oors but
with a footman to attend them.

But Mr. Levee, the merchant, falling into misfortunes by some of his
correspondents' failures, withdrew from his family into Holland; and
this son John being taken by the French Society, in order to be put out
apprentice and provided for, being induced thereto by the boy's natural
vivacity and warmth of temper in which he had been foolishly encouraged,
they sent him to sea with a captain of a man-of-war. He was on board the
_Essex_ when Sir George Byng, now Viscount Torrington, engaged the
Spaniards at Messina.[24] He served afterwards on board the squadron
commanded by Sir John Norris in the Baltic, and when he returned home,
public affairs being in a more quiet state, his friends thought it
better for him to learn merchants' accounts than to go any more voyages,
where there was now little prospect of advantage.

But book-keeping was too quiet an employment for one of Levee's warm
disposition, who far from being discouraged at the hardships of sea,
only complained of his ill-luck in not being in an engagement. And so,
to amuse this martial disposition, he with some companions went upon the
road, which they practised for a very considerable time, robbing in a
very genteel manner, by putting a hat into the coach and desiring the
passengers to contribute as they thought proper, being always contented
with what they gave them, though sometimes part of it was farthings.
Nay, they were so civil that Blueskin and this Levee, once robbing a
single gentlewoman in a coach, she happening to have a basket full of
buns and cakes, Levee took some of them, but Blueskin proceeded to
search her for money, but found none. The woman in the meanwhile
scratched him and called him a thousand hard names, giving him two or
three sound slaps in the face, at which they only laughed, as it was a
woman, and went away without further ill-usage, a civility she would
hardly have met with from any other gentlemen of their profession.

In October, he and his great companion Blueskin,[25] met a coach with
two ladies and a little miss riding between their knees, coming from the
Gravel Pits at Kensington.[26] Levee stopped the coach and without more
ado, ordered both the coachmen and footman to jump the ditch, or he'd
shoot them. They then stripped the ladies of their necklaces, cut a gold
girdle buckle from the side of the child, and took away about ten
shillings in money, with a little white metal image of a m