WeRead Powered by ReaderPub
The English Rogue: Described in the Life of Meriton Latroon, a Witty Extravagant cover

The English Rogue: Described in the Life of Meriton Latroon, a Witty Extravagant

Chapter 74: CHAP. LXIII.
Open in WeRead

About This Book

A first-person memoir follows a witty, extravagant rogue as he recalls a life shaped by poverty, cunning, and necessity, recounting a series of episodic adventures and confidence tricks. The narrator catalogs cheats and stratagems, offering humorous anecdotes and practical detail about swindles while satirizing manners and the licentious urban world he navigates. The text alternates comic bravado with moral reflection, presenting both an entertaining compilation of roguery and a retrospective emphasis on repentance and the personal costs of a dissolute career.

CHAP. LXIII.

Directions, if robbed, how to follow the Thieves; which way to set Hue and Cry after them; how to coast, and where to find them.

If you are robbed, there is no help but to indeavour to surprize the Thieves by a strict pursuit: Therefore let no Remora or delay deter you from obtaining your wish, and so seize them that so lately seized you. In the first place, scowre the next Road, not streight before, but either on the right or left hand; for they know Hue and Cries never cross the passages, but go straight along. If in so doing you miss them, then conclude they are sheltred in some Inn which you have past, and therefore you must set some careful Spies, with a sufficient assistance near at hand, and be confident you will see them come that way, without the least apprehension of fear, or fear of apprehension. But this observe, that if they light of any considerable sum, then do they ride that night to their general Rendezvous in London, which is too sure a shelter for them: but observably take notice, for here is as eminent an example of their subtilty, as any ever the Devil enrich’d their knowledge with; For, if you are robbed in the eastern quarter, pursue them not in the direct Road to London with Hue and Cry, for by some other way they are fled; but haste to the City, and in Westminster, Holborn, the Strand and Covent-garden search speedily, for there they are. If Northward they light on you, then to Southwark, the Bankside, or Lambeth they are gone; and when you find any one, seize all with him, for they are all Companions that are together.