that attended his married
state, was his pension from the India House--his chief prospective
supply, the result of his publications. As an author he displayed
invention and quickness; and the rapidity with which his works of
fiction appeared, was not less extraordinary than the imagination which
they displayed. In 1826 he published "The Shepherdess of Arranville; or,
Father and Daughter;" a pathetic tale in three acts; and, in 1829, "The
Maniac of the Pyrenees; or, the Heroic Soldier's Wife;" a melodrama in
two acts, printed at Brentford. The success of these light works,
however, was inferior to that of his Memoirs, which soon became
extensively popular, and have continued to gather favour with each added
year. This reputation resulted, not more from the exciting nature of the
details, than the freshness, rapidity, and air of candour, that pervades
the whole. Shipp certainly derived advantage from the advice and
assistance of an experienced and talented literary friend; but the
vigour, playfulness, and peculiarity of style which characterize all his
writings, were not infused by the pen of the ripe and ready writer--they
were original qualities of the composition. Encouraged by the reception
of his Memoirs, and urged by pinching poverty to constant efforts for
the improvement of his circumstances, he took advantage of his literary
popularity, and sent into the world his "Military Bijou," and a pamphlet
on military flogging. The latter, dedicated to Sir Francis Burdett,
produced a decided sensation, and was so much approved of by the
patriotic senator with whose name it was associated, that he generously
presented the author with a cheque for sixty pounds. Such precarious
supplies, however, could afford no permanent ease to a mind so
energetic, so unbroken by reverses, so incapable of yielding to any
untoward pressure of Providence: he applied himself, therefore,
resolutely to the obtainment of an employment attended with a certain
income, without regard to the amount of compensation, degree of
humility, or difficulty of position. Confident of his powers, physical
and intellectual; relying on the education derived from boundless
experience of men and manners, and being a perfect master of the art of
discipline, he very naturally concluded that his qualifications for the
situation of a metropolitan police officer were unequalled. He had
calculated rightly. Without a moment's hesitation--in fact accompanied
by an expressio