I was brought up by Elspeth Winter at Number Nine, Great Swan Alley. Back then it was commonly called Mrs Winter's Baby Farm - not that she would call it that herself, she had appearances to keep up. But everyone knew that it was a baby farm, as she took in over one hundred babies and infants a year and there were no more than forty of us living at Number Nine. 

What happened to those other babies one can only guess, but if I were a betting man then I would say that the majority were swallowed up by Old Father Thames rather than being taken in by a good family in the villages of Highgate or Islington. 

I was born on Great Swan Alley in the April of 1725. Or rather I should say, I was left in a doorway on Great Swan Alley in the April of 1725. I do not know where I was born, or of what parentage, but I am on a quest to discover.