This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Gemma Blythe, Miles Landers, by Daniel Defoe, Section 5. I was reduced very low indeed and was often delirious and lightheaded, but nothing lays so near me as the fear that, when I was lightheaded, I should say something or other to his prejudice. I was distressed in my mind also to see him, and so he was to see me, for he really loved me most passionately, but it could not be. There was not the least room to desire it on one side or other, or so much as to make it decent. It was near five weeks that I kept my bed, and though the violence of my fever abated in three weeks, yet it several times returned, and the physician said two or three times they could do no more for me, but that they must leave nature and the distemper to fight it out, only strengthening the first with cordials to maintain the struggle. After the end of five weeks I grew better, but was so weak, so altered, so melancholy, and recovered so slowly, that their physicians apprehended I should go into a consumption, and which vexed me most, they gave it as their opinion that my mind was oppressed, that something troubled me, and endured, that I was in love. Upon this the whole house was set upon me to examine me, and to press me to tell whether I was in love or not, and with whom, but as I well might I denied my being in love at all. They add on this occasion a squabble one day about me at table, that I'd like to have put the whole family in an uproar, and for some time did so. They happened to be all at table, but the father, as for me, I was ill and in my chamber, at the beginning of the dark, which was just as they had finished their dinner. The old gentlewoman, who had sent me somewhat to eat, called her maid to go up and ask me if I would have any more, but the maid brought downward, I had not eaten half what she had sent me already. Alas, says the old lady, that poor girl, I am afraid she will never be well. Well, says the elder brother, how should Mrs. Betty be well? They say she is in love. I believe nothing of it, says the old gentlewoman. I don't know, says the eldest sister, what to say to it? They have made such a rout about her being so handsome and so charming, and I know not what, and that in her hearing too, that has done the creature's head, I believe, and who knows what possessions may follow such doings? For my part, I don't know what to make of it. My sister, you must acknowledge, she is very handsome, says the elder brother. Ah, and a great deal handsomer than you, sister, says Robin, and that's your mortification. Well, well, that is not the question, says his sister. That girl is well enough, and she knows it well enough. She need not be told of it to make her vain. We are not talking of her being vain, says the elder brother, being in love. It may be she is in love with herself. It seems my sisters think so. I would, she was in love with me, says Robin. I'd quickly put her out of her pain. What do you mean by that, sons, as the old lady? How can you talk so? Why, madam, says Robin again. Very honestly, do you think I'd let the poor girl die for love? End of one that is nearer down to be had to. Five brothers, says the second sister. How can you talk so? Would you take a creature that has not a grout in the world? For the child, says Robin, beauty's apportion, and good humour, with it, is a double portion. I wish thou hadst half her stock of both for thy portion, for there was her mouth stopped. I find, says the elder sister, if Betty is not in love, my brother is. I wonder he has not broke his mind to Betty. I warrant, she won't they know. They that yield when they're asked, says Robin, are one step before them, that were never asked to yield, sister, and two steps before them that yield before they're asked. And that's an answer for you, sister, is via the sister, and she flew into a passion and said things were come to that past, that it was time the wench, meaning me, was out of the family. And but that she was not fit to be turned out, she hoped her father and mother would consider of it as soon as she could be removed. Robin replied that was business for the master and mistress of the family, or not to be taught by one that adds a little judgement as his elder sister. It ran up a great deal, father, was this just golden, Robin rallied and banded, but poor Betty lost ground by it extremely in the family. I heard of it, and I cried heartily, and the old lady came up to me, somebody having told her that I was so much concerned about it. I complained to her that it was very hard that doctors should pass such a censure upon me for which they had no ground and that it was still harder, considering the circumstances I was under in the family, that I hoped her had done nothing to lessen her esteem for me, or given any occasion for the bickering between her sons and daughters. And I had more need to think of a coffin than of being in love, and begged she would not let me suffer in her opinion for anybody's mistakes but my own. She was sensible of the justice of what I said, but told me since there had been such a clamor among them, and that a younger son docked after such a rattling way as he did, she desired I would be so faithful to her as to answer her but one question sincerely. I told her I would, with all my heart, with the utmost plainness and sincerity. Why, then, the question was whether there was anything between her son Robert and me. I told her with all the protestations of sincerity that I was able to make, and as I might well do, that there was not, nor ever had been. I told her that Mr. Robert had rattled and gested as she knew it was his way, and that I dug it always as I supposed he meant it, to be a wild, airy way of discourse that had no signification in it, and again assured her that there was not the least hurdle of what she understood by it between us, and that those who had suggested it had done me a great deal of wrong, and Mr. Robert, no service at all, the old lady was fully satisfied and kissed me, spoke cheerfully to me, and bid me take care of my health and want for nothing, and so took I leave, but when she came down she found the brother and all his sisters together by the ears, they were angry even to passion at his upgrading them with their being only, and having never had any sweet aughts, never having been asked the question, and their being so forward as almost to ask first, he rallied them upon the subject of Mrs. Betty, how pretty, how good-humored, how she sang better than they did, and danced better, and how much handsome her she was, and in doing this he omitted no ill-natured thing that could vex them and indeed pushed too hard upon them, the old lady came down in the eye of it, and to put a stop at two, told them all the discourse he had had with me, and now I answered that there was nothing between Mr. Robert and I. She's wrong there, says Robin, for if there was not a great deal between us we should be closer together than we are. I told her, I loved her hugely, says he, but I could never make the jade believe I was an earnest. I do not know how you should, says his mother. Nobody in their senses could believe you were an earnest to talk so to a poor girl whose circumstances you know so well, but pretty, son, and she, since you tell me that you could not make her believe you were an earnest, what must we believe about it?  But as I find the girl by your own confession, as answered truly, I wish you would do so too, and tell me seriously so that I may depend upon it. Is there anything in it or no? Are you an earnest or no? Are you distracted indeed, or are you not? Tis a weighty question, and I wish you would make us easy about it. By my faith, madam, says Robin, tis in vain to mince the matter, or tell any more lies about it. I am an earnest, as much as a man is that's going to be ang'd. If Mrs. Betty would say she loved me and that she would marry me, I'd have it tomorrow morning fasting and say to have and to hold instead of eating my breakfast. Well, says the mother, then there's one son lost, and she said it in a very mournful tone, as one greatly concerned at it. I hope not, madam, says Robin. No man is lost when a good wife has found him. Why, but child, says the old lady, she is a beggar. Why, then, madam, she has the more need of charity, says Robin. I'll take her off the hands of the parish, and she and I'll beg together. Ah, it's bad jesting with such things, says the mother. I don't jest, madam, says Robin. We'll come and beg your pardon, madam, and your blessing, madam, and my father's. This is all out of the way, son, says the mother. If you aren't honest, you are undone. I am afraid not, says he. For I am really afraid, she won't have me. After all, my sister's huffing and blustering, I believe I shall never be able to persuade her to it. That's a fine tale, indeed. She is not so far out of her senses, neither. Mrs. Betty is no fool, says the younger sister. Do you think she has learned to say no any more than other people? No, Mrs. Merthwit, says Robin. Mrs.  But Mrs. Betty may be engaged some other way, and what then? Nay, says the eldest sister. We can say nothing to that. Who must it be to, then? She is never out of the doors. It must be between you. I have nothing to say to that, says Robin. I have been examined enough. There's my brother. If it must be between us, go to work with him. This done, the elder brother, to the quick, and he concluded that Robin had discovered something. However, he kept himself from appearing disturbed. Prithee, says he, don't go to shame your stories off upon me. I tell you, ideally, no such where. I have nothing to say to Mrs. Betty, nor to any of the Mrs. Betty's in the parish.  No, says the elder sister. I dare answer for my brother. He knows the world better. Thus the discourse ended. But it left the elder brother quite confounded. He concluded his brother had made a full discovery and he began to doubt whether I had been concerned in it or not. But with all his management he could not bring it about to get at me. At last he was so perplexed that he was quite desperate and resolved he would come into my chamber and see me, whatever came of it. In order to do this, he contrived it so one day after dinner, watching his elder sister till he could see her go upstairs. He runs after her. How a key sister says he, where is this thick woman? May not a body see her? Yes, says the sister, I believe you may. But let me go first a little and I'll tell you. So she ran up to the door and gave me notice and presently called to him again. Brother, says she, you may come if you please. So any came just in the same kind of rant. Well, says he at the door as he came in. Where is this sick body that's in love? How do you do, Mrs. Betty? I would have got up out of my chair, but was so weak I could not for a good while. And he saw it. And his sister too, and she said, come, do not strive to stand up. My brother desires no ceremony, especially now you are so weak. No, no, Mrs. Betty pray sits still, says he, and so sits himself down in a chair over against me and appeared as if he were mighty merry. He talked a lot of rambling stuff to his sister and to me, sometimes of one thing, sometimes of another, on purpose to amuse his sister and every now and then would turn it upon the old story, directing it to me. Poor Mrs. Betty, says he, it is a sad thing to be in love. Why, it has reduced you sadly. At last I spoke a little. I am glad to see you so merry, sirs, as I, but I think the doctor might have found something better to do than to make his game at his patients. If I had been ill of no other distemper, I know the proverb too well to have let him come to me. What proverb, says he? Oh, I remember it now. What? Where love is the case, the doctor's and ours. Is not that it, Mrs. Betty? I smiled and said nothing. Nay, says he, I think the effect has proved it to be love. For it seems the doctor has been able to do you but little service. You men very slowly, they say. I doubt there's some what in it. Mrs. Betty, I doubt you are sick of the incurable and that is love. I smiled and said, no indeed, sir, that's none of my distemper. We had a deal of such discourse and sometimes others that signified as little. By and by he asked me to sing them a song at which I smiled and said my singing days were over. At last he asked if he should play up on his flute to me. His sister said she believed it would hurt me and that my head could not bear it. I bowed and said no, it would not hurt me. And pray, madams, that I do not hinder it. I love the music of the flute very much. Then his sister said, well, do then, brother.  Dear sister says he, I am very lazy. Do step to my closet and fetch my flute, it lies in such a draw. Naming a place where he was sure it was not that she might be a little while or looking for it. As soon as he was gone he related the whole story to me of the discourse his brother had about me and of his pushing it at him and his concern about it, which was the reason of his contriving this visit to me. I assured him I had never opened my mouth, either to his brother or to anybody else. I told him the dreadful exigence I was in, that my love to him and his offering to have me forget that affection and remove it to another had thrown me down and that I had a thousand times wished I might die rather than recover and to have the same circumstances to struggle with as I had before and that his backwardness to life had been the great reason of the slowness of my recovering. I added that I foresaw that as soon as I was well I must quit the family and that as for marrying his brother I abhorred the thoughts of it, after what had been my case with him and that he might depend upon it I would never see his brother again upon that subject that if he would break all his vows and oaths and engagements with me be that between his conscience and his honor and himself but he should never be able to say that I whom he had persuaded to call myself his wife and who had given him the liberty to use me as a wife was not as faithful to him as a wife ought to be whatever he might be to me. He was going to reply and had said that he was sorry I could not be persuaded and was going to say more but he heard his sister are coming and so did I and yet I forced out these few words as a reply that I could never be persuaded to love one brother and marry another he shook his head and said then I am ruined meaning himself and that moment his sister entered the room and told him she could not find the flute. Well says he merrily this laziness won't do so he gets up and goes himself to go to look for it but comes back without it too not but that he couldn't have found it but because his mind was a little disturbed and he had no mind to play and besides the errand he sent his sister on was answered another way for he only wanted an opportunity to speak to me which he gained though not much to his satisfaction I had however a great deal of satisfaction and having spoken my mind to him with freedom and with such an honest blameness as I have related and though it did not at all work the way I desired that is to say to apply to the person to me the more yet it took him from all possibility of quitting me but by a downright breach of honor and giving up all the faith of a gentleman to me which he had so often engaged by never to abandon me but to make me his wife as soon as he came to his estate it was not many weeks after this before I was about the house again and began to grow well but I continued melancholy silent dull and retired which amazed the whole family except he that knew the reason of it yet it was a great while before he took any notice of it and I as backward to speak as he carried respectfully to him but never offered to speak a word to him that was particular of any kind whatsoever and this continued for sixteen or seventeen weeks so that as I expected every day to be dismissed the family on account of what distaste they had taken another way in which I had no guilt so I expected to hear no more of this gentleman after all his solemn vows and protestations but to be ruined and abandoned at last I broke the way myself in the family for my removing for being talking seriously with the old lady one day about my own circumstances in the world and how my distemper had left a heaviness upon my spirit that I was not the same thing I was before the old lady said I am afraid Betty what I have said to you about my son has had some influence upon you and that you are melancholy on his account Bray will you let me know how the matter stands with you both if it may not be improper for as for Robin he does nothing but rally and banter when I speak of it to him why truly madam said I that matter stands as I wish it did not and I shall be very sincere with you in it whatever befalls me for it Mr. Robert has several times proposed marriage to me which is what I had no reason to expect my poor circumstances considered but I have always resisted him and that perhaps in terms more positive than became me considering the regard that I ought to have for every branch of your family but said I Madam I could never so far forget my obligation to you and all your house to offer to consent to a thing which I know must needs be disobliging to you and this I have made my argument to him and have positively told him that I would never entertain a thought of that kind unless I had your consent and his father's also to whom I was bound by so many invincible obligations and is this possible Mrs. Betty says the old lady then you have been much juster to us than we have been to you for we have all looked upon you as a kind of snare to my son and I had a proposal to make to you for your removing for fear of it but I had not yet mentioned it to you because I thought you were not thorough well and I was afraid of grieving you too much lest it should throw you down again for we have all the respect for you still though not so much as to have it be the ruin of my son but if it be as you say we have all wronged you very much as to the truth of what I say Madam said I refer you to your son himself if he will do me any justice he must tell you the story just as I have told it he goes the old lady to her daughters and tells them the whole story just as I had told it to her and they were surprised at it you may be sure as I believe they would be one said she could never have thought it another said Robin was a fool a third said she would not believe a word of it and she would warrant that Robin would tell the story another way but the old gentle woman who was resolved to go to the bottom of it before I could have the least opportunity of acquainting her son with what had passed resolved to that she would talk with her son immediately and to that purpose sent for him for he was gone but to a lawyer's house in the down upon some petty business of his own and upon her ascending he returned immediately upon his coming up to them for they were all spilled together sit down Robin's as the old lady I must have some talk with you with all my heart Madam says Robin looking very merry I hope it is about a good wife for I am at a great loss in that affair how can that be says his mother did not you say you resolved to have Mrs. Betty a Madam says Robin but there is one as forbid the bounds forbid the bounds says his mother who can that be even Mrs. Betty herself says Robin how so says his mother have you asked for the question then yes indeed Madam says Robin I have attacked her in form five times since she was sick and I am beaten off the jade is so stout she won't capitulate nor yield upon any terms except such as I cannot effectively grant explain yourselves as the mother for I am surprised I do not understand you I hope you are not in honest why Madam says he the case is plain enough upon me it explains itself she won't have me she says is not that plain enough I think is plain and pretty rough too well but says the mother you talk of conditions that you cannot grant what does she want a settlement her jointure ought to be according to her fortune but what fortune does she bring you nay as to fortune says Robin she is rich enough I am satisfied in that point but is I that I am not able to come up to her terms and she is positive she will not have me without hear the sisters put in Madam says the second sister it is impossible to be serious with him he will never give a direct answer to anything you had better let him alone and talk no more of it to him you know how to dispose of her out of his way if you thought there was anything in it Robin was a little warmed with his sister's rudeness but he was even with her and yet with good manners too there are two sorts of people Madam says he turning to his mother that there is no contending with that is a wise body and a fool it is a little hard I should engage with both of them together the younger sister then put in we must be fools and deeds as she in my brother's opinion that he should think we can believe he has seriously asked Mrs. Betty to marry him and that she has refused him answer and answer not say Solomon replied her brother when your brother had said to your mother that he had asked her no less than five times and that it was so that she positively denied him he thinks the younger sister need not question the truth of it when her mother did not my mother used the did not understand it says the second sister there is some difference as Robin between desiring me to explain it and telling me she did not believe it well but son says the old lady if you are disposed to let us into the mystery of it what were these hard conditions yes madam says Robin I have done it before now if the teasers here had not worried me by way of interruption the conditions are that I bring my father and you to consent to it and without that she protests she will never see me more upon that head and to these conditions as I said I suppose I shall never be able to grant I hope my warm sisters will be answered now and blush a little if not I have no more to say till I hear further this answer was surprising to them all though less to the mother because of what I had said to her as to the daughters they stood mute a great while but the mother said with some passion well I had heard this before but I could not believe it but if it is so I have all done Betty wrong and she had behaved better than I ever expected nay says the elder sister if it be so she has acted handsomely indeed I confess says the mother it was none of her fault if he was fool enough to take a fancy to her but to give such an answer to him shows more respect to your father and me than I can tell how to express I shall value the girl the better for it because I know her but I shall not says Robin unless you will give your consent I'll consider of that a while says the mother I assure you if there were not some other objections in the way this conduct of hers would go a great way to bring me to consent I wish it would go quite through it says Robin if you had as much thought about making me easy as you have about making me rich you would soon consent to it why Robin says the mother again are you really an earnest would you so fain have her as you pretend really madam says Robin I think it's hard you should question me upon that head after all I have said I won't say that I will have her how can I resolve that point when you see I cannot have her without your consent besides I am not bound to marry at all but this I will say I am an earnest in that I will never have anybody else so I can help it so you may determine for me Betty or nobody in the world and the question which of the two shall be in your breast to decide madam provided only that my good humored sisters here may have no vote in it all this was dreadful to me for the mother began to yield and Robin pressed her home on it on the other hand she advised with the eldest son and he used all the arguments in the world to persuade her to consent alleging his brother's passionate love for me and my generous regard to the family in refusing my own advantages upon such a nice point of honor and a thousand such things and as to the father he was a man in a hurry of public affairs and getting money seldom at home thoughtful of the main chance but left all those things to his wife you may easily believe that when the plot was thus as they thought broke out and that everyone thought they knew how things were carried it was not so difficult also dangerous for the elder brother whom nobody suspected of anything to have a freer access to me than before nay the mother which was just as he wished proposed it to him to talk with Mrs. Betty for it may be son said she you may see father into the thing I and see if you think she has been so positive as Robin says she has been or no this was as well as he could wish and he as it were yielding to talk with me at his mother's request she brought me to him into her own chamber told me her son had some business with me at her request and desired me to be very sincere with him and then she left us together and shut the door after her he came back to me and took me in his arms and kissed me very tenderly but told me he had a long discourse to hold with me and it was not come to that crisis that I should make myself happy or miserable as long as I lived that the thing was now gone so far that if I could not comply with his desire we would both be ruined then he told the whole story between Robin and his mother and sisters and himself as it is above and now dear child says he consider what it will be to marry a gentleman of a good family in good circumstances and with the consent of the whole house and to enjoy all that the world can give you and what on the other hand to be sunk into the dark circumstances of a woman that has lost her reputation and that though I shall be your private friend to you while I live yet as I shall be suspected always so you will be afraid to see me and I shall be afraid to own you he gave me no time to reply but went on with me thus what has happened between us child so long as we both agree to do so may be buried and forgotten I shall always be your sincere friend without any inclination to nearer intimacy when you become my sister and we shall have all the honest part of conversation without any reproaches between us of having done a myth I beg of you to consider it and to not stand in the way of your own safety and prosperity and to satisfy you that I am sincere at an E I here offer you 500 pounds in money to make you some amends for the freedoms I have taken with you which we shall look upon through the mysteries of our lives which is hoped we may repent of he spoke this in so much more moving terms than it is possible for me to express and with so much greater force of argument than I can repeat that I only recommend it to those who read the story to suppose that as he held me above an hour and a half in that discourse so he answered all my objections and fortified his discourse with all the arguments that human and art could devise I cannot say however that anything he said made impression enough upon me so as to give me any thought of a matter till he told me at last very plainly that if I refused he was sorry to add that he could never go on with me in that station as we stood before that though he loved me as well as ever and that I was as agreeable to him as ever yet sense of virtue I had not so far forsaken him as to suffer him to lie with a woman that his brother courted to make his wife and if he took his leave of me with a denial in this affair whatever he might do for me in the point of support grounded on his first engagement of maintaining me yet he would not have me be surprised that he was obliged to tell me he could not allow himself to see me anymore and that indeed I could not expect it of him I received this last part of some token of surprise and disorder and had much to do to avoid thinking down for indeed I loved him to an extravagance not easy to imagine but he perceived my disorder he entreated me to consider seriously of it assured me that it was the only way to preserve our mutual affection that in this station we might love his friends with the utmost passion and with the love of relation untainted free from our just reproaches and free from other people's suspicions that he should ever acknowledge his happiness owing to me that he would be debtor to me as long as he lived and would be paying that debt as long as he had breath thus he wrought me up in short to a kind of hesitation in the matter having the dangers on one side represented in lively figures and indeed heightened by my imagination of being turned out to the wide world a mere cast off war for it was no less and perhaps exposed as such with little to provide for myself with no friend, no acquaintance in the whole world out of that town and there I could not pretend to stay all this terrified me to the last degree and he took care upon all occasions to lay at home to me in the worst colors that it could be possible to be drawn in on the other hand he failed not as that forth the easy prosperous life which I was going to live he answered all that I could object from affection and from former engagements with telling me the necessity that was before us of taking other measures now and as to his promises of marriage the nature of things he said had put an end to that by the probability of my being his brother's wife before the time to which his promises all rethought thus in a word I may say he reasoned me out of my reason he conquered all my arguments and I began to see a danger that I was in which I had not considered of before and that was of being dropped by both of them and left alone in the world to shift for myself this and his persuasion at lane prevailed with me to consent though with so much reluctance that it was easy to see I should go to church like a bear to the stake I had some little apprehensions about me too lest my new spouse who by the way I had not the least affection for should be skillful enough to challenge me on another account upon our first coming to bed together and whether he did it with design or not I know not but his elder brother took care to make him very much but old before he went to bed so that I had the satisfaction of a drunken bed fellow the first night how he did it I know not but I concluded that he certainly contrived it that his brother might be able to make no judgment of the difference between a maid and a married woman nor did he ever entertain any notions of it or disturb his thoughts about it I should go back a little here to where I left off the elder brother having thus managed me his next business was to manage his mother and he never left till he had brought her to acquiesce and be passive in the thing even without acquainting the father other than by post letters so that she consented to all marrying privately and leaving her to manage the father afterwards then he could jolt with his brother and persuaded him what service he had done him and how he had brought his mother to consent which though true was not indeed done to serve him but to serve himself but thus diligently did he cheat him and add the thanks of a faithful friend for shifting off his whore into his brother's arms for a wife so certainly does interest banish all manner of affection and so naturally do men give up honor and justice humanity and even Christianity to secure themselves I must now come back to brother Robin as we always called him who having got his mother's consent as above he came big with the news to me and told me the whole story of it with the sincerity so visible that I must confess it grieved me that I must be the instrument to abuse so honest a gentleman but there was no remedy he would have me and I was not obliged to tell him I was his brother's whore though I had no other way to put him off so I came gradually into it to his satisfaction and behold we were married he forbids me to reveal the secrets of the marriage bed but nothing could have happened more suitable to my circumstances than that as above my husband was so fiddled when he came to bed that he could not remember in the morning whether he had had any conversation with me or no and I was obliged to tell him he had though in reality he had not that I might be sure he could make to inquiry about anything else it concerns the historian and very little to enter into the further particulars of the family or of myself for the five years that I lived with this husband only to observe that I had two children by him and that at the end of five years he died he had been really a very good husband to me and we lived very agreeably together but as he had not received much from them and had in the little time he lived acquired no great matters my circumstances were not great nor was I much mended by the match indeed I had preserved the elder brother's bonds to me to pay five hundred pounds which he offered me for my consent to marry his brother and this with what I had saved of the money he formally gave me about as much more by my husband left me a widow with about twelve hundred pounds in my pocket my two children were indeed taken happily off my hands by my husband's father and mother and met by the way was all I got by Mrs. Betty I confess I was not suitably affected with the loss of my husband nor indeed can I say that I ever loved him as I ought to have done or was as proportionable to the good usage I had from him for he was a tender kind good-humored man as any woman could desire but his brother being so always in my sight at least while we were in the country was a continual snare to me and I never was in bed with my husband but I wished myself in the arms of his brother and though his brother never offered me the least kindness that way after our marriage but carried it just as a brother out to do yet it was impossible for me to do so to him in short I committed adultery and incest with him every day in my desires which without doubt was as effectually criminal in the nature of the guilt as if I had actually done it before my husband died his elder brother was married and we being then removed to London were written to by the old lady to come and be at the wedding my husband went but I pretended in disposition and that I could not possibly travel so I stayed behind for in short I could not bear the sight of his being given to another woman though I knew I was never to have him myself I was now as above left loose to the world and being still young and handsome as everybody said of me and I assure you I thought myself so and with a tolerable fortune in my pocket I put no small value upon myself I was courted by several very considerable tradesmen and particularly very warmly by one a linen draper at whose house after my husband's death I took a lodging his sister my acquaintance here I had all the liberty and all the opportunity to be gay and appear in company that I could desire my landlord sister being one of the matters gayest things alive and not so much mistress of a virtue as I thought it's first she had been she brought me into a world of wild company and even brought home several persons such as she liked well enough to gratify to see her pretty widow so she was pleased to call me and that name I got in a little time in public now as fame and fools make an assembly I was here wonderfully caressed had abundance of admirers and such as called themselves lovers but I found not one fair proposal among them as for their common design that I understood too well to be drawn into any more snaz of that kind the case was altered with me I had money in my pocket and had nothing to say to them I had been tricked once by that cheat called love but the game was over I was resolved now to be married or nothing and to be well married or not at all end of section five this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Gem of Life Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe section six I loved the company indeed of men of mirth and wit men of gallantry and figure and was often entertained with such as I was also with others but I found by just observation that the brightest men came upon the dullest errand that is to say the dullest as to what I aimed at on the other hand those who came with the best proposals were the dullest and most disagreeable part of the world I was not averse to a tradesman but then I would have a tradesman for a soothe that was something of a gentleman too that when my husband had a mind to carry me to the court or to the play he might become a sword and look as like a gentleman as another man and not be one that had the mark of his apron strings upon his coat or the mark of his hat upon his periwig that should look as if he was set on to his sword when his sword was put on to him and that carried his trade in his countenance well at last I found this amphibious creature this land water thing called a gentleman tradesman and as a just plague upon my folly I was catched in the very snare which as I might say I laid for myself I said for myself for I was not treponed I confess but I betrayed myself this was a draper too but though my comrade would have brought me to a bargain for a brother yet when it came to the point it was it seems for a mistress not a wife and I kept true to this notion that a woman should never be kept from me to keep herself thus my pride not my principle my money not my virtue kept me honest though as it proved I found I had much better have been sold by my she comrade to a brother than have sold myself as I did to a tradesman that was rake gentleman shopkeeper and beggar all together but I was hurried on by my fancy to the gentleman to ruin myself in the grossest manner that every woman did for my new husband coming to a lump of money at once fell into such a perfusion of expense that all I had and all he had before if he had anything worth mentioning would not have held it out above one year he was very fond of me for about a quarter of a year and what I got by that was that I had the pleasure of seeing a great deal of my money spent upon myself and as I may say had some of the spending it too come my dear says he to me one day shall we go and take a turn into the country for about a week ah my dear says I wither would we go I cannot wither says he but I have a mind to look like quality for a week we'll go to oxford says he how says I shall we go I am no horsewoman and it is too far for a coach too far says he no place is too far for a coach in six if I carry you out you shall travel like a duchess mmm says I my dear but if you have a mind to it I don't care well the time was appointed we had a rich coach very good horses, a coachman and two footmen and very good liveries a gentleman on horseback and a page with a feather on his hat upon another horse the servants all called him my lord and the in-geepers you may be sure did like and I was her honor the countess and thus we traveled to oxford and a very pleasant journey we had for give him his due not a beggar alive knew better how to be a lord than my husband we saw all the rarities at oxford talked with two or three fellows of college about putting out a young nephew that was left to his lordship's care to the university and of there being his tutors we diverted ourselves with pandering several other poor scholars with the hopes of being at least his lordship's chaplains and putting on a scarf and thus having lived like quality indeed as to expense we went away for Northampton and in a word in about twelve days ramble came home again to the tune of about ninety-three pounds expense vanity is the perfection of a pop my husband had this excellence that he valued nothing of expense and as his history you may be sure has very little weight in it it is enough to tell you that in about two years and a quarter he broke and was not so happy to get over into the mint but got into a sponging house being arrested in an action too heavy from him to give bail to so he sent for me to come to him it was no surprise to me for I had foreseen some time that all was going to wreck and had been taking care to reserve something if I could though it was not much for myself but when he sent for me he behaved much better than I expected and told me plainly he had played the fool and suffered himself to be surprised which he might have prevented that now he foresaw he could not stand it and therefore he would have me go home and in the night take away everything I had in the house of any value and secure it and after that he told me that if I could get away one hundred or two hundred pounds in goods out of the shop I should do it only says he let me know nothing of it neither what you take or what you carry it for as for me says he I am resolved to get out of this house and be gone and if you never hear of me more my dear says he I wish you well I am only sorry for the injury I have done you he said some very handsome things to me indeed at parting for I told you he was a gentleman and that was all the benefit I had of his being so that he used me very and with good manners upon all occasions even to the last only spent all I had and left me to rob the creditors for something to subsist on however I did as he bade me that you may be sure and having thus taken my leave of him I never saw him more for he found means to break out of the bailiff's house that night or the next and go over into France and for the rest of the creditors for it as well as they could how I knew not or I could come at no knowledge of anything more than this that he come about three o'clock in the morning cause the rest of his goods to be removed into the mint and the shop to be shut up and having raised what money he could get together he got over as I said to France from whence I had one or two letters from him and no more I did not see him when he came home for he having given me such instructions as above and I having made the best of my time I had no more business back home again at the house not knowing but I might have been stopped there by the creditors for a commission of bankrupt being soon after issued they might have stopped me by orders from the commissioners but my husband having so dexterously got out of the bailiff's house by letting himself down in a most desperate manner he was atop of the house to the top of another building and leaping from thence which was almost two stories and which was enough indeed to have broken his neck he came home and got away his goods before the creditors could come to seize that is to say before they could get out the commission and be ready to send their officers to take possession my husband was so civil to me for still I say that in the first letter he wrote me from France he let me know where he had 20 pieces of fine holland for 30 pounds which were really worth 90 pounds and enclosed me the token and an order for the taking them up paying the money which I did and made in time above 100 pounds of them having leisure to cut them and sell them some and some to private families however with all this and all that I had secured before I found on casting things up my case was very much altered and my fortune much lessened for including the hollands and a parcel of fine muslins which I carried off before and some plate and other things I found I could hardly muster up 500 pounds and my condition was very odd for though I had no child I had had one by a gentleman draper but it was buried yet I was a widow bewitched I had a husband and no husband and I could not pretend to marry again though I knew well enough my husband would never see England anymore he lived 50 years thus I say I was limited from marriage what offer might so ever be made me and I had not one friend to advise with in the condition I was in least not one I just trust the secret of my circumstances too for if the commissioners would have been informed where I was I should have been fetched up and examined upon oath and all I have saved be taken away from me upon these apprehensions the first thing I did was to go quite out of my knowledge and go by another name this I did effectually was a mint too took lodgings in a very private place and called myself Mrs. Flanders here however I concealed myself and though my new acquaintances knew nothing of me yet I soon got a great deal of company about me and whether it be that women are scarce among the sorts of people that generally are to be found there or that some consolations in their miseries of the place are more requisite than on other occasions I soon found an agreeable woman was exceedingly valuable among the sons of Affliction there and that those that wanted money to pay out the ground on the bound to their creditors and that run in debt at the sign of the bull for their dinners would yet find money for a supper if they liked the woman however I get myself safe yet though I began like my Lord Rochester's mistress that loved his company and father to have the scandal of a war without the joy and upon this core tired with the place and indeed with the company too I began to think of removing it was indeed a subject of strange reflection to me to see men who are overwhelmed in perplexed circumstances who are reduced some degrees below being ruined whose families were objects yet while it penny lasted nay even beyond it endeavoring to drown themselves laboring to forget former things which now it was the proper time to remember making more work for repentance and sinning on as a remedy for sin past but it is none of my talent to preach these men were too wicked even for me there was something hard and absurd in their way of sinning for it was all a force even upon themselves they did not only act against conscience but against nature they put a rape upon their temper to drown the reflections which their circumstances continually gave them and nothing was more easy than to see how sighs would interrupt their songs and paleness and anguish sit upon their brows the bite of the force smiles they put on nay sometimes it would break out at their very mouths when they had parted with their money for a lewd treat or a wicked embrace I have heard them turning about fetch a deep sigh and cry what a dog I am well Betty my dear I'll drink thy health though meaning the honest wife that perhaps had not a half crown for herself and three or four children next morning they are at their penitentials again and perhaps the four weeping wife comes over to him either brings him some account of what his creditors are doing or how she and the children are turned out of doors or some other dreadful news and this adds to his self reproaches but when he has thought and poured on it till he is almost mad having no principles to support him nothing within him or above him to comfort him but finding it all darkness on every side he flies to the same relief again to drink it away debauch it away and falling into company of men in just the same condition with himself he repeats the crime and thus he goes every day one step onward of his way to destruction I was not wicked enough for such fellows as these yet on the contrary I began to consider here very seriously what I had to do how things stood with me and what course I ought to take I knew I had no friends no, not one friend or relation in the world and that little I had left apparently wasted which when it was gone I saw nothing but misery and starving was before me upon these considerations I say and filled with horror at the place I was in all objects which I had always before me I resolved to be gone I had made an acquaintance for the very sober good sort of a woman who was a widow too, like me but in better circumstances her husband had been a captain of a merchant ship and having had them misfortune to be cast away coming home on a voyage from the West Indies which would have been very profitable if he had come safe so reduced by the loss that though he had saved his life then it broke his heart and killed him afterwards and his widow being pursued by the creditors was forced to take shelter in the Mint she soon made things up with the help of friends and was at liberty again and finding that I rather was there to be concealed than by any particular prosecutions and finding also that I agreed with her or rather she with me in a just abhorrence of the place and of the company she invited me to go home with her till I could put myself in some posture of settling in the world in my mind with all telling me that it was tend to one but some good captain of a ship I take a fancy to me and caught me in that part of the town where she lived I accepted her offer and was with her half a year and should have been longer that interval which she proposed to me happened to herself and she married very much to her advantage but whose fortune so ever was upon the increase mine seemed to be upon the wane and I found nothing present except two or three boatson or such fellows as for the commanders there were generally of two sorts one such as having good business that is to say a good ship not to marry but with advantage that is with a good fortune too such as being out of employ wanted a wife to help them to a ship I mean a wife who having some money could enable them to hold as they call it a good part of a ship themselves so to encourage owners to come in or a wife who if she had not money had friends who were concerned in shipping and so could help to put the young man into a good ship which to them is as good as a portion and neither of these was my gaze so I looked like one that was to lie on hand this knowledge I soon learned by experience that the state of things was altered as to matrimony and that I was not to expect at London what I had found in the country that marriages were here the consequences of politic schemes performing interests in business and that love had no share or but very little in the matter that as my sister-in-law in Colchester had said beauty, wit, manners sense, good humour, good behaviour education, virtue piety or any other qualification whether of body or mind had no power to recommend that money only made a woman agreeable to show mistresses indeed by the gust of their affection and it was requisite to a whore to be handsome, well-shaped have a good mien and a graceful behaviour but that for a wife no deformity would shock the fancy no ill qualities, the judgement the money was the thing the portion was neither crooked nor monstrous but the money was always agreeable whatever the wife was on the other hand as the market ran very unhappily on the men's side I found the woman had lost the privilege of saying no that it was a favour now for a woman to have the question asked and if any young lady had so much arrogance as to counterfeit a negative she never had the opportunity given her denying twice much less of recovering that false depth and accepting what she had but seemed to decline the men had such choice everywhere that the case of the women was very unhappy for they seemed to ply at every door and if the man was by great chance refused at one house he was sure to be recieved at the next besides this I observed that the men made no scruple to set themselves out and to go of fortune-hunting as they called it when they really had no fortune themselves to demand it or merit to deserve it and that they carried it so high that a woman was scarce allowed to inquire after the character or a state of the person that pretended to her this I had an example of in a young lady in the next house to me and with whom I had contracted an intimacy two thousand pounds to a fortune she did but inquire of some of his neighbors about his character his morals or substance and he took occasion at the next visit to let her know truly that he took it very ill and that he should not give her the trouble of his visits anymore I heard of it and I had begun my acquaintance with her I went to see her upon it she entered into a close conversation with me about it and bosomed herself very freely I perceived presently that though she thought herself very ill-used yet she had no power to resent it and was exceedingly peaked that she had lost him and particularly that another of less fortune had gained him I fortified her mind against such meanness as I called it I dealt her that as low as I was in the world I would have despised a man that should think I ought to take him upon his own recommendation only without having the liberty to inform myself of his fortune or of his character also I told her that as she had a good fortune she had no need to stoop to the disaster of the time that it was enough that the men could insult us that had but little money to recommend us but if she suffered such an affront to pass upon her without resenting it she would be rendered low-priced upon all occasions and would be the contempt of all the women in that part of the town that a woman could never want an opportunity to be revenged of a man that has used her ill and that there were ways enough to humble such a fellow as that for else certainly women were the most unhappy creatures in the world I found that she was very well pleased with the discourse very seriously that she would be very glad to make him sensible of her just resentment and either to bring him on again or the satisfaction of her revenge being as public as possible I told her that if she would take my advice I would tell her how she should obtain her wishes in both those things and that I would bring the man to her door again and make him beg to be let in she smiled at that and let me see that if he came to her door her resentment was not so great as to give her leave to let him stand long there however she listened very willingly to my offer of advice so I told her that the first thing she ought to do was a piece of justice to herself namely that whereas she had been told by several people that he had reported after and pretended to give the advantage of the negative to himself she should take care to have it well spread among the women which she could not fail of an opportunity to do in a neighborhood so addicted to family news is that she lived in that she had inquired into his circumstances and found he was not the man as to a state he pretended to be let them be told madam said I that you had been well informed that he was not the man that you expected and that you thought he was not safe to meddle with him that you heard he was of an ill temper and that he boasted how he had used the women ill upon many occasions and that particularly he was debauched in his morals etc the last of which indeed had some truth in it at that time I did not find that she seemed to like him much the worse for that part as I had put this into her head she came most readily into it immediately she went to work to find instruments and she had very little difficulty in the search for telling her story in general to a couple of gossips in the neighborhood it was the chat of the tea table all over that part of the town and I met with it wherever I visited also I was acquainted with the young lady herself my opinion was asked very often and I confirmed it with all the necessary aggravations and set out his character in the blackest colors and then as a piece of secret intelligence I added as what the other gossips knew nothing of that I had learned he was in very bad circumstances that he was under a necessity of a fortune to support his interest with the owners of the ship he commanded that his own part was not paid for and if it was not paid quickly his owners would put him out of the ship and his chief mate was likely to command it who offered to buy that part which the captain had promised to take I added for I confess I was heartily piqued at the rogue as I called him that he had a wife alive at Plymouth and another in the West Indies a thing which they all knew was not very uncommon for such kind of gentlemen this worked as we both desired it for presently the young lady next door who had a father and mother that governed both her and her fortune was shut up and her father forbid him the house also in one place more where he went the woman had the courage or strange it was to say no and he could try nowhere but he was reproached with his bride and that he pretended not to give the women leave to inquire into his character and the like well, by this time he began to be sensible of his mistake and having alarmed all the women on that side of the water he went over to Ratcliffe and got access to some of the ladies there but though the young women there too were according to the fate of the day pretty willing to be asked yet such was his ill luck that his character followed him over the water and his good name was much the same there as it was on our side so that though he might have had wives enough yet it did not happen among the women that had good fortunes which was what he wanted but this was not all she very ingeniously managed for she got a young gentleman who as a relation and was indeed a married man to come and visit her two or three times a week in a very fine chariot and good liveries and her two agents and I also presently spread a report all over that this gentleman came to court her that he was a gentleman of a thousand pounds a year and that he had fallen in love with her and that she was going to her aunts in the city because it was inconvenient for the gentleman to come to her with his coach in Redriff the streets being so narrow and difficult this took immediately the captain was laughed at in all companies and was ready to hang himself he tried all the ways possible to come at her again and wrote the most passionate letters to her in the world excusing his former rashness and in short by great application obtain leave to wait on her again as he said to clear his reputation at this meeting she had her full revenge of him for she told him she wondered what he took her to be that she should admit any man to a treaty of so much consequence as that to marriage without inquiring very well into his circumstances that if he thought she was to be huffed into wedlock in the same circumstances which her neighbors might be in to take up with the first put Christian that came he was mistaken that in a word his character was really bad or he was very ill beholden to his neighbors and that unless he could clear up some points in which she had just leave and prejudiced she had no more to say to him but to do herself justice and give him the satisfaction that she was not afraid to say no either to him or any man else with that she told him what she had had or rather raised herself by my means of his character his not having paid for the part he pretended to own of the ship he commanded of the resolution of his owners to put him out of the command and to put his mate in his stead a scandal raised on his morals his having been reproached with such and such women and having a wife at Plymouth and in the West Indies and the like and she asked him whether he could deny that she had good reason if these things were not cleared up to refuse him and in the meantime to insist upon having satisfaction and points to significant as they were he was so confounded at her discourse that he could not answer a word and she almost began to believe that all was true by his disorder though at the same time she knew that she had been the razor of all these reports herself after some time he recovered himself a little and from that time became the most humble, the most modest and most important man alive in his courtship married her just on a great way she asked him if he thought she was so at her last shift that she could or ought to bear such treatment and if he did not see that she did not want those who thought it worth their while to come farther to her than he did meaning the gentleman whom she had brought to visit her by way of a sham she brought him by these tricks to submit to all possible measures to satisfy her as well of his circumstances as of his behavior he brought her undeniable evidence of his having paid for his part of the ship he brought her certificates from his owners that the report of their intending to remove him from the command of the ship and put his chief mate in was false and groundless in short he was quite the reverse of what he was before thus convinced her that if the men made their advantage of our sex in the affair of marriage upon the supposition of their being such choice to be add and of the women being so easy it was only owing to this that the women wanted courage to maintain their ground and to play their part and that according to my lord Rochester a woman's nearer so ruined that she can revenge herself on her undue man after these things this young lady played her part so well that though she resolved to have him and that indeed having him was the main bent of her design yet she made his obtaining her be to him the most difficult thing in the world and this she did not by a haughty reserved carriage but by a just policy turning the tables upon him and playing back upon him his own game for as he pretended by a kind of lofty garage to place himself above the occasion of a character and to make inquiring into his character kind of an affront to him she broke with him upon that subject and at the same time that she made him submit to all possible inquiry after his affairs she apparently shut the door against her own it was enough to him to obtain her for a wife as to what she had she told him plainly that as he knew her circumstances it was but just that she should know his and though at the same time he had only known her circumstances by common fame yet he had made so many protestations of his passion for her that he could ask no more and the like ramble according to the custom of lovers in short he left himself no room to ask any more questions about her estate and she took the advantage of it like a prudent woman for she placed part of her fortune so in trustees without letting him know anything of it that it was quite out of his reach and made him be very well content with the rest she was pretty well besides that is to say she had about fourteen hundred pounds in money which she gave him and the other after some time she brought to light as a prerequisite to herself which he was to accept as a mighty favor seeing though it was not to be his it might ease him in the article of her particular expenses and I must add that by this conduct the gentleman himself became not only the more humble in his applications to her to obtain her but also was much the more an obliging husband to her when he had her I cannot but remind the ladies here how much they place themselves below the common station of a wife which, if I may be allowed not to be partial is low enough already I say to myself below their common station and prepare their own mortifications by their submitting so to be insulted by the men before and which I confess I see no necessity of this relation may serve therefore to let the ladies see that the advantage is not so much on the other side as the men think it is and though it may be true that the men have but too much trust among us and that some women may be found who will dishonor themselves be cheap and easy to come at and will scarce wait to be asked yet if they will have women as I may say worth having they may find them as uncomfortable as ever and that those that are otherwise are a sort of people that have such deficiencies when add as rather recommend the ladies who are difficult then encourage the men to go on with their easy courtship and expect wives equally valuable that will come at first call nothing is more certain than that the ladies always gain of the men by keeping their ground and letting their pretended lovers see they can resent being slighted and that they are not afraid of saying no they I observe insult us readily with telling us of the number of women that the wars and the sea and trade and other incidents have carried the men so much away that there is no proportion between the numbers of the sexes and therefore the women have the disadvantage but I am far from granting that the number of women is so great or the number of men so small but if they will have me tell the truth the disadvantage of the women is a terrible scandal upon the men and it lies here and here only namely that the age is so wicked and the sex so debauched that in short the number of such men as an honest woman ought to meddle with is small indeed and it is but here and there that a man is to be found who has fit for a woman to venture upon but the consequence even of that too amounts to no more than this that women ought to be the more nice for how do we know the just character of the man that makes the offer to say that the woman should be the more easy on this occasion is to say we should be the forder to venture because of the greatness of the danger which in my way of reasoning is very absurd the women have ten thousand times the more reason to be wary and backward by how much the hazard of being betrayed is the greater and would the ladies consider this an act the wary part they would discover every cheap that offered for in short the lives of very few men nowadays will bear a character and if the ladies do but make a little inquiry they will soon be able to distinguish men and deliver themselves as for women that do not think their own safety worth their thought that impatient of their perfect state resolve as they call it to take the first good Christian that comes that run into matrimony as a horse rushes into the battle I can say nothing to them but this that they are the sort of ladies that ought to be prayed for among the rest of distempered people and to me they look like people that venture their whole estates in a lottery where there is a hundred thousand blanks to one prize no man of common sense will value a woman the less for not giving up herself at the first attack over accepting his proposal without inquiring into his person or character on the contrary he must think her the weakest of all creatures in the world as the rate of men now goes in short he must have a very contemptible opinion of her capacities nay every of her understanding that having but one case of her life she'll call that life away at once and make matrimony like death be a leap into the dark I would feign have the conduct of my sex a little regulated in this particular which is a thing in which of all the parts of life I think at this time we suffer most in just nothing but lack of courage the fear of not being married at all and of that frightful state of life called an old maid of which I have a story to tell by itself this I say is the woman's snare but with the ladies once but get above that fear and manage rightly they would more certainly avoid it by standing their ground in a case so absolutely necessary to their felicity that by exposing themselves as they do and if they did not marry so soon as they may do otherwise they would make themselves amends by marrying safer she is always married too soon who gets a bad husband and she is never married too late who gets a good one in a word there is no woman deformity or lost reputation accepted but if she manages well maybe married safely one time or other but if she precipitates herself it is ten thousand to one but she is undone end of section six a LibriVox recording are in the public domain and for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Kristen Luoma greenkri.com Maul Flanders by Daniel Defoe section seven but I come now to my own case in which there was at this time no little night the circumstances I was in made the offer of a good husband the most necessary thing in the world to me but I found soon that to be made cheap and easy was not the way it soon began to be found that the widow had no fortune and to say this was to say all that was ill of me for I began to be dropped in all the discourses of matrimony being well bred handsome witty modest and agreeable all which I had allowed to my character whether justly or no is not the purpose I say all these would not do without the dross which way now become more valuable than virtue itself in short the widow they said had no money I resolved therefore as to the state of my present circumstances that it was absolutely necessary to change my station and make a new appearance in some other place where I was not known and even to pass by another name if I found occasion I communicated my thoughts to my intimate friend the captain's lady whom I had so faithfully served in her case with the captain and who was as ready to serve me in the same kind as I could desire I made no scruple to lay my circumstances open to her my stock was but low I had about 540 pounds at the close of my last affair and I had wasted some of that however I had about 460 pounds left a great many very rich clothes a gold watch and some jewels though of no extraordinary value and about 30 or 40 pounds left in linen not disposed of my dear and faithful friend the captain's wife was so sensible of the service I had done her in the affair above that she was not only a steady friend to me but knowing my circumstances she frequently made me presents as money came into her hands such as fully amounted to a maintenance so that I spent none of my own and at last she made this unhappy proposal to me vis that as we had observed as above how the men made no scruple to set themselves out as persons meriting a woman of fortune when they had really no fortune of their own but it was just to deal with them in their own way and if it was possible to deceive the deceiver the captain's lady in short put this project into my head and told me if I would be ruled by her I should certainly get a husband of fortune without leaving him any room to reproach me with want of my own I told her as I had reason to do that I would give up myself wholly to her directions and that I would have neither tongue nor speak nor feet to step in that affair but as she should direct me depending that she would extricate me out of every difficulty she brought me into which she said she would answer for the first step she put me upon was to call her cousin and go to a relations house of hers in the country where she directed me and where she brought her husband to visit me and calling me cousin she worked matters so about that her husband and she together invited me most passionately to come to town and be with them for they now live in a quite different place from where they were before in the next place she tells her husband that I had at least fifteen hundred pounds fortune and that after some of my relations I was like to have a great deal more it was enough to tell her husband this there needed nothing on my side I was about to sit still and wait the event for it presently went all over the neighbourhood young widow at captain something or others was a fortune that she had at least fifteen hundred pounds and perhaps a great deal more and that the captain said so and if the captain was asked at any time about me he made no scruple to affirm it though he knew not one word of the matter other than that his wife had told him so and in this he thought no harm for he really believed it to be so because he had it from his wife so slender a foundation will those fellows build upon if they do but think there is a fortune in the game with the reputation of this fortune I presently found myself blessed with admirers enough and that I had my choice of men as scarce as they said they were which by the way confirms what I was saying before this being my case I who had a subtle game to play had nothing now to do but to single out from them all the properest man that might be for my purpose that is to say the man who was most likely to depend upon the hearsay of a fortune and not inquire too far into the particulars and unless I did this I did nothing for my case would not bear much inquiry I picked out my man with much difficulty by the judgment I made of his way of courting me if I had let him run on with his protestations and oaths that he loved me above all the world that if I would make him happy that was enough all which I knew was upon supposition nay it was upon a full satisfaction that I was very rich though I never told him a word of it myself this was my man but I was to try him to the bottom and indeed in that consisted my safety for if he balked I knew I was undone he took me and if I did not make some scruple about his fortune it was the way to lead him to raise some about mine and first therefore I pretended on all occasions to doubt his sincerity and told him perhaps he only courted me for my fortune he stopped my mouth in that part with the thunder of his protestations as above but I still pretended to doubt one morning he pulls off his diamond ring and writes upon the glass of the sash in my chamber this line you I love and you alone I read it and asked him to lend me his ring with which I wrote under it thus and so in love says everyone he takes his ring again and writes another line thus virtue alone is an estate I borrowed it again and I wrote under it but money's virtue gold is fate he colored as red as fire to see me turn so quick upon him and in a kind of rage he told me he would conquer me and writes again thus I scorn your gold and yet I love I ventured all upon the last case of poetry as you'll see for I wrote boldly under his last I'm poor let's see how kind you'll prove this was a sad truth to me whether he believed me or no I could not tell I suppose then that he did not however he flew to me took me in his arms and kissing me very eagerly and with the greatest passion imaginable he held me fast till he called for a pen and ink and then told me he could not wait the tedious writing on the glass but pulling out a piece of paper again be mine with all your poverty I took his pen and followed him immediately thus yet secretly you hope I lie he told me that was unkind because it was not just and that I put upon him contradicting me which did not consist with good manners any more than with his affection and therefore since I had immensely drawn him into this poetical scribble I would not oblige him to break it off so he writes again let love alone be our debate I wrote again she loves enough that does not hate this he took for a favour and so laid down the cudgels that is to say the pen I say he took it for a favour and a mighty one it was if he had known all however he took it as I meant it that is to let him think I was inclined to go on with him as indeed I had all the reason in the world to do for he was the best humoured merry sort of fellow that I ever met with and I often reflected on myself how doubly criminal it was to deceive such a man but that necessity which pressed me to a settlement suitable to my condition was my authority for it and certainly his affection to me and the goodness of his temper however they might argue against using him ill yet they strongly argued to me that he would better take the disappointment than some fiery tempered wretch who might have nothing to recommend him but those passions which would serve only to make a woman miserable all her days besides though I gested with him as he supposed it so often about my poverty yet when he found it to be true he had foreclosed all manner of objection seeing whether he was in jest or in earnest he had declared he took me without any regard to my portion and whether I was in jest or in earnest I had declared myself to be very poor so that in a word I had him fast both ways and though he might say afterwards he was cheated yet he could never say that I had cheated him he pursued me close after this and I saw there was no need to fear losing him I played the indifferent part with him longer than prudence might otherwise have dictated to me but I considered how much this caution and indifference would give me the advantage over him when I should come to be under the necessity of owning my own circumstances to him and I managed it the more warily because I found he inferred from thence as indeed he ought to do and I either had the more money or the more judgment and would not venture at all I took the freedom one day after we had talked pretty close to the subject to tell him that it was true I had received the compliment of a lover from him namely that he would take me without inquiring into my fortune and I would make him a suitable return in this vis that I would make a little inquiry into his as consisted with reason but I hoped he would allow me to ask a few questions which he would answer or not as he thought fit and that I would not be offended if he did not answer me at all one of these questions related to our manner of living and the place where because I had heard he had a great plantation in Virginia and that he had talked of going to live there and I told him I did not care to be transported he began from this discourse to let me voluntarily into all his affairs and to tell me in a frank open way all his circumstances by which I found he was very well to pass in the world but that great part of his estate consisted of three plantations which he had in Virginia which brought him in very good income generally speaking to the tune of 300 pounds a year but that if he was to live upon them would bring him in four times as much very well thought I you shall carry me thither as soon as you please though I won't tell you so beforehand I gested with him extremely about the figure he would make in Virginia but I found he would do anything I desired though he did not seem glad to have me undervalue his plantations so I turned my tail I told him I had good reason not to go there to live because if his plantations were worth so much there I had not a fortune suitable to a gentleman of 1200 pounds a year as he said his estate would be he replied generously he did not ask what my fortune was he had told me from the beginning he would not and he would be as good as his word but whatever it was he assured me he would never desire me to go to Virginia with him or go thither himself without me unless I was perfectly willing he made it my choice all this you may be sure was as I wished and indeed nothing could have happened more perfectly agreeable I carried it on as far as this with a sort of indifference that he often wondered at more than at first but which was the only support of his courtship and I mention it the rather to intimate again to the ladies that nothing but want of courage for such an indifference makes our sex so cheap and prepares them to be ill-used as they are would they venture the loss of a pretending fob now and then who carries it high upon the point of his own merit they would certainly be less slighted and courted more had I discovered really and truly what my great fortune was and that in all I had not full 500 pounds when he expected 1500 pounds yet I had hooked him so fast and played him so long that I was satisfied he would have had me in my worst circumstances and indeed it was less a surprise to him when he learned the truth than it would have been because having not the least blame to lay on me who had carried it with an air of indifference to the last he would not say one word except that indeed he thought it had been more but that if it had been less he did not repent his bargain only that he should not be able to maintain me so well as he intended in short we were married and very happily married on my side I assure you as to the man for he was the best humoured man that every woman had but his circumstances were not so good as I imagined as on the other hand he had not bettered himself by marrying so much as he expected when we were married I was shrewdly put to it by him that little stock I had and to let him see it was no more but there was a necessity for it so I took my opportunity one day when we were alone to enter into a short dialogue with him about it my dear said I we have been married a fortnight is it not time to let you know whether you have got a wife with something or with nothing your own time for that my dear says he that I have got the wife I love I have not troubled you much says he with my inquiry after it that's true says I but I have a great difficulty upon me about it which I scarce know how to manage what's that my dear says he why says I it is a little hard upon me and it is harder upon you I am told that Captain something or other meaning my friend's husband has told you I had a great deal more money than I ever pretended to have and I am sure I never employed him to do so well says he Captain something or other may have told me so but what then if you have not so much that may lie at his door but you never told me what you had so I have no reason to blame you you have nothing at all that's is so just said I and so generous that it makes my having but a little a double affliction to me the less you have my dear says he the worse for us both but I hope your affliction you speak of is not caused for fear I should be unkind to you for want of a portion no no if you have nothing tell me plainly and at once I may perhaps tell the Captain say you have cheated me for did you not give it under your hand that you were poor and so I ought to expect you to be well said I my dear I am glad I have not been concerned in deceiving you before marriage if I deceive you since it is near the worse that I am poor is too true but not so poor as to have nothing neither so I pulled out some bank bills and gave him about 160 pounds there's something my dear said I and not quite all neither I had brought him so near to expecting nothing by what I had said before that the money though the sum was small in itself was doubly welcome to him he owned it was more than he looked for and that he did not question by my discourse to him but that my fine clothes gold watch and a diamond ring or two had been all my fortune I let him please himself with that 160 pounds two or three days and then having been abroad that day and as if I had been to fetch it I brought him 100 pounds more home in gold and told him there was a little more portion for him and in short in about a week more I brought him 180 pounds more and about 60 pounds in linen which I made him believe I had been obliged to take with the 100 pounds which I gave him in gold as a composition for a debt of 600 pounds being little more than five shillings in the pound and overvalued too and now my dear says I to him I am very sorry to tell you that there is all that I have given you my whole fortune I added that if the person who had my 600 pounds has not abused me I had been worth a thousand pounds to him but that as it was I had been faithful to him and reserved nothing to myself but if it had been more he should have had it he was so obliged by the manner and so pleased with the sum for he had been in a terrible fright lest it had been nothing at all that he accepted it very thankfully and thus I got over the fraud of passing for a fortune without money and cheating a man into marrying me for a fortune which by the way I take to be one of the most dangerous steps a woman can take and in which she runs the most hazard of being ill-used afterwards my husband to give him his due was a man of infinite good nature but he was no fool and finding his income not suited to the manner of living which he had intended if I had brought him what he expected and being under a disappointment in his return of his plantations in Virginia he discovered many times his inclination of going over to Virginia to live upon his own and often would be magnifying the way of living there how cheap, how plentiful how pleasant and the like I began presently to understand this meaning and I took him up very plainly one morning and told him that I did so that I found his estate turned to no account at this distance compared to what it would do he lived upon the spot and that I found he had a mind to go and live there and I added that I was sensible he had been disappointed in a wife and that finding his expectations not answered that way I could do no less to make him amends than tell him that I was very willing to go over to Virginia with him and live there he said a thousand kind things to me upon the subject of my making such a proposal to him he was disappointed in his expectations of a fortune he was not disappointed in a wife and that I was all to him that a wife could be and he was more than satisfied on the whole when the particulars were put together but that this offer was so kind that it was more than he could express to bring the story short we agreed to go he told me that he had a very good house there that it was well furnished that his mother was alive and lived in it and one sister which was all the relations he had that as soon as he came there his mother would remove to another house which was her own for life and his after her deceased so that I should have all the house to myself and I found all this to be exactly as he had said to make this part of the story short we put on board the ship which we went in a large quantity of good furniture for our house with stores of linen and other necessaries and a good cargo for sail and a way we went to give an account of the manner of our voyage which was long and full of dangers is out of my way I kept no journal neither did my husband all that I can say is that after a terrible passage frighted twice with dreadful storms and once with what was still more terrible I mean a pirate who came on board and took away almost all our provisions and which would have been beyond all to me they had once taken my husband to go along with them but by entreaties were prevailed with to leave him I say after all these terrible things we arrived in York River in Virginia and coming to our plantation we were received with all the demonstrations of tenderness and affection by my husband's mother that were possible to be expressed we lived here all together my mother-in-law at my entreaty continuing in the house for she was too kind a mother to be parted with my husband likewise continued the same as at first and I thought myself the happiest creature alive when an odd and surprising event put an end to all that felicity in a moment and rendered my condition the most uncomfortable if not the most miserable in the world my mother was a mighty cheerful good humored old woman I may call her old woman for her son was above thirty I say she was very pleasant good company and used to entertain me in particular with abundance of stories to divert me as well as of the country we were in as of the people among the rest she often told me how the greatest part of the inhabitants of the colony came thither in very indifferent circumstances from England that generally speaking they were of two sorts either first such as were brought over by masters of ships to be sold as servants such as we call them my dear says she but they are more properly called slaves or secondly such as are transported from Newgate and other prisons after having been found guilty of felony and other crimes punishable with death when they come here says she we make no difference the planters buy them and they work together in the field till their time is out when tis expired said she they have encouragement given them to plant for themselves for they have a certain number of acres of land allotted them by the country and they go to their work to clear and cure the land and then to plant it with tobacco and corn for their own use and as the tradesmen the merchants will trust them with tools and clothes and other necessaries upon the credit of their crop before it is grown so they again plant every year a little more than the year before and so buy whatever they want with the crop that is before them hence child says she a man a Newgate bird becomes a great man and we have continued she several justices of the peace officers of the trained bands and magistrates of the towns they live in that have been burnt in the hand she was going on with that part of the story when her own part in it interrupted her and with a great deal of good humor confidence she told me she was one of the second sort of inhabitants herself that she came away openly having ventured too far in a particular case so that she would become a criminal and here's the mark of it child says she and pulling off her glove looky here says she turning up the palm of her hand and showed me a very fine white arm and hand but branded in the inside of the hand as in such cases it must be this story was very moving to me but my mother smiling said you need not think a strange daughter for as I told you some of the best men in this country were burnt in the hand and they are not ashamed to own it there's major so and so says she he was an imminent pickpocket there's justice by mister there's justice by something or was a shoplifter and both of them were burnt in the hand and I could name you several such as they are we had frequent discourses of this kind and abundance of instances she gave me of the like after some time as she was telling some stories of one that was transported but a few weeks ago I began in an intimate kind of way to ask her to tell me something of her own story which she did with the utmost plainness and sincerity how she had fallen into very ill company in London in her young days occasioned by her mother sending her frequently to carry victuals and other relief to a kinswoman of hers who was a prisoner in Newgate in a miserable starving condition was afterwards condemned to be hanged but having got respite by pleading her belly dies afterwards in the prison here my mother-in-law ran out in a long account of the wicked practices in that dreadful place and how it ruined more young people that all the town besides and child says my mother perhaps you may know little of it may be have heard nothing about it but depend upon it says she we all know here that there are more thieves and rogues made by that one prison of Newgate than by all the clubs and societies of villains in the nation tis that cursed place says my mother that half people this colony here she went on with her own story so long and in so particular a manner that I began to be very uneasy but coming to one particular that required telling her name I thought I should have sunk down in the place she perceived I was out of order and asked me if I was not well and what ailed me I told her I was so affected with the melancholy story she had told and the terrible things she had gone through that it had overcome me and I begged her to talk no more of it why my dear she says very kindly what need these things trouble you these passages were long before your time and they give me no trouble at all now nay I look back on them with a particular satisfaction as they have been a means to bring me to this place then she went on to tell me how she very luckily fell into a good family where behaving herself well and her mistress dying married her by whom she had my husband and his sister and that by her diligence and good management after her husband's death she had improved the plantations to such a degree as they then were so that most of the estate was of her getting not her husband's for she had been a widow upwards of sixteen years I heard this part of the story with very little attention because I wanted much to retire and give then to my passions and let anyone judge what must be the anguish of my mind when I came to reflect that this was certainly no more or less than my own mother and I had now had two children and was big with another by my own brother and lay with him still every night end of section seven