For example, I will now take a man in the meanest circumstances of a

servant, who has served out his five or seven years; suppose a

transported wretch for seven years. The custom of the place was

then—what it is since I know not—that on his master’s certifying that

he had served his time out faithfully, he had fifty acres of land

allotted him for planting, and on this plan he begins.

Some had a horse, a cow, and three hogs given, or rather lent, them, as

a stock for the land, which they made an allowance for at a certain

time and rate.

Custom has made it a trade to give credit to such beginners as these

for tools, clothes, nails, ironwork, and other things necessary for

their planting, and which the persons so giving credit to them are to

be paid for out of the crop of tobacco which they shall plant. Nor is

it in the debtor’s power to defraud the creditor of payment in that

manner; and as tobacco is their coin as well as their product, so all

things are to be purchased at a certain quantity of tobacco, the price

being so rated.

Thus the naked planter has credit at his beginning, and immediately

goes to work to cure the land and plant tobacco; and from this little

beginning have some of the most considerable planters in Virginia, and

in Maryland also, raised themselves—namely, from being without a hat or

a shoe to estates of £40,000 or £50,000; and in this method, I may add,

no diligent man ever miscarried, if he had health to work and was a

good husband; for he every year increases a little, and every year

adding more land and planting more tobacco, which is real money, he

must gradually increase in substance, till at length he gets enough to

buy negroes and other servants, and then never works himself any more.

In a word, every Newgate wretch, every desperate forlorn creature, the

most despicable ruined man in the world, has here a fair opportunity

put into his hands to begin the world again, and that upon a foot of

certain gain and in a method exactly honest, with a reputation that

nothing past will have any effect upon; and innumerable people have

raised themselves from the worst circumstances in the world—namely,

from the cells in Newgate.

But I return to my own story. I was now a planter, and encouraged by a

kind benefactor; for, that I might not be wholly taken up with my new

plantation, he gave me freely, and without any consideration, my

grateful negro, Mouchat. He told me it was a debt due to the affection

that poor creature had always had for me; and so indeed it was, for as

the fellow would once have been hanged for me, so now, and to his last,

he loved me so much that it was apparent he did everything with

pleasure that he did for me; and he was so overcome of joy when he

heard that he was to be my negro that the people in the plantation

really thought it would turn his head, and that the fellow would go

distracted.

Besides this, he sent me two servants more, a man and a woman, but

these he put to my account, as above. Mouchat and these two fell

immediately to work for me, and they began with about two acres of land

which had but little timber on it at first, and most of that was cut

down by the two carpenters who built my house, or shed rather, for so

it should be called.

These two acres I got in good forwardness, and most of it well planted

with tobacco; though some of it we were obliged to plant with

garden-stuff for food, such as potatoes, carrots, cabbages, peas,

beans, &c.

It was a great advantage to me that I had so bountiful a master, who

helped me out in every case; for in this very first year I received a

terrible blow. For my bill, as I have observed, having been copied and

attested in form, and sent to London, my kind friend and custom-house

gentleman paid me the money, and the merchant at London, by my good

master’s direction, had laid it all out in a sorted cargo of goods for

me, such as would have made a man of me all at once; but, to my

inexpressible terror and surprise, the ship was lost, and that just at

the entrance into the capes; that is to say, the mouth of the bay. Some

of the goods were recovered, but spoiled; and, in short, nothing but

the nails, tools, and ironwork were good for anything; and though the

value of them was pretty considerable in proportion to the rest, yet my

loss was irreparably great, and indeed the greatness of the loss to me

consisted in its being irreparable.

I was perfectly astonished at the first news of the loss, knowing that

I was in debt to my patron, or master, so much that it must be several

years before I should recover it; and as he brought me the bad news

himself, he perceived my disorder; that is to say, he saw I was in the

utmost confusion and a kind of amazement; and so indeed I was, because

I was so much in debt. But he spoke cheerfully to me. “Come,” says he,

“do not be so discouraged; you may make up this loss.” “No, sir,” says

I; “that never can be, for it is my all, and I shall never be out of

debt.” “Well, but,” says he, “you have no creditor, however, but me;

and now I remember I once told you I would make a man of you, and I

will not disappoint you for this disaster.”

I thanked him, and did it with more ceremony and respect than ever,

because I thought myself more under the hatches than I was before. But

he was as good as his word, for he did not baulk me in the least of

anything I wanted; and as I had more ironwork saved out of the ship, in

proportion, than I wanted, I supplied him with some part of it, and

took up some linen and clothes and other necessaries from him in

exchange.

And now I began to increase visibly. I had a large quantity of land

cured—that is, freed from timber—and a very good crop of tobacco in

view. And I got three servants more and one negro, so that I had five

white servants and two negroes, and with this my affairs went very well

on.

The first year, indeed, I took my wages, or salary—that is to say, £30

a year—because I wanted it very much; but the second and third year I

resolved not to take it on any account whatsoever, but to leave it in

my benefactor’s hands to clear off the debt I had contracted.

And now I must impose a short digression on the reader, to note that

notwithstanding all the disadvantages of a most wretched education, yet

now, when I began to feel myself, as I may say, in the world, and to be

arrived to an independent state, and to foresee that I might be

something considerable in time; I say, now I found different sentiments

of things taking place in my mind. And, first, I had a solid principle

of justice and honesty, and a secret horror at things past, when I

looked back upon my former life. That original something—I knew not

what—that used formerly to check me in the first meannesses of my

youth, and used to dictate to me when I was but a child that I was to

be a gentleman, continued to operate upon me now in a manner I cannot

describe; and I continually remembered the words of the ancient

glassmaker to the gentleman that he reproved for swearing, that to be a

gentleman was to be an honest man; that without honesty human nature

was sunk and degenerated; the gentleman lost all the dignity of his

birth, and placed himself even below an honest beggar. These

principles, growing upon my mind in the present circumstances I was in,

gave me a secret satisfaction that I can give no description of. It was

an inexpressible joy to me that I was now like to be, not only a man,

but an honest man; and it yielded me a greater pleasure that I was

ransomed from being a vagabond, a thief, and a criminal, as I had been

from a child, than that I was delivered from slavery and the wretched

state of a Virginia sold servant. I had notion enough in my mind of the

hardships of the servant, or slave, because I had felt it and worked

through it; I remembered it as a state of labour and servitude,

hardship and suffering. But the other shocked my very nature, chilled

my blood, and turned the very soul within me; the thought of it was

like reflections upon hell and the damned spirits; it struck me with

horror, it was odious and frightful to look back on, and it gave me a

kind of a fit, a convulsion or nervous disorder, that was very uneasy

to me.

But to look forward, to reflect how things were changed, how happy I

was that I could live by my own endeavours, and was no more under the

necessity of being a villain, and of getting my bread at my own hazard

and the ruin of honest families—this had in it something more than

commonly pleasing and agreeable, and, in particular, it had a pleasure

that till then I had known nothing of. It was a sad thing to be under a

necessity of doing evil to procure that subsistence which I could not

support the want of, to be obliged to run the venture of the gallows

rather than the venture of starving, and to be always wicked for fear

of want.

I cannot say that I had any serious religious reflections, or that

these things proceeded yet from the uneasiness of conscience, but from

mere reasonings with myself, and from being arrived to a capacity of

making a right judgment of things more than before. Yet I own I had

such an abhorrence of the wicked life I had led that I was secretly

easy, and had a kind of pleasure in the disaster that was upon me about

the ship, and that, though it was a loss, I could not but be glad that

those ill-gotten goods was gone, and that I had lost what I had stolen.

For I looked on it as none of mine, and that it would be fire in my

flax if I should mingle it with what I had now, which was come honestly

by, and was, as it were, sent from heaven to lay the foundation of my

prosperity, which the other would be only as a moth to consume.

At the same time my thoughts dictated to me, that though this was the

foundation of my new life, yet that this was not the superstructure,

and that I might still be born for greater things than these; that it

was honesty and virtue alone that made men rich and great, and gave

them a fame as well as a figure in the world, and that therefore I was

to lay my foundation in these, and expect what might follow in time.

To help these thoughts, as I had learned to read and write when I was

in Scotland, so I began now to love books, and particularly I had an

opportunity of reading some very considerable ones, such as Livy’s

Roman History, the history of the Turks, the English History of Speed,

and others; the history of the Low Country wars, the history of

Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden, and the history of the Spaniards’

conquest of Mexico, with several others, some of which I bought at a

planter’s house who was lately dead and his goods sold, and others I

had borrowed.

I considered my present state of life to be my mere youth, though I was

now above thirty years old, because in my youth I had learned nothing;

and if my daily business, which was now great, would have permitted, I

would have been content to have gone to school. However, fate, that had

yet something else in store for me, threw an opportunity into my hand;

namely, a clever fellow that came over a transported felon from

Bristol, and fell into my hands for a servant. He had led a loose life;

that he acknowledged; and being driven to extremities, took to the

highway, for which, had he been taken, he would have been hanged. But

falling into some low-prized rogueries afterwards, for want of

opportunity for worse, was catched, condemned, and transported, and, as

he said, was glad he came off so.

He was an excellent scholar, and I, perceiving it, asked him one time

if he could give a method how I might learn the Latin tongue. He said,

smiling, Yes; he could teach it me in three months, if I would let him

have books, or even without books, if he had time. I told him a book

would become his hands better than a hoe; and if he could promise to

make me but understand Latin enough to read it, and understand other

languages by it, I would ease him of the labour which I was now obliged

to put him to, especially if I was assured that he was fit to receive

that favour of a kind master. In short, I made him to me what my

benefactor made me to him, and from him I gained a fund of knowledge

infinitely more valuable than the rate of a slave, which was what I had

paid for it; but of this hereafter.

With these thoughts I went cheerfully about my work. As I had now five

servants, my plantation went on, though gently, yet safely, and

increased gradually, though slowly. But the third year, with the

assistance of my old benefactor, I purchased two negroes more, so that

now I had seven servants; and having cured land sufficient for supply

of their food, I was at no difficulty to maintain them; so that my

plantation began now to enlarge itself, and as I lived without any

personal expense, but was maintained at my old great master’s, as we

called him, and at his charge, with £30 a year besides, so all my gains

was laid up for increase.

In this posture I went on for twelve years, and was very successful in

my plantation, and had gotten, by means of my master’s favour, who now

I called my friend, a correspondent in London, with whom I traded,

shipped over my tobacco to him, and received European goods in return,

such as I wanted to carry on my plantation, and sufficient to sell to

others also.

In this interval my good friend and benefactor died, and I was left

very disconsolate on account of my loss; for it was indeed a great loss

to me. He had been a father to me, and I was like a forsaken stranger

without him, though I knew the country, and the trade too, well enough,

and had for some time chiefly carried on his whole business for him.

Yet I seemed now at a loss; my counsellor and my chief supporter was

gone, and I had no confidant to communicate myself to, on all

occasions, as formerly; but there was no remedy. I was, however, in a

better condition to stand alone than ever. I had a very large

plantation, and had near seventy negroes and other servants. In a word,

I was grown really rich, considering my first circumstances, that began

as I may say with nothing; that is to say, I had nothing of stock, but

I had a great beginning, for I had such a man’s friendship and support

in my beginning, that indeed I needed no other stock; and if I had had

£500 to have begun with, and not the assistance, advice, and

countenance of such a man, I had not been in a better condition. But he

promised to make a man of me; and so he did, and in one respect I may

say I have merited it of him, for I brought his plantation into such

order, and the government of his negroes into such a regulation, that

if he had given £500 to have had it done, he would have thought his

money well bestowed. His work was always in order, going forward to his

mind; every thing was in a thriving posture; his servants all loved

him, even negroes and all, and yet there was no such thing as a cruel

punishment or severities known among them.

In my own plantation it was the same thing. I wrought so upon the

reason and the affections of my negroes that they served me cheerfully,

and, by consequence, faithfully and diligently; when in my neighbour’s

plantation there was not a week hardly passed without such horrible

outcries, roarings and yellings of the servants, either under torture

or in fear of it, that their negroes would, in discourse with ours,

wish themselves dead and gone, as it seems they believed they should

after death, into their own country.

If I met with a sullen, stupid fellow, as sometimes it was unavoidable,

I always parted with him and sold him off; for I would not keep any

that sense of kind usage would not oblige. But I seldom met with such

bad ones; for, by talking to them in a plain reasoning way, I found the

temper of the roughest of them would break and soften. The sense of

their own interest would prevail with them at first or last; and if it

had not, the contrary temper was so general among my people that their

own fellows and countrymen would be against them, and that served to

bring them to reason as soon as any other thing. And this those who

think it worth their while will easily find, viz., that having

prevailed effectually over one leading man among them to be tractable,

and pleased, and grateful, he shall make them all like him, and that in

a little while, with more ease than can be imagined.

I was now a planter, and also a student. My pedagogue I mentioned above

was very diligent, and proved an extraordinary man indeed. He taught me

not only with application, but with admirable judgment in the teaching

part; for I have seen it in many instances since that time that every

good scholar is not fitted for a schoolmaster, and that the art of

teaching is quite different from that of knowing the language taught.

But this man had both, and proved of great use to me, and I found

reason, in the worth of the person, to be very kind to him, his

circumstances considered. I once took the liberty to ask him how it

came to pass that he, who must have had a liberal education and great

advantages to have advanced him in the world, should be capable of

falling into such miserable circumstances as he was in when he came

over. I used some caution in entering upon an inquiry which, as I said,

might not be pleasant to him to relate, but that I would make him

amends by telling him, that if he desired not to enter into it with me,

I would readily excuse him, and would not take it ill at all. This I

did because to a man under such afflictions one should always be

tender, and not put them upon relating anything of themselves which was

grievous to them or which they had rather was concealed.

But he told me that it was true, that to look back upon his past life

was indeed _renovare dolorem_; but that such mortifications were now

useful to him, to help forward that repentance which he hoped he was

sincerely entered upon; and that though it was with horror he looked

back upon misspent time and ill-applied gifts which a bountiful Creator

had blessed him with, and spared to him for a better improvement, yet

he thought he ought to load himself with as much of the shame as it

pleased God to make his lot, since he had already loaded himself with

the guilt in a shameless manner, till God, he still hoped in mercy to

him, had cut him short and brought him to public disgrace; though he

could not say he had been brought to justice, for then he had been sent

into eternity in despair, and not been sent to Virginia to repent of

the wickedest life that ever man lived. He would have gone on, but I

found his speech interrupted by a passionate struggle within, between

his grief and his tears.

I took no more notice of it than to tell him that I was sorry I had

asked him about it, but that it was my curiosity. When I saw that

ignorant, untaught, untractable creatures come into misery and shame, I

made no inquiry after their affairs; but when I saw men of parts and

learning take such steps, I concluded it must be occasioned by

something exceeding wicked. “So, indeed,” said he, “the judge said to

me when I begged mercy of him in Latin. He told me that when a man with

such learning falls into such crimes he is more inexcusable than other

men, because, his learning recommending him, he could not want

advantages and had the less temptation to crimes.”

“But, sir,” said he, “I believe my case was what I find is the case of

most of the wicked part of the world, viz., that to be reduced to

necessity is to be wicked; for necessity is not only the temptation,

but is such a temptation as human nature is not empowered to resist.

How good, then,” says he, “is that God which takes from you, sir, the

temptation, by taking away the necessity!”

I was so sensible of the truth of what he said, knowing it by my own

case, that I could not enter any further upon the discourse; but he

went on voluntarily. “This, sir,” says he, “I am so sensible of that I

think the case I am reduced to much less miserable than the life which

I lived before, because I am delivered from the horrid necessity of

doing such ill things which was my ruin and disaster then, even for my

bread, and am not now obliged to ravish my bread out of the mouths of

others by violence and disorder, but am fed, though I am made to earn

it by the hard labour of my hands, and I thank God for the difference.”

He paused here, but went on thus:—

“How much is the life of a slave in Virginia to be preferred to that of

the most prosperous thief in the world! Here I live miserable, but

honest; suffer wrong, but do no wrong; my body is punished, but my

conscience is not loaded; and as I used to say that I had no leisure to

look in, but I would begin when I had some recess, some time to spare,

now God has found me leisure to repent.” He run on in this manner a

great while, giving thanks, I believe most heartily, for his being

delivered from the wretched life he had lived, though his misery were

to be tenfold as much as it was.

I was sincerely touched with his discourse on this subject. I had known

so much of the real difference of the case that I could not but be

affected with it, though till now, I confess, I knew little of the

religious part. I had been an offender as well as he, though not

altogether in the same degree, but I knew nothing of the penitence;

neither had I looked back upon anything as a crime, but as a life

dishonourable and not like a gentleman, which run much in my thoughts,

as I have several times mentioned.

“Well, but now,” says I, “you talk penitently, and I hope you are

sincere; but what would be your case if you were delivered from the

miserable condition of a slave sold for money, which you are now in?

Should you not, think you, be the same man?”

“Blessed be God,” says he, “that, if I thought I should, I would

sincerely pray that I might not be delivered, and that I might for ever

be a slave rather than a sinner.”

“Well, but,” says I, “suppose you to be under the same necessity, in

the same starving condition, should you not take the same course?”

He replied very sharply, “That shows us the need we have of the

petition in the Lord’s prayer, ‘Lead us not into temptation;’ and of

Solomon’s or Agar’s prayer, ‘Give me not poverty, lest I steal.’ I

should ever beg of God not to be left to such snares as human nature

cannot resist. But I have some hope, that I should venture to starve

rather than to steal; but I also beg to be delivered from the danger,

because I know not my own strength.”

This was honestly spoken, indeed; and there really were such visible

tokens of sincerity in all his discourse that I could not suspect him.

On some of our discourses on this subject, he pulled out a little dirty

paper-book, in which he had wrote down such a prayer in verse as I

doubt few Christians in the world could subscribe to; and I cannot but

record it, because I never saw anything like it in my life. The lines

are as follow:—

“Lord! whatsoever sorrows rack my breast,

Till crime removes too, let me find no rest;

How dark soe’er my state or sharp my pain,

Oh! let not troubles cease and sin remain.

For Jesus’ sake remove not my distress,

Till free triumphant grace shall repossess

The vacant throne from whence my sins depart,

And make a willing captive of my heart;

Till grace completely shall my soul subdue,

Thy conquest full and my subjection true.”

There were more lines on the same subject, but these were the

beginning; and these touching me so sensibly, I have remembered them

distinctly ever since, and have, I believe, repeated them to myself a

thousand times.

I pressed him no more, you may be sure, after an answer so very

particular and affecting as this was. It was easy to see the man was a

sincere penitent, not sorrowing for the punishment he was suffering

under; for his condition was no part of his affliction; he was rather

thankful for it, as above; but his concern was a feeling and affecting

sense of the wicked and abominable life he had led, the abhorred crimes

he had committed both against God and man, and the little sense he had

had of the condition he was in, and that even till he came to the place

where he now was.

I asked him if he had no reflections of this kind after or before his

sentence. He told me Newgate (for the prison at Bristol is called so,

it seems, as well as that at London) was a place that seldom made

penitents, but often made villains worse, till they learnt to defy God

and devil; but that, however, he could look back with this

satisfaction, that he could say he was not altogether insensible of it

even then; but nothing that amounted to a thorough serious looking up

to heaven; that he often indeed looked in, and reflected upon his past

misspent life, even before he was in prison, when the intervals of his

wicked practices gave some time for reflection, and he would sometimes

say to himself, “Whither am I going? to what will all these things

bring me at last? and where will they end? Sin and shame follow one

another, and I shall certainly come to the gallows. Then,” said he, “I

would strike upon my breast, and say, ‘O wicked wretch! when will you

repent?’ and would answer myself as often, ‘Never! never! never! except

it be in a gaol or at a gibbet.’

“Then,” said he, “I would weep and sigh, and look back a little upon my

wretched life, the history of which would make the world amazed; but,

alas! the prospect was so dark, and it filled me with so much terror,

that I could not bear it. Then I would fly to wine and company for

relief; that wine brought on excess, and that company, being always

wicked company like yourself, brought on temptation, and then all

reflection vanished and I was the same devil as before.”

He spoke this with so much affection that his face was ever smiling

when he talked of it, and yet his eyes had tears standing in them at

the same time, and all the time; for he had a delightful sorrow, if

that be a proper expression, in speaking of it.

This was a strange relation to me, and began to affect me after a

manner that I did not understand. I loved to hear him talk of it, and

yet it always left a kind of a dead lump behind it upon my heart, which

I could give no reason for, nor imagine to what it should tend; I had a

heaviness on my soul, without being able to describe it or to say what

ailed me.

Well, he went on with his relation. “After this,” says he, “I fell into

the hands of a justice for a trifle, a piece of sport in our crime; and

I, that for a hundred robberies, as well on the highway as otherwise,

the particulars of which would fill a book to give an account of,

ought, whenever I was taken, to be hanged in chains, and who, if it had

been public, could not have failed of having twenty people come in

against me, was privately hurried into a country gaol under a wrong

name; tried for a small fact, within benefit of clergy, and in which I

was not principally guilty, and by this means obtained the favour of

being transported.

“And what think you,” said he, “has most sensibly affected me, and

brought on the blessed change that, I hope I may say, God has wrought

in my soul? Not the greatness of my crimes, but the wonders of that

merciful Providence, which, when it has mercy in store for a man, often

brings him into the briers, into sorrow and misery for lesser sins,

that men may be led to see how they are spared from the punishment due

to them for the greater guilt which they know lies upon them. Do you

think that when I received the grant of transportation I could be

insensible what a miracle of divine goodness such a thing must be to

one who had so many ways deserved to be hanged, and must infallibly

have died if my true name had been known, or if the least notice had

been given that it was such a notorious wretch as I that was in

custody? There began the first motive of repentance; for certainly the

goodness of our great Creator in sparing us, when we forfeit our lives

to His justice, and His merciful bringing us out of the miseries which

we plunge ourselves into, when we have no way to extricate ourselves;

His bringing those very miseries to be the means of our deliverance,

and working good to us out of evil, when we are working the very evil

out of His good; I say, these things are certainly the strongest

motives to repentance that are in the world, and the sparing thieves

from the gallows certainly makes more penitents than the gallows

itself.

“It is true,” continued he, “that the terror of punishment works

strongly upon the mind; in view of death men are filled with horror of

soul, and immediately they call that repentance which I doubt is too

often mistaken, being only a kind of anguish in the soul, which breeds

a grief for the punishment that is to be suffered—an amazement founded

upon the dreadful view of what is to follow. But the sense of mercy is

quite another thing; this seizes all the passions and all the

affections, and works a sincere, unfeigned abhorrence of the crime, as

a crime, as an offence against our Benefactor, as an act of baseness

and ingratitude to Him who has given us life and all the blessings and

comforts of life, and who has conquered us by continuing to do us good,

when He has been provoked to destroy us.

“This, sir,” says he, “has been the fountain of that repentance which I

so much rejoice in; this is the delightful sorrow,” says he, “that I

spoke of just now; and this makes smiles sit on my face while tears run

from my eyes, a joy that I can no otherwise express than by telling

you, sir, that I never lived a happy day since I came to an age of

acting in the world till I landed in this country, and worked in your

plantation, naked and hungry, weary and faint, oppressed with cold in

one season, and heat in the other. Then I began to see into my own

ways, and see the difference between the hardships of the body and the

torment of the mind. Before I revelled in fulness, and here I struggled

with hard fare; then I wallowed in sloth and voluptuous ease; here I

laboured till nature sometimes was just sinking under the load; but

with this difference in the felicity of either case, namely, that there

I had a hell in my soul, was filled with horror and confusion, was a

daily terror to myself, and always expected a miserable end; whereas

here I had a blessed calm of soul, an emblem and forerunner of heaven,

thankful and humble, adoring that mercy that had snatched me out of the

jaws of the devil. These took up my thoughts, and made my most weary

hours pleasant to me, my labour light, and my heart cheerful. I never

lay down on my hard lodging but I praised God with the greatest excess

of affection, not only that it was not the condemned hole, and that I

was delivered from the death I had deserved, but that it was not

Shooter’s Hill; that I was not still a robber, a terror to just and

honest men, a plunderer of the innocent and the poor, a thief, and a

villain, that ought to be rooted out from the earth for the safety of

others; but that I was delivered from the horrid temptation of sinning

to support my luxury, and making one vice necessary to another; and

this, I bear witness, is sufficient to sweeten the bitterest sorrow,

and make any man be thankful for Virginia, or a worse place, if that

can be.”

He then entertained me with an opinion of his, that if it were possible

for the face of heaven and hell to be disclosed and laid open, and that

men could be made capable of seeing distinctly and separately the joys

and glory and utmost felicity of one, and the horrors of the other, and

to make a judgment of both according to the power of human reasoning,

the first would have a stronger and more powerful effect to reform the

world than the latter; but this we had further discourses about on many

occasions.

If it should be inquired how I was capable of hearing all this, and

having no impressions made upon my mind by it, especially when it so

many ways suited my own case, and the condition of the former part of

my life, I shall answer that presently by myself. However, I took no

notice of it to him, for he had quite other notions of me than I had of

myself; nor did I, as is usual in such cases, enter into any confidence

with him on my own story, only that I took sometimes the occasion to

let him know that I did not come over to Virginia in the capacity of a

criminal, or that I was not transported; which, considering how many of

the inhabitants there were so who then lived in good circumstances, was

needful enough to be done.

But as to myself, it was enough that I was in condition now; ’twas no

matter to anybody what I had been; and as it was grown pretty much out

of memory from what original disaster I came into the country, or that

I was ever a servant otherwise than voluntary, and that it was no

business of mine to expose myself, so I kept that part close. But for

all that, it was impossible for me to conceal the disorder I was in as

often as he talked of these things. I had hitherto gone on upon a

notion of things founded only in their appearance, as they affected me

with good or evil, esteeming the happy and unhappy part of life to be

those that gave me ease or sorrow, without regarding, or indeed much

understanding, how far those turns of life were influenced by the Giver

of Life, or how far they were all directed by a sovereign God that

governs the world, and all the creatures he had made.

As I had no education but as you have heard, so I had had no

instruction, no knowledge of religion, or indeed of the meaning of it;

and though I was now in a kind of search after religion, it was a mere

looking, as it were, into the world to see what kind of a thing or

place it was, and what had been done in it. But as to Him that made it,

there had truly been scarce a creature among all that He had made, with

souls in them, that were so entirely without the knowledge of God as I

was, and made so little inquiry about it.

But the serious, affectionate discourse of this young man began to have

different effects upon me, and I began to say to myself, “This man’s

reflections are certainly very just; but what a creature am I, and what

have I been doing!—I that never once did this in all my life; that

never said so much—’God, I thank Thee for all that I have been saved

from, or all that I have been brought to in this world;’ and yet my

life has been as full of variety, and I have been as miraculously

delivered from dangers and mischiefs, and as many of them, as ever he

has. And if it has all been brought to pass by an invisible hand in

mercy to me, what have I been doing, and where have I lived, that I

only should be the most thoughtless and unthankful of all God’s

creatures?”

This, indeed, began to grow upon me, and made me very melancholy; but

as to religion, I understood so little about it that if I had resolved

upon any such thing as a new course of life, or to set about a

religious change, I knew not at which end to begin or what to do about

it.

One day it happened that my tutor—for so I always called him—had the

Bible in his hand, and was looking in it, as he generally did many

times every day, though I knew not for what. Seeing the Bible, I took

it out of his hands, and went to look in it, which I had done so little

before that I think I might safely say I had never read a chapter in it

in all my life. He was talking of the Bible then as a book only, and

where he had it, and how he brought it to Virginia, and in some ecstasy

he took and kissed it. “This blessed book!” says he; “this was all the

treasure I brought out from England with me. And a comfortable treasure

it has been to me,” added he; “I would not have been without it in my

sorrows for any other treasure in the world;” and so he went on at

large.

I, that had no notion of what he meant—only, as I have said above, some

young infant thoughts about the works of Providence in the world and

its merciful dealings with me—took the book out of his hand and went to

look in it; and the book opened at the Acts xxvi. 28, where Felix says

to St. Paul, “Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.” “I think,”

says I, “here’s a line hits me to a tittle, upon the long account you

have given of yourself, and I must say them to you, as the governor

here said;” and so I read the words to him. He blushed at the text, and

returns, “I wish I could answer you in the very words the Apostle

returned to him in the next verse: ‘I would thou wert both almost, and

altogether such as I am, except these bonds.’”

I was now more than thirty years old by my own account, and as well as

it was possible for me to keep a reckoning of my age, who had nobody

left that ever knew my beginning; I was, I say, above thirty years old,

and had gone through some variety in the world. But as I was perfectly

abandoned in my infancy, and utterly without instruction in my youth,

so I was entirely ignorant of everything that was worthy the name of

religion in the world; and this was the first time that ever any notion

of religious things entered into my heart. I was surprised at this

man’s talk, and that several ways particularly he talked so feelingly

of his past circumstances, and they were so like my own, that every

time he made a religious inference from his own condition, and argued

from one condition of his to another, it struck into my thoughts like a

bullet from a gun that I had certainly as much to be thankful for and

to repent of as he had, except only that I had no knowledge of better

things to be thankful for, which he had. But in return for that, I was

delivered and set up in the world, made a master, and easy, and was in

good circumstances, being raised from the very same low, distressed

condition as he was in—I mean a sold servant—but that he remained so

still; so that, if his sin had been greater than mine, so his distress

was still greater.

This article of gratitude struck deep and lay heavy upon my mind. I

remembered that I was grateful to the last degree to my old master, who

had raised me from my low condition, and that I loved the very name of

him, or, as might be said, the very ground he trod on; but I had not so

much as once thought of any higher obligation; no, nor so much as, like

the Pharisee, had said once, “God, I thank thee,” to Him, for all the

influence which His providence must have had in my whole affair.

It occurred to me presently that if none of all these things befall us

without the direction of a Divine Power, as my new instructor had told

me at large, and that God had ordered everything, the most minute and

least transaction of life, insomuch that not a hair of our head shall

fall to the ground without His permission; I say, it occurred to me

that I had been a most unthankful dog to that Providence that had done

so much for me; and the consequence of the reflection was immediately

this: how justly may that Power, so disobliged, take away again His

wool and His flax, with which I am now clothed, and reduce me to the

misery of my first circumstances.

This perplexed me much, and I was very pensive and sad; in which,

however, my new instructor was a constant comforter to me, and I

learned every day something or other from him; upon which I told him

one morning that I thought be must leave off teaching me Latin, and

teach me religion. He spoke with a great deal of modesty of his being

incapable of informing me of anything that I did not know, and proposed

to me to read the Scriptures every day, as the sure and only fund of

instruction. I answered that, in the words of the eunuch to St. Philip

when the apostle asked him if he understood what he read: “How can I,

unless some one guide me?”

We talked frequently upon this subject, and I found so much reason to

believe he was a sincere convert that I can speak of him as no other in

all I have to say of him. However, I cannot say my thoughts were yet

ripened for an operation of that kind. I had some uneasiness about my

past life, and I lived now, and had done so before I knew him, a very

regular, sober life, always taken up in my business and running into no

excesses. But as to commencing penitent, as this man had done, I cannot

say I had any convictions upon me sufficient to bring it on, nor had I

a fund of religious knowledge to support me in it. So it wore off again

gradually, as such things generally do where the first impressions are

not deep enough.

In the meantime, as he read over long lectures of his own disasters to

me, and applied them all seriously to me, so our discourse was always

very solid and weighty, and we had nothing of levity between us, even

when we were not concerned in religious discourses. He read history to

me; and, where books were wanting, he gave me ideas of those things

which had not been recorded by our modern histories, or at least that

our number of books would not reach. By these things he raised an

unquenchable thirst in me, after seeing something that was doing in the

world; and the more because all the world was at that time engaged,

more or less, in the great war wherein the French king might be said to

be engaged with and against all the powers of Europe.

Now, I looked upon myself as one buried alive in a remote part of the

world, where I could see nothing at all, and hear but a little of what

was seen, and that little not till at least half a year after it was

done, and sometimes a year or more; and, in a word, the old reproach

often came in the way—namely, that even this was not yet the life of a

gentleman.

It was true that this was much nearer to it than that of a pickpocket,

and still nearer than that of a sold slave; but, in short, this would

not do, and I could receive no satisfaction in it. I had now a second

plantation, a very considerable one, and it went forward very well. I

had on it almost a hundred servants already of sundry sorts, and an

overseer that I had a great deal of reason to say I might depend upon,

and but that I had a third in embryo, and newly begun, I had nothing to

hinder me from going where I pleased.

However, I now began to frame my thoughts for a voyage to England,

resolving then to act as I should see cause, but with a secret

resolution to see more of the world if possible, and realise those

things to my mind which I had hitherto only entertained remote ideas of

by the help of books.

Accordingly I pushed forward the settlement of my third plantation, in

order to bring it to be in a posture either to be let to a tenant or

left in trust with an overseer, as I should find occasion.

Had I resolved to leave it to an overseer or steward, no man in the

world could have been fit for it like my tutor; but I could not think

of parting with him, who was the cause of my desire of travelling, and

who I concluded to make my partner in my travels.

END OF VOL. I.

THE LIFE OF COLONEL JACQUE.

It was three years after this before I could get things in order, fit

for my leaving the country. In this time I delivered my tutor from his

bondage, and would have given him his liberty, but, to my great

disappointment, I found that I could not empower him to go for England

till his time was expired, according to the certificate of his

transportation, which was registered; so I made him one of my

overseers, and thereby raised him gradually to a prospect of living in

the same manner and by the like steps that my good benefactor raised

me, only that I did not assist him to enter upon planting for himself

as I was assisted, neither was I upon the spot to do it. But this man’s

diligence and honest application, even unassisted, delivered himself,

[though not] any farther than, as I say, by making him an overseer,

which was only a present ease and deliverance to him from the hard

labour and fare which he endured as a servant.

However, in this trust he behaved so faithfully and so diligently that

it recommended him in the country; and when I came back I found him in

circumstances very different from what I left him in, besides his being

my principal manager for near twenty years, as you shall hear in its

place.

I mention these things the more at large that, if any unhappy wretch

who may have the disaster to fall into such circumstances as these may

come to see this account, they may learn the following short lessons

from these examples:—

I. That Virginia and a state of transportation may be the happiest

place and condition they were ever in for this life, as, by a sincere

repentance and a diligent application to the business they are put to,

they are effectually delivered from a life of flagrant wickedness and

put in a perfect new condition, in which they have no temptation to the

crimes they formerly committed, and have a prospect of advantage for

the future.

II. That in Virginia the meanest and most despicable creature, after

his time of servitude is expired, if he will but apply himself with

diligence and industry to the business of the country, is sure (life

and health supposed) both of living well and growing rich.

As this is a foundation which the most unfortunate wretch alive is

entitled to, a transported felon is, in my opinion, a much happier man

than the most prosperous untaken thief in the nation. Nor are those

poor young people so much in the wrong as some imagine them to be that

go voluntarily over to those countries, and in order to get themselves

carried over and placed there, freely bind themselves there, especially

if the persons into whose hands they fall do anything honestly by them;

for, as it is to be supposed that those poor people knew not what

course to take before, or had miscarried in their conduct before, here

they are sure to be immediately provided for, and, after the expiration

of their time, to be put in a condition to provide for themselves. But

I return to my own story, which now begins a new scene.

I was now making provision for my going to England. After having

settled my plantation in such hands as was fully to my satisfaction, my

first work was to furnish myself with such a stock of goods and money

as might be sufficient for my occasions abroad, and particularly might

allow me to make large returns to Maryland, for the use and supply of

all my plantations. But when I came to look nearer into the voyage, it

occurred to me that it would not be prudent to put my cargo all on

board the same ship that I went in; so I shipped at several times five

hundred hogsheads of tobacco in several ships for England, giving

notice to my correspondent in London that I would embark about such a

time to come over myself, and ordering him to insure for a considerable

sum, proportioned to the value of my cargo.

About two months after this I left the place, and embarked for England

in a stout ship, carrying twenty-four guns and about six hundred

hogsheads of tobacco, and we left the capes of Virginia on the 1st of

August. We had a very sour and rough voyage for the first fortnight,

though it was in a season so generally noted for good weather.

After we had been about eleven days at sea, having the wind most part

of the time blowing very hard at west, or between the west and

north-west, by which we were carried a great way farther to the

eastward than they usually go in their course for England, we met with

a furious tempest, which held us five days, blowing most of the time

excessive hard, and by which we were obliged to run away afore the

wind, as the seamen call it, wheresoever it was our lot to go. By this

storm our ship was greatly damaged, and some leaks we had, but not so

bad that by the diligence of the seamen they were stopped. However, the

captain, after having beaten up again as well as he could against the

weather, and the sea going very high, at length he resolved to go away

for the Bermudas.

I was not seaman enough to understand what the reason of their disputes

was, but in their running for the islands it seems they overshot the

latitude, and could never reach the islands of Bermudas again. The

master and the mate differed to an extremity about this, their

reckonings being more than usually wide of one another, the storm

having driven them a little out of their knowledge. The master, being a

positive man, insulted the mate about it, and threatened to expose him

for it when he came to England. The mate was an excellent sea artist

and an experienced sailor, but withal a modest man, and though he

insisted upon his being right, did it in respectful terms and as it

became him. But after several days’ dispute, when the weather came to

abate and the heavens to clear up, that they could take their

observations and know where they were, it appeared that the mate’s

account was right, and the captain was mistaken; for they were then in

the latitude of 29 degrees, and quite out of the wake of the Bermudas.

The mate made no indecent use of the discovery at all, and the captain,

being convinced, carried it civilly to him, and so the heats were over

among them; but the next question was, what they should do next. Some

were for going one way, some another; but all agreed that they were not

in a condition to go on the direct course for England, unless they

could have a southerly or south-west wind, which had not been our fate

since we came to sea.

Upon the whole, they resolved by consent to steer away to the Canaries,

which was the nearest land they could make except the Cape de Verde

Islands, which were too much to the southward for us, if it could be

avoided.

Upon this they stood away N.E., and the wind hanging still westerly, or

to the northward of the west, we made good way, and in about fifteen

days’ sail we made the Pico Teneriffe, being a monstrous hill in one of

the Canary Islands. Here we refreshed ourselves, got fresh water and

some fresh provisions, and plenty of excellent wine, but no harbour to

run into, to take care of the ship, which was leaky and tender, having

had so much very bad weather; so we were obliged to do as well as we

could, and put to sea again, after riding at the Canaries four days

only.

From the Canaries we had tolerable weather and a smooth sea till we

came into the soundings—so they call the mouth of the British

Channel—and the wind blowing hard at the N. and the N.W. obliged us to

keep a larger offing, as the seamen call it, at our entrance into the

Channel; when, behold! in the grey of the morning a French cruiser or

privateer of twenty-six guns appeared, and crowded after us with all

the sail they could make. In short, our captain exchanged a broadside

or two with them, which was terrible work to me, for I had never seen

such before, the Frenchman’s guns having raked us, and killed and

wounded six of our best men.

In short, after a fight long enough to show us that if we would not be

taken we must resolve to sink by her side, for there was no room to

expect deliverance, and a fight long enough to save the master’s

credit, we were taken, and the ship carried away to St. Malo.

I was not much concerned for the loss I had in the ship, because I knew

I had sufficient in the world somewhere or other; but as I was

effectually stripped of everything I had about me, and even almost my

clothes from my back, I was in but a very indifferent condition. But

somebody informing the captain of the privateer, that I was a passenger

and a merchant, he called for me and inquired into my circumstances,

and coming to hear from myself how I had been used, obliged the seamen

to give me a coat and hat and a pair of shoes, which they had taken off

me, and himself gave me a morning gown of his own to wear while I was

in his ship, and, to give him his due, treated me very well.

I had, however, besides my being taken, the mortification to be

detained on board the cruiser, and seeing the ship I was in manned with

Frenchmen and sent away, as above, for St. Malo; and this was a greater

mortification to me afterwards, when, being brought into St. Malo, I

heard that our own ship was retaken in her passage to St. Malo by an

English man-of-war and carried to Portsmouth.

When our ship was sent away the _Rover_ cruised abroad again in the

mouth of the Channel for some time, but met with no purchase. At last

they made a sail, which proved to be one of their nation and one of

their own trade, from whom they learned, the news having been carried

to England that some French privateers lay off and on in the soundings,

that three English men-of-war were come out from Plymouth on purpose to

cruise in the Channel, and that they would certainly meet with us. Upon

this intelligence the Frenchman, a bold, brave fellow, far from

shrinking from his work, stands away N.E. for St. George’s Channel, and

in the latitude of 48 degrees and a half, unhappily enough, meets with

a large and rich English ship, bound home from Jamaica. It was in the

grey of the morning, and very clear, when a man on the roundtop cried

out, “_Au voile_, a sail.” I was in hopes indeed it had been the

English men-of-war, and by the hurry and clutter they were in to get

all ready for a fight, I concluded it was so, and got out of my hammock

(for I had no cabin to lie in) that I might see what it was; but I soon

found that my hopes were in vain, and it was on the wrong side; for

that that being on our larboard bow, the ship lying then northward to

make the coast of Ireland, by the time I was turned out I could

perceive they had all their sails bent and full, having begun to chase,

and making great way. On the other hand, it was evident the ship saw

them too, and knew what they were, and, to avoid them, stretched away

with all the canvas they could lay on for the coast of Ireland, to run

in there for harbour.

Our privateer, it was plain, infinitely outsailed her, running two foot

for her one, and towards evening came up with them. Had they been able

to have held it but six hours longer they would have got into Limerick

River, or somewhere under shore, so that we should not have ventured

upon them. But we came up with them, and the captain, when he saw there

was no remedy, bravely brought to and prepared to fight. She was a ship

of thirty guns, but deep in the sea, cumbered between decks with goods,

and could not run out her lower-deck guns, the sea also going pretty

high, though at last she ventured to open her gun-room ports and fire

with three guns on a side. But her worst fate was, she sailed heavy,

being deep loaden, and the Frenchman had run up by her side and poured

in his broadside, and was soon ready again. However, as she was well

manned too, and that the English sailors bestirred themselves, they

gave us their broadsides too very nimbly and heartily, and I found the

Frenchman had a great many men killed at the first brush. But the next

was worse, for the English ship, though she did not sail so well as the

Frenchman, was a bigger ship and strong built, and as we (the French)

bore down upon them again, the English run boldly on board us, and laid

thwart our hawse, lashing themselves fast to us. Then it was that the

English captain run out his lower tier of guns, and indeed tore the

Frenchman so, that, had he held it, the privateer would have had the

worst of it. But the Frenchman, with admirable readiness, indeed, and

courage, the captain appearing everywhere with his sword in his hand,

bestirred themselves, and loosing themselves from the English ship,

thrusting her off with brooms, and pouring their small shot so thick

that the other could not appear upon deck; I say, clearing themselves

thus, they came to lie a-broadside of each other, when, by long firing,

the English ship was at length disabled, her mizzen-mast and bowsprit

shot away, and, which was worst of all, her captain killed; so that,

after a fight which held all night—for they fought in the dark—and part

of the next day, they were obliged to strike.

I was civilly desired by the French captain to go down into the hold

while the fight held, and, besides the civility of it, I found he was

not willing I should be upon deck. Perhaps he thought I might have some

opportunity to do hurt, though I know not how it could be. However, I

was very ready to go down, for I had no mind to be killed, especially

by my own friends; so I went down and sat by the surgeon, and had the

opportunity to find that, the first broadside the English fired, seven

wounded men were brought down to the surgeon, and three-and-thirty more

afterwards, that is to say, when the English lay thwart their bow; and

after they cleared themselves there were about eleven more; so that

they had one-and-fifty men wounded and about two-and-twenty killed. The

Englishman had eighteen men killed and wounded, among whom was the

captain.

The French captain, however, triumphed in his prize; for it was an

exceeding rich ship, having abundance of silver on board. And after the

ship was taken and they had plundered all the great cabin afforded,

which was very considerable, the mate promised the captain that, if he

would give him his liberty, he would discover six thousand pieces of

eight to him privately, which none of the men should know of. The

captain engaged, and gave it under his hand to set him at liberty as

soon as he came on shore. Accordingly, in the night, after all was

either turned in, as they call it, or employed on the duty of the

watch, the captain and the mate of the prize went on board, and having

faithfully discovered the money, which lay in a place made on purpose

to conceal it, the captain resolved to let it lie till they arrived,

and then he conveyed it on shore for his own use; so that the owners,

nor the seamen, ever came to any share of it, which, by the way, was a

fraud in the captain. But the mate paid his ransom by the discovery,

and the captain gave him his liberty very punctually, as he had

promised, and two hundred pieces of eight to carry him to England and

to make good his losses.

When he had made this prize, the captain thought of nothing more than

how to get safe to France with her, for she was a ship sufficient to

enrich all his men and his owners also. The account of her cargo, by

the captain’s books, of which I took a copy, was in general:

260 hogsheads of sugar.

187 smaller casks of sugar.

176 barrels of indigo.

28 casks of pimento.

42 bags of cotton wool.

80 cwt. of elephants’ teeth.

60 small casks of rum.

18,000 pieces of eight, besides the six thousand concealed.

Several parcels of drugs, tortoise-shell, sweetmeats, called succades,

chocolate, lime juice, and other things of considerable value.

This was a terrible loss among the English merchants, and a noble booty

for the rogues that took it; but as it was in open war and by fair

fighting, as they call it, there was no objection to be made against

them, and, to give them their due, they fought bravely for it.

The captain was not so bold as to meeting the English men-of-war

before, but he was as wary now; for, having a prize of such value in

his hands, he was resolved not to lose her again, if he could help it.

So he stood away to the southward, and that so far that I once thought

he was resolved to go into the Straits, and home by Marseilles. But

having sailed to the latitude of 45 degrees 3 quarters, or thereabouts,

he steered away east, into the bottom of the Bay of Biscay, and carried

us all into the river of Bordeaux, where, on notice of his arrival with

such a prize, his owners or principals came overland to see him, and

where they consulted what to do with her. The money they secured, to be

sure, and some of the cargo; but the ships sailed afterwards along the

coast to St. Malo, taking the opportunity of some French men-of-war

which were cruising on the coast to be their convoy as far as Ushant.

Here the captain rewarded and dismissed the English mate, as I have

said, who got a passage from thence to Dieppe by sea, and after that

into England, by the help of a passport, through Flanders to Ostend.

The captain, it seems, the more willingly shipped him off that he might

not discover to others what he had discovered to him.

I was now at Bordeaux, in France, and the captain asked me one morning

what I intended to do. I did not understand him at first, but he soon

gave me to understand that I was now either to be delivered up to the

state as an English prisoner, and so be carried to Dinan, in Brittany,

or to find means to have myself exchanged, or to pay my ransom, and

this ransom he told me at first was three hundred crowns.

I knew not what to do, but desired he would give me time to write to

England to my friends; for that I had a cargo of goods sent to them by

me from Virginia, but I did not know but it might have fallen into such

hands as his were, and if it was, I knew not what would be my fate. He

readily granted that; so I wrote by the post, and had the satisfaction,

in answer to it, to hear that the ship I was taken in had been retaken,

and carried into Portsmouth; which I doubted would have made my new

master more strict, and perhaps insolent; but he said nothing of it to

me, nor I to him, though, as I afterwards understood, he had advice of

it before.

However, this was a help to me, and served to more than pay my ransom

to the captain. And my correspondent in London, hearing of my being

alive and at Bordeaux, immediately sent me a letter of credit upon an

English merchant at Bordeaux for whatever I might have occasion for. As

soon as I received this I went to the merchant, who honoured the letter

of credit, and told me I should have what money I pleased. But as I,

who was before a mere stranger in the place and knew not what course to

take, had now, as it were, a friend to communicate my affairs to and

consult with, as soon as I told him my case, “Hold,” says he; “if that

be your case, I may perhaps find a way to get you off without a

ransom.”

There was, it seems, a ship bound home to France from Martinico, taken

off Cape Finisterre by an English man-of-war, and a merchant of

Rochelle, being a passenger, was taken on board, and brought into

Plymouth. This man had made great solicitation by his friends to be

exchanged, pleading poverty, and that he was unable to pay any ransom.

My friend told me something of it, but not much, only bade me not be

too forward to pay any money to the captain, but pretend I could not

hear from England. This I did till the captain appeared impatient.

After some time the captain told me I had used him ill; that I had made

him expect a ransom, and he had treated me courteously and been at

expense to subsist me, and that I held him in suspense, but that, in

short, if I did not procure the money, he would send me to Dinan in ten

days, to lie there as the king’s prisoner till I should be exchanged.

My merchant gave me my cue, and by his direction I answered I was very

sensible of his civility, and sorry he should lose what expenses he had

been at, but that I found my friends forgot me, and what to do I did

not know, and that, rather than impose upon him, I must submit to go to

Dinan, or where he thought fit to send me; but that if ever I obtained

my liberty, and came into England, I would not fail to reimburse him

what expense he had been at for my subsistence; and so, in short, made

my case very bad in all my discourse. He shook his head and said

little, but the next day entered me in the list of English prisoners to

be at the king’s charge, as appointed by the intendant of the place,

and to be sent away into Brittany.

I was then out of the captain’s power, and immediately the merchant,

with two others who were friends to the merchant prisoner at Plymouth,

went to the intendant and gained an order for the exchange, and my

friend giving security for my being forthcoming, in case the other was

not delivered, I had my liberty immediately, and went home with him to

his house.

Thus we bilked the captain of his ransom money. But, however, my friend

went to him, and letting him know that I was exchanged by the

governor’s order, paid him whatever he could say he was in disburse on

my account; and it was not then in the captain’s power to object, or to

claim anything for a ransom.

I got passage from hence to Dunkirk on board a French vessel, and

having a certificate of an exchanged prisoner from the intendent at

Bordeaux, I had a passport given me to go into the Spanish Netherlands,

and so whither I pleased.

Accordingly I came to Ghent, in April——, just as the armies were going

to take the field. I had no dislike to the business of the army, but I

thought I was a little above it now, and had other things to look to;

for that, in my opinion, nobody went into the field but those that

could not live at home. And yet I resolved to see the manner of it a

little too, so, having made an acquaintance with an English officer

quartered at Ghent, I told him my intention, and he invited me to go

with him, and offered me his protection as a volunteer, that I should

quarter with him in his tent, and live as I would, and either carry

arms or not, as I saw occasion.

The campaign was none of the hardest that had been, or was like to be;

so that I had the diversion of seeing the service, as it was proper to

call it, without much hazard. Indeed I did not see any considerable

action, for there was not much fighting that campaign. As to the merit

of the cause on either side, I knew nothing of it, nor had I suffered

any of the disputes about it to enter into my thoughts. The Prince of

Orange had been made king of England, and the English troops were all

on his side; and I heard a great deal of swearing and damning for King

William among the soldiers. But as for fighting, I observed the French

beat them several times, and particularly the regiment my friend

belonged to was surrounded in a village where they were posted, I knew

not upon what occasion, and all taken prisoners. But by great good hap,

I, being not in service, and so not in command, was strolled away that

day to see the country about; for it was my delight to see the strong

towns, and observe the beauty of their fortifications; and while I

diverted myself thus, I had the happy deliverance of not being taken by

the French for that time.

When I came back I found the enemy possessed of the town, but as I was

no soldier they did me no harm, and having my French passport in my

pocket, they gave me leave to go to Nieuport, where I took the

packet-boat and came over to England, landing at Deal instead of Dover,

the weather forcing us into the Downs; and thus my short campaign

ended, and this was my second essay at the trade of soldiering.

When I came to London I was very well received by my friend, to whom I

had consigned my effects, and I found myself in very good

circumstances; for all my goods, which, as above, by several ships, I

had consigned to him, came safe to hand; and my overseers that I had

left behind had shipped at several times four hundred hogsheads of

tobacco to my correspondent in my absence, being the product of my

plantation, or part of it, for the time of my being abroad; so that I

had above £1000 in my factor’s hands, two hundred hogsheads of tobacco

besides left in hand, not sold.

I had nothing to do now but entirely to conceal myself from all that

had any knowledge of me before. And this was the easiest thing in the

world to do; for I was grown out of everybody’s knowledge, and most of

those I had known were grown out of mine. My captain, who went with me,

or, rather, who carried me away, I found, by inquiring at the proper

place, had been rambling about the world, came to London, fell into his

own trade, which he could not forbear, and growing an eminent

highwayman, had made his exit at the gallows, after a life of fourteen

years’ most exquisite and successful rogueries, the particulars of

which would make, as I observed, an admirable history. My other brother

Jacque, who I called major, followed the like wicked trade, but was a

man of more gallantry and generosity; and having committed innumerable

depredations upon mankind, yet had always so much dexterity as to bring

himself off, till at length he was laid fast in Newgate, and loaded

with irons, and would certainly have gone the same way as the captain,

but he was so dexterous a rogue that no gaol, no fetters, would hold

him; and he, with two more, found means to knock off their irons,

worked their way through the wall of the prison, and let themselves

down on the outside in the night. So escaping, they found means to get

into France, where he followed the same trade, and with so much success

that he grew famous by the name of Anthony, and had the honour, with

three of his comrades, whom he had taught the English way of robbing

generously, as they called it, without murdering or wounding, or

ill-using those they robbed;—I say, he had the honour to be broke upon

the wheel at the Greve in Paris.

All these things I found means to be fully informed of, and to have a

long account of the particulars of their conduct from some of their

comrades who had the good fortune to escape, and who I got the

knowledge of without letting them so much as guess at who I was or upon

what account I inquired.

I was now at the height of my good fortune. Indeed I was in very good

circumstances, and being of a frugal temper from the beginning, I saved

things together as they came, and yet lived very well too. Particularly

I had the reputation of a very considerable merchant, and one that came

over vastly rich from Virginia; and as I frequently bought supplies for

my several families and plantations there as they wrote to me for them,

so I passed, I say, for a great merchant.

I lived single, indeed, and in lodgings, but I began to be very well

known, and though I had subscribed my name only “Jack” to my particular

correspondent, yet the French, among whom I lived near a year, as I

have said, not understanding what Jack meant, called me Monsieur

Jacques and Colonel Jacques, and so gradually Colonel Jacque. So I was

called in the certificate of exchanging me with the other prisoner, so

that I went so also into Flanders; upon which, and seeing my

certificate of exchange, as above, I was called Colonel Jacques in

England by my friend who I called correspondent. And thus I passed for

a foreigner and a Frenchman, and I was infinitely fond of having

everybody take me for a Frenchman; and as I spoke French very well,

having learned it by continuing so long among them, so I went

constantly to the French church in London, and spoke French upon all

occasions as much as I could; and, to complete the appearance of it, I

got me a French servant to do my business—I mean as to my merchandise,

which only consisted in receiving and disposing of tobacco, of which I

had about five hundred to six hundred hogsheads a year from my own

plantations, and in supplying my people with necessaries as they wanted

them.

In this private condition I continued about two years more, when the

devil, owing me a spleen ever since I refused being a thief, paid me

home, with my interest, by laying a snare in my way which had almost

ruined me.

There dwelt a lady in the house opposite to the house I lodged in, who

made an extraordinary figure indeed. She went very well dressed, and

was a most beautiful person. She was well-bred, sung admirably fine,

and sometimes I could hear her very distinctly, the houses being over

against one another, in a narrow court, not much unlike Three King

Court in Lombard Street.

This lady put herself so often in my way that I could not in good

manners forbear taking notice of her, and giving her the ceremony of my

hat when I saw her at her window, or at the door, or when I passed her

in the court; so that we became almost acquainted at a distance.

Sometimes she also visited at the house I lodged at, and it was

generally contrived that I should be introduced when she came, and thus

by degrees we became more intimately acquainted, and often conversed

together in the family, but always in public, at least for a great

while.

I was a mere boy in the affair of love, and knew the least of what

belonged to a woman of any man in Europe of my age. The thoughts of a

wife, much less of a mistress, had never so much as taken the least

hold of my head, and I had been till now as perfectly unacquainted with

the sex, and as unconcerned about them, as I was when I was ten years

old, and lay in a heap of ashes at the glass-house.

But I know not by what witchcraft in the conversation of this woman,

and her singling me out upon several occasions, I began to be ensnared,

I knew not how, or to what end; and was on a sudden so embarrassed in

my thoughts about her that, like a charm, she had me always in her

circle. If she had not been one of the subtlest women on earth, she

could never have brought me to have given myself the least trouble

about her, but I was drawn in by the magic of a genius capable to

deceive a more wary capacity than mine, and it was impossible to resist

her.

She attacked me without ceasing, with the fineness of her conduct, and

with arts which were impossible to be ineffectual. She was ever, as it

were, in my view, often in my company, and yet kept herself so on the

reserve, so surrounded continually with obstructions, that for several

months after she could perceive I sought an opportunity to speak to

her, she rendered it impossible; nor could I ever break in upon her,

she kept her guard so well.

This rigid behaviour was the greatest mystery that could be,

considering, at the same time, that she never declined my seeing her or

conversing with me in public. But she held it on; she took care never

to sit next me, that I might slip no paper into her hand or speak

softly to her; she kept somebody or other always between, that I could

never come up to her; and thus, as if she was resolved really to have

nothing to do with me, she held me at the bay several months.

All this while nothing was more certain than that she intended to have

me, if she could catch; and it was indeed a kind of a catch, for she

managed all by art, and drew me in with the most resolute backwardness,

that it was almost impossible not to be deceived by it. On the other

hand, she did not appear to be a woman despicable, neither was she

poor, or in a condition that should require so much art to draw any man

in; but the cheat was really on my side; for she was unhappily told

that I was vastly rich, a great merchant, and that she would live like

a queen; which I was not at all instrumental in putting upon her,

neither did I know that she went upon that motive.

She was too cunning to let me perceive how easy she was to be had; on

the contrary, she run all the hazards of bringing me to neglect her

entirely that one would think any woman in the world could do. And I

have wondered often since how that it was possible it should fail of

making me perfectly averse to her; for as I had a perfect indifferency

for the whole sex, and never till then entertained any notion of them,

they were no more to me than a picture hanging up against a wall.

As we conversed freely together in public, so she took a great many

occasions to rally the men, and the weakness they were guilty of in

letting the women insult them as they did. She thought if the men had

not been fools, marriage had been only treaties of peace between two

neighbours, or alliances offensive or defensive, which must necessarily

have been carried on sometimes by interviews and personal treaties, but

oftener by ambassadors, agents, and emissaries on both sides; but that

the women had outwitted us, and brought us upon our knees, and made us

whine after them, and lower ourselves, so as we could never pretend to

gain our equality again.

I told her I thought it was a decency to the ladies to give them the

advantage of denying a little, that they might be courted, and that I

should not like a woman the worse for denying me. “I expect it, madam,”

says I, “when I wait on you to-morrow;” intimating that I intended it.

“You shan’t be deceived, sir,” says she, “for I’ll deny now, before you

ask me the question.”

I was dashed so effectually with so malicious, so devilish an answer

that I returned with a little sullenness, “I shan’t trespass upon you

yet, madam; and I shall be very careful not to offend you when I do.”

“It is the greatest token of your respect, sir,” says she, “that you

are able to bestow upon me, and the most agreeable too, except one,

which I will not be out of hopes of obtaining of you in a little time.”

“What is in my power to oblige you in, madam,” said I, “you may command

me in at any time, especially the way we are talking of.” This I spoke

still with a resentment very sincere.

“It is only, sir, that you would promise to hate me with as much

sincerity as I will endeavour to make you a suitable return.”

“I granted that request, madam, seven years before you asked it,” said

I, “for I heartily hated the whole sex, and scarce know how I came to

abate that good disposition in compliment to your conversation; but I

assure you that abatement is so little that it does no injury to your

proposal.”

“There’s some mystery in that indeed, sir,” said she, “for I desire to

assist your aversion to women in a more particular manner, and hoped it

should never abate under my management.” We said a thousand ill-natured

things after this, but she outdid me, for she had such a stock of

bitterness upon her tongue as no woman ever went beyond her, and yet

all this while she was the pleasantest and most obliging creature in

every part of our conversation that could possibly be, and meant not

one word of what she said; no, not a word. But I must confess it no way

answered her end, for it really cooled all my thoughts of her, and I,

that had lived in so perfect an indifferency to the sex all my days,

was easily returned to that condition again, and began to grow very

cold and negligent in my usual respects to her upon all occasions.

She soon found she had gone too far with me, and, in short, that she

was extremely out in her politics; that she had to do with one that was

not listed yet among the whining sort of lovers, and knew not what it

was to adore a mistress in order to abuse her; and that it was not with

me as it was with the usual sort of men in love, that are warmed by the

cold, and rise in their passions as the ladies fall in their returns.

On the contrary, she found that it was quite altered. I was civil to

her, as before, but not so forward. When I saw her at her

chamber-window, I did not throw mine open, as I usually had done, to

talk with her. When she sung in the parlour, where I could easily hear

it, I did not listen. When she visited at the house where I lodged, I

did not always come down; or if I did, I had business which obliged me

to go abroad; and yet all this while, when I did come into her company,

I was as intimate as ever.

I could easily see that this madded her to the heart, and that she was

perplexed to the last degree, for she found that she had all her game

to play over again; that so absolute a reservedness, even to rudeness

and ill manners, was a little too much; but she was a mere

posture-mistress in love, and could put herself into what shapes she

pleased.

She was too wise to show a fondness or forwardness that looked like

kindness. She knew that was the meanest and last step a woman can take,

and lays her under the foot of the man she pretends to. Fondness is not

the last favour indeed, but it is the last favour but one that a woman

can grant, and lays her almost as low; I mean, it lays her at the mercy

of the man she shows it to; but she was not come to that neither. This

chameleon put on another colour, turned, on a sudden, the gravest,

soberest, majestic madam, so that any one would have thought she was

advanced in age in one week from two-and-twenty to fifty, and this she

carried on with so much government of herself that it did not in the

least look like art; but if it was a representation of nature only, it

was so like nature itself that nobody living can be able to

distinguish. She sung very often in her parlour, as well by herself as

with two young ladies who came often to see her. I could see by their

books, and her guitar in her hand, that she was singing; but she never

opened the window, as she was wont to do. Upon my coming to my window,

she kept her own always shut; or if it was open, she would be sitting

at work, and not look up, it may be, once in half-an-hour.

If she saw me by accident all this while, she would smile, and speak as

cheerfully as ever; but it was but a word or two, and so make her

honours and be gone; so that, in a word, we conversed just as we did

after I had been there a week.

She tired me quite out at this work; for though I began the

strangeness, indeed, yet I did not design the carrying it on so far.

But she held it to the last, just in the same manner as she began it.

She came to the house where I lodged as usual, and we were often

together, supped together, played at cards together, danced together;

for in France I accomplished myself with everything that was needful to

make me what I believed myself to be even from a boy—I mean a

gentleman. I say, we conversed together, as above, but she was so

perfectly another thing to what she used to be in every part of her

conversation that it presently occurred to me that her former behaviour

was a kind of a rant or fit; that either it was the effect of some

extraordinary levity that had come upon her, or that it was done to

mimic the coquets of the town, believing it might take with me, who she

thought was a Frenchman, and that it was what I loved. But her new

gravity was her real natural temper, and indeed it became her so much

better, or, as I should say, she acted it so well, that it really

brought me back to have, not as much only, but more mind to her than

ever I had before.

However, it was a great while before I discovered myself, and I stayed

indeed to find out, if possible, whether this change was real or

counterfeit; for I could not easily believe it was possible the gay

humour she used to appear in could be a counterfeit. It was not,

therefore, till a year and almost a quarter that I came to any

resolution in my thoughts about her, when, on a mere accident, we came

to a little conversation together.

She came to visit at our house as usual, and it happened all the ladies

were gone abroad; but, as it fell out, I was in the passage or entry of

the house, going towards the stairs, when she knocked at the door; so,

stepping back, I opened the door, and she, without any ceremony, came

in, and ran forward into the parlour, supposing the women had been

there. I went in after her, as I could do no less, because she did not

know that the family was abroad.

Upon my coming in she asked for the ladies. I told her I hoped she came

to visit me now, for that the ladies were all gone abroad. “Are they?”

said she, as if surprised—though I understood afterwards she knew it

before, as also that I was at home—and then rises up to be gone. “No,

madam,” said I, “pray do not go; when ladies come to visit me, I do not

use to tire them of my company so soon.” “That’s as ill-natured,” says

she, “as you could possibly talk. Pray don’t pretend I came to visit

you. I am satisfied who I came to visit, and satisfied that you know

it.” “Yes, madam,” said I; “but if I happen to be all of the family

that’s left at home, then you came to visit me.”

Jacque and lady

COLONEL JACQUE AND THE LADY

“I never receive visits from those that I hate,” says she.

“You have me there, indeed,” said I; “but you never gave me leave to

tell you why I hated you. I hated you because you would never give me

an opportunity to tell you I loved you. Sure, you took me for some

frightful creature, that you would never come near enough so much as to

let me whisper to you that I love you.”

“I never care to hear anything so disagreeable,” says she, “though it

be spoken ever so softly.”

We rallied thus for an hour. In short, she showed the abundance of her

wit, and I an abundant deficiency of mine; for though three or four

times she provoked me to the last degree, so that once I was going to

tell her I had enough of her company, and, if she pleased I would wait

upon her to the door, yet she had always so much witchcraft on her

tongue that she brought herself off again; till, to make the story

short, we came at last to talk seriously on both sides about matrimony,

and she heard me freely propose it, and answered me directly upon many

occasions. For example, she told me I would carry her away to France or

to Virginia, and that she could not think of leaving England, her

native country. I told her I hoped she did not take me for a kidnapper.

(By the way, I did not tell her how I had been kidnapped myself.) She

said no; but the consequence of my affairs, which were, it seems,

mostly abroad, might oblige me to go, and she could never think of

marrying any man that she could not be content to go all over the world

with, if he had occasion to go himself. This was handsomely expressed

indeed. I made her easy on that point, and thus we began the grand

parley; which indeed she drew me into with the utmost art and subtilty,

such as was peculiar to herself, but was infinitely her advantage in

our treating of marriage; for she made me effectually court her, though

at the same time in her design she courted me with the utmost skill,

and such skill it was that her design was perfectly impenetrable to the

last moment.

In short, we came nearer and nearer every time we met; and after one

casual visit more, in which I had the mighty favour of talking with her

alone, I then waited on her every day at her own house, or lodgings

rather, and so we set about the work to a purpose, and in about a month

we gave the world the slip, and were privately married, to avoid

ceremony and the public inconveniency of a wedding.

We soon found a house proper for our dwelling, and so went to

housekeeping. We had not been long together but I found that gay temper

of my wife returned, and she threw off the mask of her gravity and good

conduct, that I had so long fancied was her mere natural disposition;

and now, having no more occasion for disguises, she resolved to seem

nothing but what really she was, a wild, untamed colt, perfectly loose,

and careless to conceal any part, no, not the worst of her conduct.

She carried on this air of levity to such an excess that I could not

but be dissatisfied at the expense of it; for she kept company that I

did not like, lived beyond what I could support, and sometimes lost at

play more than I cared to pay. Upon which, one day, I took occasion to

mention it, but lightly; and said to her, by way of raillery, that we

lived merrily, for as long as it would last. She turned short upon me,

“What do you mean?” says she. “Why, you don’t pretend to be uneasy, do

ye?” “No, no, madam, not I, by no means; it is no business of mine, you

know,” said I, “to inquire what my wife spends, or whether she spends

more than I can afford, or less. I only desire the favour to know, as

near as you can guess, how long you will please to take to despatch me,

for I would not be too long a-dying.”

“I do not know what you talk of,” says she. “You may die as leisurely,

or as hastily, as you please, when your time comes; I a’nt a-going to

kill you, as I know of.”

“But you are a-going to starve me, madam,” said I, “and hunger is as

leisurely a death as breaking upon the wheel.”

“I starve you! Why, are not you a great Virginia merchant, and did not

I bring you £1500? What would you have? Sure, you can maintain a wife

out of that, can’t you?”

“Yes, madam,” says I, “I could maintain a wife, but not a gamester,

though you had brought me £1500 a year; no estate is big enough for a

box and dice.”

She took fire at that, and flew out in a passion, and after a great

many bitter words, told me, in short, that she saw no occasion to alter

her conduct; and as for my not maintaining her, when I could not

maintain her longer she would find some way or other to maintain

herself.

Some time after the first rattle of this kind, she vouchsafed to let me

know that she was pleased to be with child. I was at first glad of it,

in hopes it would help to abate her madness; but it was all one, and

her being with child only added to the rest, for she made such

preparations for her lying-in, and the other appendixes of a child’s

being born, that, in short, I found she would be downright distracted.

And I took the liberty to tell her one day that she would soon bring

herself and me to destruction, and entreated her to consider that such

figures as those were quite above us, and out of our circle; and, in

short, that I neither could nor would allow such expenses; that, at

this rate, two or three children would effectually ruin me, and that I

desired her to consider what she was doing.

She told me, with an air of disdain, that it was none of her business

to consider anything of that matter; that if I could not allow it, she

would allow it herself, and I might do my worst.

I begged her to consider things for all that, and not drive me to

extremities; that I married her to love and cherish her, and use her as

a good wife ought to be used, but not to be ruined and undone by her.

In a word, nothing could mollify her, nor any argument persuade her to

moderation, but withal she took it so heinously that I should pretend

to restrain her, that she told me in so many words she would drop her

burthen with me, and then, if I did not like it, she would take care of

herself; she would not live with me an hour, for she would not be

restrained, not she; and talked a long while at that rate.

I told her, as to her child, which she called her burthen, it should be

no burthen to me; as to the rest, she might do as she pleased; it

might, however, do me this favour, that I should have no more lyings in

at the rate of £136 at a time, as I found she intended it should be

now. She told me she could not tell that; if she had no more by me, she

hoped she should by somebody else. “Say you so, madam?” said I. “Then

they that get them shall keep them.” She did not know that neither, she

said, and so turned it off jeering, and, as it were, laughing at me.

This last discourse nettled me, I must confess, and the more because I

had a great deal of it and very often, till, in short, we began at

length to enter into a friendly treaty about parting.

Nothing could be more criminal than the several discourses we had upon

this subject. She demanded a separate maintenance, and, in particular,

at the rate of £300 a year, and I demanded security of her that she

should not run me in debt. She demanded the keeping of the child, with

an allowance of £100 a year for that, and I demanded that I should be

secured from being charged for keeping any she might have by somebody

else, as she had threatened me.

In the interval, and during these contests, she dropped her burthen (as

she called it), and brought me a son, a very fine child.

She was content during her lying-in to abate a little, though it was

but a very little indeed, of the great expense she had intended, and,

with some difficulty and persuasion, was content with a suit of

child-bed linen of £15 instead of one she had intended of threescore;

and this she magnified as a particular testimony of her condescension

and a yielding to my avaricious temper, as she called it. But after she

was up again, it was the same thing, and she went on with her humour to

that degree that in a little time she began to carry it on to other

excesses, and to have a sort of fellows come to visit her, which I did

not like, and once, in particular, stayed abroad all night. The next

day, when she came home, she began to cry out first; told me where (as

she said) she lay, and that the occasion was a christening, where the

company had a feast and stayed too late; that, if I was dissatisfied, I

might inform myself there of all the particulars, where she lay, and

the like. I told her coldly, “Madam, you do well to suggest my being

dissatisfied, for you may be sure I am, and you could expect no other;

that as to going to your haunts to inform myself, that is not my

business: it is your business to bring testimonies of your behaviour,

and to prove where you lay, and in what company. It is enough to me

that you lay out of your own house, without your husband’s knowledge or

consent, and before you and I converse again I must have some

satisfaction of the particulars.”

She answered, with all her heart; she was as in different as I; and

since I took so ill her lying at a friend’s house on an extraordinary

occasion, she gave me to understand that it was what she would have me

expect, and what she would have the liberty to do when she thought fit.

“Well, madam,” said I, “if I must expect what I cannot allow, you must

expect I shall shut my doors by day against those that keep out of them

at night.”

She would try me, she said, very speedily; and if I shut the doors

against her, she would find a way to make me open them.

“Well, madam,” says I, “you threaten me hard, but I would advise you to

consider before you take such measures, for I shall be as good as my

word.” However, it was not long that we could live together upon these

terms; for I found very quickly what company she kept, and that she

took a course which I ought not to bear. So I began the separation

first, and refused her my bed. We had indeed refrained all converse as

husband and wife for about two months before, for I told her very

plainly I would father no brats that were not of my own getting; and

matters coming thus gradually to an extremity, too great to continue as

it was, she went off one afternoon, and left me a line in writing,

signifying that affairs had come to such a pass between us that she did

not think fit to give me the opportunity of shutting her out of doors,

and that therefore she had retired herself to such a place, naming a

relation of her own, as scandalous as herself; and that she hoped I

would not give her the trouble to sue for her support in the ordinary

course of law, but that, as her occasions required, she should draw

bills upon me, which she expected I would not refuse.

I was extremely satisfied with this proceeding, and took care to let

her hear of it, though I gave no answer at all to her letter; and as I

had taken care before that whenever she played such a prank as this,

she should not be able to carry much with her, so, after she was gone,

I immediately broke up housekeeping, sold my furniture by public

outcry, and in it everything in particular that was her own, and set a

bill upon my door, giving her to understand by it that she had passed

the Rubicon, that as she had taken such a step of her own accord, so

there was no room left her ever to think of coming back again.

This was what any one may believe I should not have done if I had seen

any room for a reformation; but she had given me such testimonies of a

mind alienated from her husband, in particular espousing her own

unsufferable levity, that there was indeed no possibility of our coming

afterwards to any terms again.

However, I kept a couple of trusty agents so near her that I failed not

to have a full account of her conduct, though I never let her know

anything of me but that I was gone over to France. As to her bills

which she said she would draw upon me, she was as good as her word in

drawing one of £30, which I refused to accept, and never gave her leave

to trouble me with another.

It is true, and I must acknowledge it, that all this was a very

melancholy scene of life to me, and but that she took care by carrying

herself to the last degree provoking, and continually to insult me, I

could never have gone on to the parting with so much resolution; for I

really loved her very sincerely, and could have been anything but a

beggar and a cuckold with her, but those were intolerable to me,

especially as they were put upon me with so much insult and rudeness.

But my wife carried it at last to a point that made all things light

and easy to me, for after above a year’s separation, and keeping such

company as she thought fit, she was pleased to be with child again, in

which she had, however, so much honesty as not to pretend that she had

had anything to do with me. What a wretched life she led after this,

and how she brought herself to the utmost extremity of misery and

distress, I may speak of hereafter.

I had found, soon after our parting, that I had a great deal of reason

to put myself into a posture at first not to be imposed upon by her;

for I found very quickly that she had run herself into debt in several

places very considerably, and that it was upon a supposition that I was

liable to those debts. But I was gone, and it was absolutely necessary

I should do so; upon which she found herself obliged, out of her wicked

gains, however, whatever she made of them, to discharge most of those

debts herself.

As soon as she was delivered of her child, in which my intelligence was

so good that I had gotten sufficient proof of it, I sued her in the

ecclesiastical court, in order to obtain a divorce; and as she found it

impossible to avoid it, so she declined the defence, and I gained a

legal decree, or what they call it, of divorce, in the usual time of

such process; and now I thought myself a free man once again, and began

to be sick of wedlock with all my heart.

I lived retired, because I knew she had contracted debts which I should

be obliged to pay, and I was resolved to be gone out of her reach with

what speed I could. But it was necessary that I should stay till the

Virginia fleet came in, because I looked for at least three hundred

hogsheads of tobacco from thence, which I knew would heal all my

breaches; for indeed the extravagance of three years with this lady had

sunk me most effectually, even far beyond her own fortune, which was

considerable, though not quite £1500, as she had called it.

But all the mischiefs I met with on account of this match were not over

yet; for when I had been parted with her about three months, and had

refused to accept her bill of £30, which I mentioned above, though I

was removed from my first lodgings too, and thought I had effectually

secured myself from being found out, yet there came a gentleman well

dressed to my lodgings one day, and was let in before I knew of it, or

else I should scarce have admitted him.

He was led into a parlour, and I came down to him in my gown and

slippers. When I came into the room he called me as familiarly by my

name as if he had known me twenty years, and pulling out a pocket-book,

he shows me a bill upon me, drawn by my wife, which was the same bill

for £30 that I had refused before.

“Sir,” says I, “this bill has been presented before, and I gave my

answer to it then.”

“Answer, sir!” says he, with a kind of jeering, taunting air. “I do not

understand what you mean by an answer; it is not a question, sir; it is

a bill to be paid.”

“Well, sir,” says I, “it is a bill; I know that, and I gave my answer

to it before.”

“Sir, sir,” says he very saucily, “your answer! There is no answer to a

bill; it must be paid. Bills are to be paid, not to be answered. They

say you are a merchant, sir; merchants always pay their bills.”

I began to be angry too a little, but I did not like my man, for I

found he began to be quarrelsome. However, I said, “Sir, I perceive you

are not much used to presenting bills. Sir, a bill is always first

presented, and presenting is a question; it is asking if I will accept

or pay the bill, and then whether I say yes or no, it is an answer one

way or other. After ’tis accepted, it indeed requires no more answer

but payment when ’tis due. If you please to inform yourself, this is

the usage which all merchants or tradesmen of any kind who have bills

drawn upon them act by.”

“Well, sir,” says he, “and what then? What is this to the paying me the

£30?”

“Why, sir,” says I, “it is this to it, that I told the person that

brought it I should not pay it.”

“Not pay it!” says he. “But you shall pay it; ay, ay, you will pay it.”

“She that draws it has no reason to draw any bills upon me, I am sure,”

said I; “and I shall pay no bills she draws, I assure you.”

Upon this he turns short upon me: “Sir, she that draws this bill is a

person of too much honour to draw any bill without reason, and ’tis an

affront to say so of her, and I shall expect satisfaction of you for

that by itself. But first the bill, sir—the bill; you must pay the

bill, sir.”

I returned as short: “Sir, I affront nobody. I know the person as well

as you, I hope; and what I have said of her is no affront. She can have

no reason to draw bills upon me, for I owe her nothing.”

I omit intermingling the oaths he laced his speech with, as too foul

for my paper. But he told me he would make me know she had friends to

stand by her, that I had abused her, and he would let me know it, and

do her justice. But first I must pay his bill.

I answered, in short, I would not pay the bill, nor any bills she

should draw.

With that he steps to the door and shuts it, and swore by G—d he would

make me pay the bill before we parted, and laid his hand upon his

sword, but did not draw it out.

I confess I was frighted to the last degree, for I had no sword; and if

I had, I must own that, though I had learned a great many good things

in France to make me look like a gentleman, I had forgot the main

article of learning how to use a sword, a thing so universally

practised there; and, to say more, I had been perfectly unacquainted

with quarrels of this nature; so that I was perfectly surprised when he

shut the door, and knew not what to say or do.

However, as it happened, the people of the house, hearing us pretty

loud, came near the door, and made a noise in the entry to let me know

they were at hand; and one of the servants, going to open the door, and

finding it locked, called out to me, “Sir, for God’s sake open the

door! What is the matter? Shall we fetch a constable?” I made no

answer, but it gave me courage; so I sat down composed in one of the

chairs, and said to him, “Sir, this is not the way to make me pay the

bill; you had much better be easy, and take your satisfaction another

way.”

He understood me of fighting, which, upon my word, was not in my

thoughts; but I meant that he had better take his course at law.

“With all my heart,” says he; “they say you are a gentleman, and they

call you colonel. Now, if you are a gentleman, I accept your challenge,

sir; and if you will walk out with me, I will take it for full payment

of the bill, and will decide it as gentlemen ought to do.”

“I challenge you, sir!” said I. “Not I; I made no challenge,” I said.

“This is not the way to make me pay a bill that I have not accepted;

that is, that you had better seek your satisfaction at law.”

“Law!” says he; “law! Gentlemen’s law is my law. In short, sir, you

shall pay me or fight me.” And then, as if he had mistaken, he turns

short upon me, “Nay,” says he, “you shall both fight me and pay me, for

I will maintain her honour;” and in saying this he bestowed about six

or seven “damme’s” and oaths, by way of parenthesis.

This interval delivered me effectually, for just at the words “fight

me, for I will maintain her honour,” the maid had brought in a

constable, with three or four neighbours to assist him.

He heard them come in, and began to be a little in a rage, and asked me

if I intended to mob him instead of paying; and laying his hand on his

sword, told me, if any man offered to break in upon him, he would run

me through the first moment, that he might have the fewer to deal with

afterwards.

I told him he knew I had called for no help (believing he could not be

in earnest in what he had said), and that, if anybody attempted to come

in upon us, it was to prevent the mischief he threatened, and which he

might see I had no weapons to resist.

Upon this the constable called, and charged us both in the king’s name

to open the door. I was sitting in a chair, and offered to rise. He

made a motion as if he would draw, upon which I sat down again, and the

door not being opened, the constable set his foot against it and came

in.

“Well, sir,” says my gentleman, “and what now? What’s your business

here?” “Nay, sir,” says the constable, “you see my business. I am a

peace-officer; all I have to do is to keep the peace, and I find the

people of the house frightened for fear of mischief between you, and

they have fetched me to prevent it.” “What mischief have they supposed

you should find?” says he. “I suppose,” says the constable, “they were

afraid you should fight.” “That’s because they did not know this fellow

here. He never fights. They call him colonel,” says he. “I suppose he

might be born a colonel, for I dare say he was born a coward; he never

fights; he dares not see a man. If he would have fought, he would have

walked out with me, but he scorns to be brave; they would never have

talked to you of fighting if they had known him. I tell you, Mr.

Constable, he is a coward, and a coward is a rascal;” and with that he

came to me, and stroked his finger down my nose pretty hard, and

laughed and mocked most horribly, as if I was a coward. Now, for aught

I knew, it might be true, but I was now what they call a coward made

desperate, which is one of the worst of men in the world to encounter

with; for, being in a fury, I threw my head in his face, and closing

with him, threw him fairly on his back by mere strength; and had not

the constable stepped in and taken me off, I had certainly stamped him

to death with my feet, for my blood was now all in a flame, and the

people of the house were frighted now as much the other way, lest I

should kill him, though I had no weapon at all in my hand.

The constable too reproved me in his turn; but I said to him, “Mr.

Constable, do you not think I am sufficiently provoked? Can any man

bear such things as these? I desire to know who this man is and who

sent him hither.”

“I am,” says he, “a gentleman, and come with a bill to him for money,

and he refuses to pay it.” “Well,” says the constable very prudently,

“that is none of my business; I am no justice of the peace to hear the

cause. Be that among yourselves, but keep your hands off one another,

and that is as much as I desire; and therefore, sir,” says the

constable to him, “if I may advise you, seeing he will not pay the

bill, and that must be decided between you as the law directs, I would

have you leave it for the present and go quietly away.”

He made many impertinent harangues about the bill, and insisted that it

was drawn by my own wife. I said angrily, “Then it was drawn by a

whore.” He bullied me upon that, told me I durst not tell him so

anywhere else; so I answered, “I would very soon publish her for a

whore to all the world, and cry her down;” and thus we scolded for near

half-an-hour, for I took courage when the constable was there, for I

knew that he would keep us from fighting, which indeed I had no mind

to, and so at length I got rid of him.

I was heartily vexed at this rencounter, and the more because I had

been found out in my lodging, which I thought I had effectually

concealed. However, I resolved to remove the next day, and in the

meantime I kept within doors all that day till the evening, and then I

went out in order not to return thither any more.

Being come out into Gracechurch Street, I observed a man follow me,

with one of his legs tied up in a string, and hopping along with the

other, and two crutches; he begged for a farthing, but I inclining not

to give him anything, the fellow followed me still, till I came to a

court, when I answered hastily to him, “I have nothing for you! Pray do

not be so troublesome!” with which words he knocked me down with one of

his crutches.

Being stunned with the blow, I knew nothing what was done to me

afterwards; but coming to myself again, I found I was wounded very

frightfully in several places, and that among the rest my nose was slit

upwards, one of my ears cut almost off, and a great cut with a sword on

the side of the forehead; also a stab into the body, though not

dangerous.

Who had been near me, or struck me, besides the cripple that struck me

with his crutch, I knew not, nor do I know to this hour; but I was

terribly wounded, and lay bleeding on the ground some time, till,

coming to myself, I got strength to cry out for help, and people coming

about me, I got some hands to carry me to my lodging, where I lay by it

more than two months before I was well enough to go out of doors; and

when I did go out, I had reason to believe that I was waited for by

some rogues, who watched an opportunity to repeat the injury I had met

with before.

This made me very uneasy, and I resolved to get myself out of danger if

possible, and to go over to France, or home, as I called it, to

Virginia, so to be out of the way of villains and assassinations; for

every time I stirred out here I thought I went in danger of my life;

and therefore, as before, I went out at night, thinking to be

concealed, so now I never went out but in open day, that I might be

safe, and never without one or two servants to be my lifeguard.

But I must do my wife a piece of justice here too, and that was, that,

hearing what had befallen me, she wrote me a letter, in which she

treated me more decently than she had been wont to do. She said she was

very sorry to hear how I had been used, and the rather because she

understood it was on presenting her bill to me. She said she hoped I

could not, in my worst dispositions, think so hardly of her as to

believe it was done by her knowledge or consent, much less by her order

or direction; that she abhorred such things, and protested, if she had

the least knowledge or so much as a guess at the villains concerned,

she would discover them to me. She let me know the person’s name to

whom she gave the bill, and where he lived, and left it to me to oblige

him to discover the person who had brought it and used me so ill, and

wished I might find him and bring him to justice, and have him punished

with the utmost severity of the law.

I took this so kindly of my wife that I think in my conscience, had she

come after it herself to see how I did, I had certainly taken her

again; but she satisfied herself with the civility of another letter,

and desiring me to let her know as often as I could how I was; adding

that it would be infinitely to her satisfaction to hear I was recovered

of the hurt I had received, and that he was hanged at Tyburn who had

done it.

She used some expressions signifying, as I understood them, her

affliction at our parting and her continued respect for me; but did not

make any motion towards returning. Then she used some arguments to move

me to pay her bills, intimating that she had brought me a large

fortune, and now had nothing to subsist on, which was very severe.

I wrote her an answer to this letter, though I had not to the other,

letting her know how I had been used; that I was satisfied, upon her

letter, that she had no hand in it; that it was not in her nature to

treat me so, who had never injured her, used any violence with her, or

been the cause or desire of our parting; that, as to her bill, she

could not but know how much her expensive way of living had straitened

and reduced me, and would, if continued, have ruined me; that she had

in less than three years spent more than as much as she brought to me,

and would not abate her expensive way, though calmly entreated by me,

with protestations that I could not support so great an expense, but

chose rather to break up her family and go from me than to restrain

herself to reasonable limits; though I used no violence with her, but

entreaties and earnest persuasions, backed with good reason; letting

her know how my estate was, and convincing her that it must reduce us

to poverty at least; that, however, if she would recall her bill, I

would send her £30, which was the sum mentioned in her bill, and,

according to my ability, would not let her want, if she pleased to live

within due bounds; but then I let her know also that I had a very bad

account of her conduct, and that she kept company with a scandalous

fellow, who I named to her; that I was loth to believe such things of

her, but that, to put an entire end to the report and restore her

reputation, I let her know that still, after all I heard, if she would

resolve to live without restraints, within the reasonable bounds of my

capacity, and treat me with the same kindness, affection, and

tenderness as I always had treated her, and ever would, I was willing

to receive her again, and would forget all that was past; but that, if

she declined me now, it would be forever; for if she did not accept my

offer, I was resolved to stay here no longer, where I had been so

ill-treated on many occasions, but was preparing to go into my own

country, where I would spend my days in quiet, and in a retreat from

the world.

She did not give such an answer to this as I expected; for though she

thanked me for the £30, yet she insisted upon her justification in all

other points; and though she did not refuse to return to me, yet she

did not say she accepted it, and, in short, said little or nothing to

it, only a kind of claim to a reparation of her injured reputation, and

the like.

This gave me some surprise at first, for I thought, indeed, any woman

in her circumstances would have been very willing to have put an end to

all her miseries, and to the reproach which was upon her, by a

reconciliation, especially considering she subsisted at that time but

very meanly. But there was a particular reason which prevented her

return, and which she could not plead to in her letter, yet was a good

reason against accepting an offer which she would otherwise have been

glad of; and this was, that, as I have mentioned above, she had fallen

into bad company, and had prostituted her virtue to some of her

flatterers, and, in short, was with child; so that she durst not

venture to accept my offer.

However, as I observed above, she did not absolutely refuse it,

intending (as I understood afterward) to keep the treaty of it on foot

till she could drop her burthen, as she had called it before, and

having been delivered privately, have accepted my proposal afterward;

and, indeed, this was the most prudent step she could take, or, as we

may say, the only step she had left to take. But I was too many for her

here too. My intelligence about her was too good for her to conceal

such an affair from me, unless she had gone away before she was visibly

big, and unless she had gone farther off too than she did; for I had an

account to a tittle of the time when, and place where, and the creature

of which she was delivered; and then my offers of taking her again were

at an end, though she wrote me several very penitent letters,

acknowledging her crime and begging me to forgive her. But my spirit

was above all that now, nor could I ever bear the thoughts of her after

that, but pursued a divorce, and accordingly obtained it, as I have

mentioned already.