to return home to his own country, and accordingly
bespoke him a place in a Dutch ship called Yowfrow Catherine, for his
passage to England.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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