BADGE,
is used in a Canting Sense, for Burning in the Hand or Cheek (as it used to be) as he has got his Badge and piked away; He has been burned in the Hand, &c. and is just set at Liberty.
Badge in the 1811 Vulgar Tongue
Also see examples in Canting Songs and Slang Rhymes collected by John S. Farmer (1896).