Two hundred sempstresses were employed to make me shirts,
and linen for my bed and table, all of the strongest and coarsest kind
they could get; which, however, they were forced to quilt together in
several folds, for the thickest was some degrees finer than lawn. Their
linen is usually three inches wide, and three feet make a piece.
The sempstresses took my measure as I lay on the ground, one standing at
my neck, and another at my mid-leg, with a strong cord extended that
each held by the end, while a third measured the length of the cord with
a rule of an inch long. Then they measured my right thumb, and desired
no more; for, by a mathematical computation, that twice round the thumb
is once round the wrist, and so on to the neck and the waist, and by the
help of my old shirt, which I displayed on the ground before them for a
pattern, they fitted me exactly. Three hundred tailors were employed in
the same manner to make me clothes; but they had another contrivance for
taking my measure. I kneeled down, and they raised a ladder from the
ground to my neck; upon this ladder one of them mounted, and let fall a
plumb-line from my collar to the floor, which just answered the length
of my coat; but my waist and arms I measured myself. When my clothes
were finished, which was done in my house (for the largest of theirs
would not have been able to hold them), they looked like the patchwork
made by the ladies in England, only that mine were all of a color.
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