Offer, and at the same Conjuncture, have loaden themselves with their Wives; or rather, whether they would not have been glad of such an opportunity to get rid of them?  To this my very good Friend Tom Dapperwit, who took upon him to be the Mouth of our Sex, replied, that they would be very much to blame if they would not do the same good Office for the Women, considering that their Strength would be greater, and their Burdens lighter.  As we were amusing our selves with Discourses of this nature, in order to pass away the Evening, which now begins to grow tedious, we fell into that laudable and primitive Diversion of Questions and Commands.  I was no sooner vested with the regal Authority, but I enjoined all the Ladies, under pain of my Displeasure, to tell the Company ingenuously, in case they had been in the Siege abovementioned, and had the same Offers made them as the good Women of that Place, what every one of them would have brought off with her, and have thought most worth the saving?  There were several merry Answers made to my Question, which entertained us till Bed-time.  This filled my Mind with such a huddle of Ideas, that upon my going to sleep, I fell into the following Dream.

’I saw a Town of this Island, which shall be nameless, invested on every side, and the Inhabitants of it so straitned as to cry for Quarter.  The General refused any other Terms than those granted to the abovementioned Town of Hensberg, namely, that the married Women might come out with what they could bring along with them.  Immediately the City-Gates flew open, and a Female Procession appeared.  Multitudes of the Sex following one another in a row, and staggering under their respective Burdens.  I took my Stand upon an Eminence in the Enemies Camp, which was appointed for the general Rendezvous of these Female Carriers, being very desirous to look into their several Ladings.  The first of them had a huge Sack upon her Shoulders, which she set down with great Care:  Upon the opening of it, when I expected to have seen her Husband shot out of it, I found it was filled with China-Ware.  The next appeared in a more decent Figure, carrying a handsome young Fellow upon her Back:  I could not forbear commending the young Woman for her Conjugal Affection, when to my great Surprize, I found that she had left the good Man at home, and brought away her Gallant.  I saw the third, at some distance, with a little withered Face peeping over her Shoulder, whom I could not suspect for any but her Spouse, till upon her setting him down I heard her call him dear Pugg, and found him to be her Favourite Monkey.  A fourth brought a huge Bale of Cards along with her; and the fifth a Bolonia Lap-Dog; for her Husband, it seems, being a very Burly Man, she thought it would be less trouble for her to bring away little Cupid.  The next was the Wife of a rich Usurer, loaden with a Bag of Gold; she told us that her Spouse was very old, and by the course of Nature could not expect to