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Sept 11 1806 - The Recruiting Officer Print E-mail

The Times, Thursday, Sep 11, 1806; pg. 3; Issue 6839; col C


THE RECRUITING OFFICER.
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A gallant foreigner, from the Irish West-Indies, or Pays-Bas of Connaught, who
has been some time beating up for recruits in the vicinity of Carlisle, recently
attempted to carry, by coup-de-main, the citadel of a young Lady's heart, who
possessed a fortune in her own right of 20,000L.

Scarcely had the gallant commander entered the town, when he proceeded to
reconnoitre - not the market-place, for simple country swains to convert into
grim grenadiers, but, AIMWELL-like, the congregation at church, for beauty to
complete his happiness: as to fortune, he wanted none at all at-all: he had an
ample fortune in the West-Indies; but that was neither here nor there.

No time was to be lost. He set himself down before the place; commenced his
approaches in form, by a warm cannonade of red-hot love-letters; invested the
fair one's citadel on all sides; watched every motion; completed his third
parallel by the third day; and was upon the glacis of the place with his
Adjutant and Valet, Mr. O'FLANNAGAN, forming his measures to carry the fort by
escalade. He formed a tender ambuscade for the fair Governess several successive
nights, in expectation of her making an incautious sortie to visit her friends,
when he had a post-chaise and four in waiting, under the escort of his man
O'FLANNAGAN, determined to carry her off to Gretna Green. But the alarm excited
in the apprehensions of the young Lady and her friends, suggested the necessity
of an application to the Magistrates; and the gallant Captain, not able to find
a responsible guarantee in the place for his future neutrality, and the total
abandonment of his presumptuous designs, was obliged to raise the siege and
decamp on a forced march; more especially as he was apprehensive of other
beating orders in town not very auspicious to his comfort.

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