Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/173

 Lady Hester continued:—"Of all those to whom I gave an asylum and bread, after the siege, I can’t say there were many who showed the least gratitude—four perhaps: the rest robbed me, and abused my goodness in every possible manner. One family alone consisted of seventeen persons. Will it be believed, that when I had new clothes made for the women for the Byram holyday, they had the baseness to grumble at the stuff, the make, and everything, complaining they were not good enough for them? But this did not hurt me half so much as the little credit I get for everything I do among my relations and the English in general. My motives are misconstrued, or not appreciated; and, whilst a mighty fuss is made about some public subscription for people in Jamaica, Newfoundland, or God knows where, I, who, by my own individual exertions, have done the like for hundreds of wretched beings, driven out of their homes by the sabre and bayonet, am reviled and abused for every act of kindness or benevolence.

"I knew a pretty deal of what was going forward during the siege of Acre by my own spies. Hanah, your old servant—Giovanni, as he used to be called—was one of them. He carried on his trade of a barber, and was married in Acre; and, when the bombarding began, he got out somehow, and came to me. So I furnished him with a beggar’s dress. But first I