rce whenever his difficulties should
straiten him so far as to make its assistance necessary. This happened
no very long time after his coming over thence, for in a short time his
extravagancies reduced him so much that one of his countrymen thought he
did him a great service in recommending him to one Blake, for an usher,
which Blake at that time set up to teach young gentlemen to fence,
having a school for that purpose near the Temple.

Thither Gahogan came accordingly, and after staying for two days
successively, and finding no scholars came, he opened the case to his
master that was to have been and told him how easy it was to get money
and live well, provided they had but utensils for coining, and soon
after he showed him a specimen of his art, which he performed so
dexterously that at first sight they promised themselves prodigious
matters therefrom. They engaged one Ferris, who formerly had wrote as a
clerk to a gentleman of Lincoln's Inn and the Temple, but adventuring to
trust another person with that secret, he soon after made a confession
and impeached them all. Upon which this Gahogan, Blake and the
before-mentioned Ferris, together with two women, came to be tried for
this offence on an indictment of high treason.

The evidence was very clear, and notwithstanding the assurance with
which Blake and Gahogan behaved at the bar, and the perplexed defence
which was made by Ferris (who fancied himself so sure of being acquitted
that he directed horses to be hired in order to his going down to a
country assizes, there to assist as solicitor for a notorious offender),
the jury, after a short stay, brought them in guilty, but acquitted the
women, of whom the one was the mother of this Gahogan and the other the
mistress or wife of the said Robert Blake, of whom we are next to speak.

He was by birth also of the Kingdom of Ireland, his parents being people
of some condition, who gave him a very good education and afterwards put
him out apprentice to a linendraper. After he was out of his time he
married a woman with some little fortune, by whom he had three children,
and after misusing her greatly, went away from her into England. Here he
led a loose, debauched life, and subsisted himself, to give it the best
phrase, rather upon the ingenuity of his head than the industry of his
hands. Here he found means to draw aside a farmer's daughter, to whom he
was married, and whom he involved so far in his misfortunes, as to