I was raised in a small country village.  When I got to the age of fourteen or fifteen my parents couldn’t afford to feed me so they arranged to send me to London to live with an Aunt that I had never heard of before.  When the day came for me to leave they gave me what money they could spare and sent me on my way.

When I got to London it was a huge and scary place, nothing like the tiny village that I had grown up in.  I tried to find my Aunt, who was supposed to be meeting me when I arrived but she was nowhere to be found.  A kind old lady came up to me and offered to help me find her.  She took me back to her house, where some other girls

lived.  I was bathed and pampered and given a new dress to wear.  After a few days my Aunt had still not been found and the lady said that I would have to start paying my way.  I offered her the money I had but she laughed and told me it would cost more than that.  Some of the girls explained what I would have to do.  I was horrified.  That night I managed to escape from the house but I soon found myself lost in the big city.

Over the next few months I made friends, if you can call them that, with some street urchins and started picking pockets to earn enough money to eat.  I got caught a few times and once I was sent to Newgate gaol, When my case came to court I was sentenced to transportation to the colonies in America.  I ended up in a town called Charleston in the Carolinas.

I still had no money and picking pockets was not as profitable as in London.  I had heard of places in the Caribbean where gold was plentiful and everyone was wealthy.  I made up my mind to go there.  I heard talk around the docks of a ship that was heading that way and I stowed away onboard. 

The ship was called The Avenger and I was soon discovered.  So much for it being a merchant ship.  Trust me to get caught by the most ruthless pirates operating in the area.  I was dragged out of my hiding place and brought before the Captain. 

He took a fancy to me and allowed me to live but for the rest of the journey to Jamaica I would have to earn my keep.