transpired.[43]

A far more exciting career was that of Mary Anne Talbot, the youngest
of sixteen illegitimate children, whom her mother bore to one of the
heads of the noble house of Talbot. She was born on February 2nd,
1778, and educated under the eye of a married sister, at whose death
she was committed to the care of a gentleman named Sucker, "who
treated her with great severity, and who appears to have taken
advantage of her friendless situation in order to transfer her, for
the vilest of purposes, to the hands of a Captain Bowen, whom he
directed her to look upon as her future guardian." Although barely
fourteen years old, Captain Bowen made her his mistress; and, on being
ordered to join his regiment at St. Domingo, he compelled the girl to
go with him in the disguise of a footboy and under the name of John
Taylor. But Captain Bowen had scarcely reached St. Domingo when he was
remanded with his regiment to Europe to join the Duke of York's
Flanders Expedition. And this time she was made to enrol herself as a
drummer in the corps.

She was in several skirmishes, being wounded once by a ball which
struck one of her ribs, and another time by a sabre stroke on the
side. At Valenciennes, however, Captain Bowen was killed; and, finding
among his effects several letters relating to herself, which proved
that she had been cruelly defrauded of money left to her, she resolved
to leave the regiment, and to return, if possible, to England.
Accordingly she set out attired as a sailor boy, and eventually hired
herself to the Commander of a French lugger, which turned out to be a
privateer. But when the vessel fell in with some of Lord Howe's
vessels in the Channel, she refused to fight against her countrymen,
"notwithstanding all the blows and menaces the French captain could
use." The privateer was taken, and our heroine was carried before Lord
Howe, to whom she told candidly all that had happened to her--keeping
her sex a secret.

Mary Anne Talbot, or John Taylor, was next placed on board the
_Brunswick_, where she witnessed Lord Howe's great victory of the 1st
June, and was actively engaged in it. But she was seriously wounded,
"her left leg being struck a little above the knee by a musket-ball,
and broken, and severely smashed lower down by a grape shot." On
reaching England she was conveyed to Haslar Hospital, where she
remained four months, no suspicion having ever been entertained of her
being a woman. But she wa