once
discarded from the Great House as a good-for-nothing Light o' love, and
was told that if ever I presumed to show my face on the Quay-side again
I should be sent to the Spinning House, and whipped. They had better
have taken care of me while I was with them. The Captain dressed me up
in fine clothes for a month or so, and gave me paint and patches, and
took me to the Playhouse with a mask on, and then he got stabbed in a
broil after some gambling bout at a China House in Smock Alley, and I
was left in the wide world with two satin sacques, a box of cosmetiques,
a broken fan, two spade guineas, and little else besides what I stood
upright in. Return to my Father and Mother I dared not; for I knew that
the tidings of my misconduct had already been conveyed to them, and had
half broken their hearts, and my offence was one that is unpardonable in
the children of the poorest and humblest of the Irishry. There was
Bitter Bread before me, if I chose to follow, as thousands of poor,
cozened, betrayed creatures before me had done, a Naughty Life; but
this, with unutterable Loathing and Scorn, I cast away from me; and
having, from my Dare-devil Temper, a kind of Pride and High Stomach made
me determine to earn my livelihood in a bold and original manner. They
had taught me to read at the Great House (though I knew not great A from
a bowl's foot when I came into it) and so one of the first things I had
spelt out was a chap-book ballad of Mary Ambree, the female soldier,
that was at the siege of Ghent, and went through all the wars in
Flanders in Queen Bess's time. 'What woman has done, woman can do,'
cries I to myself, surveying my bold and masculine lineaments, my
flashing black eyes, and ruddy tint, my straight, stout limbs, and
frank, dashing gait. Ah! I was very different to the fat, pursy, old
ale-wife who discourses with you now--in the glass. Without more ado I
cut off my long black hair close to my head, stained my hands with
walnut juice, (for they had grown white and soft and plump from idling
about in the Great House), and went off to a Crimp in the Liberty that
was enlisting men (against the law, but here many things are done
against both Law and Prophets), for the King of France's service.

"This was in the year '80, and I was twenty years of age. King Louis had
then no especial Brigade of Irish Troops--that famous corps not being
formed until after the Revolution--and his Scotch Guards, a pinchbeck,
purse-proud s