No private views disgraced our generous zeal,
What urged our travels was our country's weal;
And none will doubt, but that our emigration
Has proved most useful to the British nation.
'We left our country for our country's good.' That line, thrown
fortuitously into four hundred pages of solid prose, has emerged to
become the common possession of Fleet Street. It is the man's one title
to literary fame, for spurning the thievish practice he knew so well,
he was righteously indignant when The London Spy was fathered upon
him. Though he emptied his contemporary's pockets of many thousands,
he enriched the Dictionary of Quotations with one line, which will be
repeated so long as there is human hand to wield a pen. And, if the High
Constable of Paramatta was tediously respectable, George Barrington, the
Prig, was a man of genius.
THE SWITCHER AND GENTLEMAN HARRY
I--THE SWITCHER
DAVID HAGGART was born at Canonmills, with no richer birthright than
thievish fingers and a left hand of surpassing activity. The son of a
gamekeeper, he grew up a long-legged, red-headed callant, lurking in the
sombre shadow of the Cowgate, or like the young Sir Walter, championing
the Auld Town against the New on the slopes of Arthur's Seat. Kipping
was his early sin; but the sportsman's instinct, born of his father's
trade, was so strong within him, that he pinched a fighting cock before
he was breeched, and risked the noose for horse-stealing when marbles
should have engrossed his boyish fancy.
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