In August 1790, Mr. and Mrs. Crouch, myself, and a very old friend of Mrs. Crouch, a Mr. M'Donnell, proposed to spend some time at Margate...The recollection of this place is indelibly stamped upon my mind by a circumstance which deeply interested us all at the time. A poor girl, an inhabitant of it, by an accident, was deprived of the use of her limbs, and reduced to the greatest distress. Mr. Phillips, the father of Mrs. Crouch, then lived at St. Peters, and took great pains to forward a subscription for the poor sufferer, and drew up a petition to the inhabitants and visitors ; the Honourable Wellesley Pole (now Lord Maryborough) and his lady ; the Honourable Mr. Villiers and his lady (Mrs. Pole's sister), were then at Margate, highly esteemed for their kindness and philanthropy ; and with their usual goodness, they undertook to promote the subscription ; and not only made a liberal donation themselves, but in the public library one evening, when the room was crowded with visitors, they went round to every individual to request their charity for the poor girl, and collected an unexpected sum of money. Mrs. Crouch and I were present; and when it came to our turn to bestow our mite, I said to Mrs. Crouch, that I thought our best donation would be to play a night at the theatre for the girls benefit; and as neither of us had ever been seen on the stage at Margate, and the place was very full, I hoped we should bring her a good receipt. Mrs. Crouch most cheerfully acquiesced, and the night appointed by the manager was the Saturday week : in the course of the next day, the performance was announced, " The Beggar's Opera." Mrs. Crouch, Polly ; myself, Macheath : every place in the house was taken, and the whole pit, one row excepted, railed into boxes.