The Virginia Gazette

The following extraordinary affair happened not far from Westminster bridge, about three Sundays past. A man dressed very genteelly, and of good deportment, in all appearance a gentleman, went into one of the inns not far from there:
and having called for something to drink, was shown into a little room behind the bar, in which was the master of the house putting on a new suit of cloaths. The stranger seemed to admire them greatly, and often exclaimed, that never saw any thing fit so well, nor of so beautiful a colour. He made him particularly noticed; and having found the cost of the cloaths was excellent, he desired a direction to the tayler, who had displayed his art so meritoriously. The master of the house, not a little pleased at the gentleman's praise of his new suit, and probably imagining that his own handsome person contributed, not in a small degree to set them off, readily gave the gentleman a direction to the maker. Soon after this, the gentleman having finished his liquor, and the master of the house done dressing himself, they went out together; and a little way from the door separated to pursue their respective business, the master of the house to church, the gentleman about business. When the master of the house was at church, and found that nobody of his acquaintance had been so enraptured with his cloaths as the strange gentleman had been, he began to revolve in his mind that circumstance; and recollecting how desirous the gentleman expressed himself to have a suit made after the same manner, of the same cloth, and by the same hand, he began to be apprehensive he might obtain them on the same credit likewise. Thus terrified possessed, he quitted the church, before divine service was concluded, and hastened to his tayler to inform him of the occurrence, and to warn him against trusting any person with cloaths in his name, or on his account. While the master of the house was so employed, the gentleman returned to the inn, and complaining that he was not well, desired that he might have some wine made hot. The mistress of the house imagining, from his talking so familiarly with her husband, and their going out together, that he was an intimate acquaintance of her husband's, desired him to walk into the same little room in which he was before. The proposal he readily accepted, and during the time the mistress of the house was preparing the liquor for his service, he found means to strip a beaufet of all its contents, being plate of a considerable value, and with which he got clear off. The husband soon after came home, and acquainted his wife of the precaution he had been giving the tayler; for which, instead of the applause he expected for his care, he received the disagreeable account of the robbery.