, whom he offends, and pacifies with Submission. He practises an
Expedient to detain the Carriage at Alost, and confirms the Priest in his
Interest
 
Next day, about one o'clock, after having seen every thing remarkable in town,
and been present at the execution of two youths, who were hanged for ravishing a
whore, they took their departure from Ghent, in the same carriage which had
brought them thither; and the conversation turning upon the punishment they had
seen inflicted, the Flemish beauty expressed great sympathy and compassion for
the unhappy sufferers, who (as she had been informed) had fallen victims to the
malice of the accuser. Her sentiments were espoused by all the company, except
the French lady of pleasure, who, thinking the credit of the sisterhood
concerned in the affair, bitterly inveighed against the profligacy of the age,
and particularly the base and villainous attempts of man, upon the chastity of
the weaker sex; saying, with a look of indignation directed to the painter, that
for her own part, she should never be able to manifest the acknowledgment she
owed to providence, for having protected her, last night, from the wicked aims
of unbridled lust. This observation introduced a series of jokes, at the expence
of Pallet, who hung his ears, and sat with a silent air of dejection, fearing
that through the malevolence of the physician, his adventure might reach the
ears of his wife. Indeed, though we have made shift to explain the whole
transaction to the reader, it was an inextricable mystery to every individual in
the diligence; because the part which was acted by the Capuchin, was known to
himself alone; and even he was utterly ignorant of Pickle's being concerned in
the affair; so that the greatest share of the painter's sufferings were supposed
to be the exaggerations of his own extravagant imagination.
    In the midst of their discourse on this extraordinary subject, the driver
told them, that they were now on the very spot where a detachment of the allied
army had been intercepted and cut off by the French; and stopping the vehicle,
entertained them with a local description of the battle of Melle. Upon this
occasion, the Flemish lady, who since her marriage had become a keen partizan
for the French, gave a minute detail of all the circumstances, as they had been
represented to her by her husband's brother, who was in the action; and this
account, which sunk the number of the French to sixteen, and raised that of the
allies to twenty thousand men, was so disagreeable to truth, as well as
