Catholics
at St. Germains, and befriended by the exiled James and Mary of
Modena. Now in 1699 Theophilus, one of the Oglethorpe boys, was sent
out to his father's old friend Mr. Pitt, Governor of Fort St. George
in India, the man of the Pitt Diamond. His outfit had to be prepared
in a hurry, and a young gentlewoman, Frances Shaftoe, was engaged to
help with the sewing of his several dozens of linen shirts, 'the
flourishing of neckcloths and drawing of cotton stripes;' as young
gentlewomen of limited means were used to do before they discovered
hospitals and journalism. This girl, who developed a political romance
of her own, was of good Northumberland family, related to Sir John
Fenwick and the Delavals. Her father, a merchant in Newcastle, had
educated her 'in a civil and virtuous manner,' and she had lived there
about eighteen years, behaving herself discreetly, modestly, and
honestly, as nine Northumbrian justices of the peace were ready to
testify under their hand. The strange story she later told of her
experiences at Westbrook and afterwards cannot, therefore, be wholly
dismissed as a tale trumped up for political purposes, though its most
thrilling incident is so foolish a lie as to discredit the whole.

On the Saturday before Christmas 1699 (so ran her later
'revelations,'[32] made in 1707) she took the coach from Godalming,
obedient to instructions by letter from Sir Theophilus. A little way
down the Strand he joined her in the coach, accompanied by two young
ladies--friends, she was told, of Lady Oglethorpe; and for some time
she knew no more of who they were and whence they came. They were very
secret, appeared in no company, but made themselves useful in the
pleasant, homely ways of English country life of that time: helped
with the sewing, made their own bed, swept their chamber, dressed the
two little girls, Mary and Fanny, and waited on each other. Presently
it turned out that they were Anne and Eleanor Oglethorpe, who had been
eleven years in France, at the Court of James II., where they were
known as Anne and Eleanor Barkly. They had taken advantage of the
peace to come secretly 'over a long sea,' and had waited at the house
of their mother's brother-in-law, Mr. Cray the City wine-merchant,
until Parliament was up and their father could take them home for
Christmas. A member of Parliament must not be compromised by the
presence of Catholic daughters from St. Germains, whom it was treason
even to harbou