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How, who became “very free and intimate with me.” She also carried on a flirtation with a prostitute named Betsey, and then became such close friends with Sarah Chase, a servant girl, that her fellow workers thought they would soon get married. Mary tells us that they were very intimate together and that they agreed that neither of them would go out with any other person without the consent of the other.
    During her time on the
Sandwich,
she had written to her parents and explained her situation. In 1767, she went to see them for the first time since she had left home at the age of nineteen. She told them all about her adventures, but unfortunately when she returned to Portsmouth, a friend of the family came to live in the town and let it be known that the shipwright’s apprentice known as William Chandler was really a woman. The rumor rapidly spread around the dockyard, and some of the other apprentices wanted to examine her to discover the truth. She was saved by two of the shipwrights she had worked for. They took her aside, questioned her very seriously, and said that it would be better if she told them the truth rather than expose herself to the rudeness of the dockyard boys. Mary burst into tears and admitted that she was indeed a woman. They were astonished but swore to keep her secret. They assured the dockyard people that William was a man and pointed out that if he were a girl he would not have gone after so many women.
    Mary qualified as a shipwright in the spring of 1770 and was duly awarded the certificate to confirm that she had completed her apprenticeship. Unhappily, after surviving six years at sea and seven years as an apprentice, she suffered another bout of rheumatoid arthritis that was so crippling she could scarcely walk. She recovered sufficiently to be able to return to work, but while helping to dismantle a 40-gun ship, she seriously strained herself and found that she could no longer cope with the physical demands of the job. She had no option but to leave the dockyard and apply to the Admiralty for a disability pension. Her case was examined, and on January 28, 1772, the Lords of the Admiralty agreed to her request. The following report must be one of the most unusual entries ever to appear in the volumes of Admiralty minutes:
A Petition was read from Mary Lacey [
sic
] setting forth that in the Year 1759 she disguised herself in Men’s Cloaths and enter’d on board His Maj ts Fleet, where having served til the end of the War, she bound herself apprentice to the Carpenter of the
Royal William
and having served Seven Years, then enter’d as a Shipwright in Portsmouth Yard where she has continued ever since; but that finding her health and constitution impaired by so laborious an Employment, she is obliged to give it up for the future, and therefore, praying some Allowance for her Support during the remainder of her life:
    Resolved, in consideration of the particular Circumstances attending this Woman’s case, the truth of which has been attested by the Commissioner of the Yard at Portsmouth, that she be allowed a Pension equal to that granted to Superannuated Shipwrights. 12
    This marked the end of Mary Lacy’s life as William Chandler. Her autobiography ends abruptly with her meeting a Mr. Slade at Deptford who proposed marriage.
    She had always planned to remain single but at length decided to accept his offer, convinced that the hand of Providence had brought them together. Her husband was sober and industrious, and the book concludes with Mary looking forward to enjoying the utmost happiness the married state affords. While the essential facts of Mary Lacy’s story check out with contemporary documents, it seems likely that the tidy ending was provided by her publisher, who was happy to allow readers to be titillated by her lesbian flirtations but felt that the book must have a more traditional conclusion.
    The adventures of William Brown,