But to return to my Travellers; Here they were only examined, and as they ſeemed rather coming from the Country than from the City, they found the People the eaſier with them; that they talk’d to them, let them come into a publick Houſe where the Conftable and his Warders were, and gave them Drink and ſome Victuals, which greatly refreſhed and encourag’d them; and here it came into their Heads to ſay, when they ſhould be enquir’d of afterwards, not that they came from Loudon, but that they came out of Eſſex.
To forward this little Fraud, they obtain’d ſo much Favour of the Conſtable at Old Ford, as to give them a Certificate of their paſſing from Eſſex thro’ that Village, and that they had not been at London; which tho’ falſe in the common acceptation of London in the County, yet was literally true; Wapping or Radeliff being no part either of the City or Liberty.
This Certificate directed to the next Conſtable that was at Hummerton, one of the Hamlets of the Pariſh of Hackney, was ſo ſerviceable to them, that it procured them not a free Paſſage there only, but a full Certificate of Health from a Juſtice of the Peace; who, upon the Conſtable’s Application, granted it without much Difficulty; and thus they paſs’d through the long divided Town of Hackney, (for it lay then in ſeveral ſeparated Hamlets) and travelled on till they came into the great North Road on the top of Stamford-Hill.
By this time they began to be weary,and ſo in the back Road from Hackney a little before it opened into the ſaid great Road, they reſolv’d to ſet up their Tent and encamp for the firſt Night; which they did accordingly, with this addition, that finding a Barn, or a Building like a Barn, and firſt ſearching as well as they could to be ſure there was no Body in It, they ſet up their Tent, with the Head of it againſt the Barn; this they did alſo becauſe the Wind blew
