Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon | Page 9

to his author, that he would be rather sorry if he
omitted it; for he could hence derive no other advantage than the loss of
an additional pleasure in the perusal.
Again, if any merely common incident should appear in this journal,
which will seldom I apprehend be the case, the candid reader will easily
perceive it is not introduced for its own sake, but for some observations
and reflections naturally resulting from it; and which, if but little to his
amusement, tend directly to the instruction of the reader or to the
information of the public; to whom if I choose to convey such
instruction or information with an air of joke and laughter, none but the
dullest of fellows will, I believe, censure it; but if they should, I have
the authority of more than one passage in Horace to allege in my
defense. Having thus endeavored to obviate some censures, to which a
man without the gift of foresight, or any fear of the imputation of being
a conjurer, might conceive this work would be liable, I might now
undertake a more pleasing task, and fall at once to the direct and
positive praises of the work itself; of which indeed, I could say a
thousand good things; but the task is so very pleasant that I shall leave
it wholly to the reader, and it is all the task that I impose on him. A

moderation for which he may think himself obliged to me when he
compares it with the conduct of authors, who often fill a whole sheet
with their own praises, to which they sometimes set their own real
names, and sometimes a fictitious one. One hint, however, I must give
the kind reader; which is, that if he should be able to find no sort of
amusement in the book, he will be pleased to remember the public
utility which will arise from it. If entertainment, as Mr. Richardson
observes, be but a secondary consideration in a romance; with which
Mr. Addison, I think, agrees, affirming the use of the pastry cook to be
the first; if this, I say, be true of a mere work of invention, sure it may
well be so considered in a work founded, like this, on truth; and where
the political reflections form so distinguishing a part. But perhaps I
may hear, from some critic of the most saturnine complexion, that my
vanity must have made a horrid dupe of my judgment, if it hath
flattered me with an expectation of having anything here seen in a
grave light, or of conveying any useful instruction to the public, or to
their guardians. I answer, with the great man whom I just now quoted,
that my purpose is to convey instruction in the vehicle of entertainment;
and so to bring about at once, like the revolution in the Rehearsal, a
perfect reformation of the laws relating to our maritime affairs: an
undertaking, I will not say more modest, but surely more feasible, than
that of reforming a whole people, by making use of a vehicular story, to
wheel in among them worse manners than their own.
INTRODUCTION
In the beginning of August, 1753, when I had taken the duke of
Portland's medicine, as it is called, near a year, the effects of which had
been the carrying off the symptoms of a lingering imperfect gout, I was
persuaded by Mr. Ranby, the king's premier sergeant-surgeon, and the
ablest advice, I believe, in all branches of the physical profession, to go
immediately to Bath. I accordingly wrote that very night to Mrs.
Bowden, who, by the next post, informed me she had taken me a
lodging for a month certain. Within a few days after this, whilst I was
preparing for my journey, and when I was almost fatigued to death with
several long examinations, relating to five different murders, all
committed within the space of a week, by different gangs of
street-robbers, I received a message from his grace the duke of
Newcastle, by Mr. Carrington, the king's messenger, to attend his grace

the next morning, in Lincoln's-inn-fields, upon some business of
importance; but I excused myself from complying with the message, as,
besides being lame, I was very ill with the great fatigues I had lately
undergone added to my distemper.
His grace, however, sent Mr. Carrington, the very next morning, with
another summons; with which, though in the utmost distress, I
immediately complied; but the duke, happening, unfortunately for me,
to be then particularly engaged, after I had waited some time, sent a
gentleman to discourse with me on the best plan which could be
invented for putting an immediate end to those murders and robberies
which were every day committed in the streets; upon which I