Page:The London Guide and Stranger's Safeguard.djvu/89

Rh small sums), clothes, victuals and lodgings;—every article being charged extravagantly high. The poor fellows are accordingly placed under a sort of espionage, if not close confinement, till the ship is ready to receive them; and then they are conducted on board at Gravesend, by the Crimp and assistants, and a receipt taken for them.

In this process there is nothing very frightful: the men want berths, and the Crimp wants to be sure of his men: the grand do is in seamen receiving any thing but money of the Crimp; it is in watches, buckles, hats, and jackets that the robbery is committed. And in the victuals,—foh! the whole is barefaced unblushing robbery. With the same view of doing the unwary poor fellows, these Crimps get hold of their "" as soon as they come on shore, upon which tl ey make advances of watches, jewellery and such stuff, to about one twentieth of the amount. Not only is this the case in London, but at all the outports it is practised to a very great extent, in war-time particularly. Portsmouth was the seat of unheard-of villainies, and rapid fortunes, during the long war that has just been brought to a close.

Happy would it be for poor Jack, were this all: he is sometimes brought in indebted to the