These once poor abandoned children are
educated according to the usage of the
church of England, and meet at six in the
morning and evening in a large room,
which serves them both for a chapel and
dining room, where they hear prayers:
they are taught the Catechism; have a
Minister who attends upon them; and on
Sundays they all go to church at Great St.
Helen's.  A part of the day is appro-
priated to their learning to read, write,
and to their obtaining some knowledge of
arithmetic; the rest of their time is spent
in weaving nets for the British fishery;
and the girls are employed in sewing,
knitting, and other labour, by which they
are qualified for service.  The boys mak-
ing twenty-five yards of netting a week,
at 1s. 6d. for twenty yards; and, as an
encouragement to industry, every boy
who makes above twenty-four yards, re-
ceives a penny a week.  There are here
seldom less than four hundred children
thus employed, all of whom are dressed
in russet cloth, and wear a round badge
upon their breasts, representing a poor

These children thus saved from the mi-
series of vice and beggary; from becom-
ing pick-pockets and house-breakers, and
from ending their days at the gallows;
after being thus instructed and inured to
labour, are put out apprentice, the boys
to the sea service or to trades, and the
girls to service in honest families.

It will be no unpleasing amusement, if
we here give the speech of John Trusty,
one of these poor boys, to her Majesty
Queen Anne, upon her coming to dine at
Guildhall, on Thursday the 29th of Octo-
ber 1702, the Lord Mayor's day; nor
can we better conclude what we have
said of these children.

" May it please your most excellent
" Majesty, to pardon this great presump-
" tion in us poor children, who throw
" ourselves at your royal feet, among the
" rest of your glad subjects, that here in
" crouds appear to behold your sacred
" Majesty.

" We, Madam, have no fathers, no
" mothers, no friends; or, which is next
" to none, those who, through their ex-
" treme poverty, cannot help us.  God's
" providence is our inheritance [pointing
" to the motto on his breast.]  All the sup-