The Life and Adventures of Mrs. Christian Davies, Commonly Called Mother Ross . . . (1741), PART I: PP. 10–22, 25–32, 36–7, 58–70, 75–7, 80– 4, PART II: PP. 21–8, 35–7, 40–6, 47–51, 58, 59–61, 66–7, 75–93, 98, 101–4.

Christian Davies (1667–1739) was alleged to have enlisted in the British army in male dress and served in the Nine Years War in the 1690s. She then re-enlisted in 1701, fighting in the War of Spanish Succession. Dianne Dugaw’s entry for Christian Davies in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography concludes that many of the publications about her have exaggerated the truth. Biographies of Davies can be found as early as 1739, but The Life and Adventures of Mrs. Christian Davies remains known as the longest treatise. It was attributed to Daniel Defoe until the twentieth century, but its true authorship remains unknown. The level of detail in accounting the battles and conditions of service does at least suggest that the author—if not Christian Davies—drew upon real soldiers’ experiences. As with other military memoirs, there were allusions to the use of a journal on campaign. For example, on page 37 of Part II , Davies writes that she had “in the Journal of the Siege, taken notice of the Number of Mines sprung”.