CHAPTER FOURTEEN

In which our hero makes A speech well worthy to be celebrated; and the behaviour of one of the gang, perhaps more unnatural than any other part of this history.

There was in the gang a man named Blueskin, one of those merchants who trade in dead oxen, sheep, &c., in short, what the vulgar call a butcher.  This gentleman had two qualities of a great man, viz., undaunted courage, and an absolute contempt of those ridiculous distinctions of meum and tuum, which would cause endless disputes did not the law happily decide them by converting both into suum.  The common form of exchanging property by trade seemed to him too tedious; he therefore resolved to quit the mercantile profession, and, falling acquainted with some of Mr. Wild’s people, he provided himself with arms, and enlisted of the gang; in which he behaved for some time with great decency and order, and submitted to accept such share of the booty with the rest as our hero allotted him.

But this subserviency agreed ill with his temper; for we should have before remembered a third heroic quality, namely, ambition, which was no inconsiderable part of his composition.  One day, therefore, having robbed a gentleman at Windsor of a gold watch, which, on its being advertised in the newspapers, with a considerable reward, was demanded of him by Wild, he peremptorily refused to deliver it.

“How, Mr. Blueskin!” says Wild; “you will not deliver the watch?” “No, Mr. Wild,” answered he; “I have taken it, and will keep it; or, if I dispose of it, I will dispose of it myself, and keep the money for which I sell it.”  “Sure,” replied Wild, “you have not the assurance to pretend you have any property or right in this watch?” “I am certain,” returned Blueskin, “whether I have any right in it or no, you can prove none.”  “I will undertake,” cries the other, “to shew I have an absolute right to it, and that by the laws of our gang, of which I am providentially at the head.”  “I know not who put you at the head of it,” cries Blueskin; “but those who did certainly did it for their own good, that you might conduct them the better in their robberies, inform them of the richest booties, prevent surprizes, pack juries, bribe evidence, and so contribute to their benefit and safety; and not to convert all their labour and hazard to your own benefit and advantage.”  “You are greatly mistaken, sir,” answered Wild; “you are talking of a legal society, where the chief magistrate is always chosen for the public good, which, as we see in all the legal societies of the world, he constantly consults, daily contributing, by his superior skill, to their prosperity, and not sacrificing their good to his own wealth, or pleasure,