, than that I should have married
that same thievish catamaran, Madam Taffetas. Surely never Madman
deserved a Dark House and a Whip more than I did for that most foolishly
contracted union. I defy Calumny to prove that I ever used anything
approaching false Representations in this matter. I told her plainly
that my Hand, Sword, and Deep Devotion were all I had to offer, and that
for mere vile pounds, shillings, and pence, and other Mercantile
Arrangements, I must look to her. Absolutely I borrowed ten pieces,
although I was then at a very Low Ebb, to defray the expenses of the
wedding Treat, which was done most handsomely at the Bible and Crown, in
Pope's Head Alley, Cornhill. "Now then," I said to myself, as we came
home towards the Strand (for we were resolved to have no foolish
honeymooning in the Country, but to remain in town and keep an eye to
Business)--"now then, Jack Dangerous, thou art at last Married and
Settled, and need trouble thyself no more about the cares and anxieties
of money-grubbing and bread-getting. Thou art tiled-in handsomely, Jack;
thatched and fenced, and girt about with Comfort and Respectability.
Thy hat is on, and thy house is covered." Alas, poor fool! alas, triply
distilled zany and egregiously doting idiot! No sooner did a Hackney
coach set us down at the Leghorn Warehouse in the broad part of the
Strand, than we found Margery the maid and Tom the shopboy in a great
confusion of tears on the threshold; and immediately afterwards we heard
that during our absence to get married, Bailiffs had made their
entrance, and seized all the Merchandise for a bill owing by Madam
Taffetas to her Factor of Seven Hundred Pounds. The false Quean that I
was wedded to was hopelessly bankrupt, and with the greatest impudence
in the world she calls upon me to pay the Money; the Bailiffs adding,
with a grin, that to their knowledge she owed much more than their
Execution stood for, and that no doubt, so soon as it was bruited abroad
that I was her Husband, the Sheriff of Middlesex would have something to
say to me in the way of a capias against my person. In vain did I Rave
and Swear, and endeavour to show that I could in no way be held liable
for Debts which I had never contracted. Such, I was told, was the Law;
and such it remains to this day, to the Great Scandal of justice, and
the detriment of Gentlemen cavalieros who may be entrapped into marrying
vulgar Adventuresses whom they deem Gentlewomen of Proper