Things being at this pass, I resolved, as I have observed before, to go

over to France, after I had received my effects from Virginia; and

accordingly I came to Dunkirk in the year ——, and here I fell into

company with some Irish officers of the regiment of Dillon, who by

little and little entered me into the army, and by the help of

Lieutenant-General ——, an Irishman, and some money, I obtained a

company in his regiment, and so went into the army directly.

I was exceeding pleased with my new circumstances, and now I used to

say to myself I was come to what I was born to, and that I had never

till now lived the life of a gentleman.

Our regiment, after I had been some time in it, was commanded into

Italy, and one of the most considerable actions that I was in was the

famous attack upon Cremona, in the Milanese, where the Germans, being

privately and by treachery let into the town in the night through a

kind of common sewer, surprised the town and got possession of the

greatest part of it, surprising the mareschal, Duke de Villeroi, and

taking him prisoner as he came out of his quarters, and beating the few

French troops which were left in the citadel; but were in the middle of

their victory so boldly and resolutely attacked by two Irish regiments

who were quartered in the street leading to the river Po, and who kept

possession of the water-gate, or Po gate, of the town, by which the

German reinforcements should have come in, that, after a most desperate

fight, the Germans had their victory wrung out of their hands, and not

being able to break through us to let in their friends, were obliged at

length to quit the town again, to the eternal honour of those Irish

regiments, and indeed of their whole nation, and for which we had a

very handsome compliment from the king of France.

I now had the satisfaction of knowing, and that for the first time too,

that I was not that cowardly, low-spirited wretch that I was when the

fellow bullied me in my lodgings about the bill of £30. Had he attacked

me now, though in the very same condition, I should, naked and unarmed

as I was, have flown in the face of him and trampled him under my feet.

But men never know themselves till they are tried, and courage is

acquired by time and experience of things.

Philip de Comines tells us that, after the battle of Monteleri, the

Count de Charolois, who till then had an utter aversion to the war, and

abhorred it and everything that belonged to it, was so changed by the

glory he obtained in that action, and by the flattery of those about

him, that afterwards the army was his mistress and the fatigues of the

war his chief delight. It is too great an example for me to bring in my

own case, but so it was, that they flattered me so with my bravery, as

they called it, on the occasion of this action, that I fancied myself

brave, whether I was so or not, and the pride of it made me bold and

daring to the last degree on all occasions. But what added to it was,

that somebody gave a particular account to the Court of my being

instrumental to the saving the city, and the whole Cremonese, by my

extraordinary defence of the Po gate, and by my managing that defence

after the lieutenant-colonel who commanded the party where I was posted

was killed; upon which the king sent me a public testimony of his

accepting my service, and sent me a brevet to be lieutenant-colonel,

and the next courier brought me actually a commission for

lieutenant-colonel in the regiment of ——.

I was in several skirmishes and petty encounters before this, by which

I gained the reputation of a good officer; but I happened to be in some

particular posts too, by which I got somewhat that I liked much better,

and that was a good deal of money.

Our regiment was sent from France to Italy by sea. We embarked at

Toulon, and landed at Savona, in the territory of Genoa, and marched

from thence to the duchy of Milan. At the first town we were sent to

take possession of, which was Alexandria, the citizens rose upon our

men in a most furious manner, and drove the whole garrison, which

consisted of eight hundred men—that is, French and soldiers in the

French service—quite out of the town.

I was quartered in a burgher’s house, just by one of the ports, with

eight of my men and a servant, where, calling a short council with my

men, we were resolved to maintain the house we were in, whatever it

cost, till we received orders to quit it from the commanding officer.

Upon this, when I saw our men could not stand their ground in the

street, being pressed hard by the citizens, I turned out of doors all

the family, and kept the house as a castle, which I was governor in;

and as the house joined to the city gate, I resolved to maintain it, so

as to be the last that should quit the place, my own retreat being

secured by being so near the port.

Having thus emptied the house of the inhabitants, we made no scruple of

filling our pockets with whatever we could find there. In a word, we

left nothing we could carry away, among which it came to my lot to dip

into the burgher’s cabinet whose house it was where we were, and there

I took about the quantity of two hundred pistoles in money and plate,

and other things of value. There was great complaint made to Prince

Vaudemont, who was then governor of the Milanese, of this violence. But

as the repulse the citizens gave us was contrary to his order, and to

the general design of the prince, who was then wholly in the interest

of King Philip, the citizens could obtain nothing; and I found that if

we had plundered the whole city it would have been the same thing; for

the governor had orders to take our regiment in, and it was an act of

open rebellion to resist us as they did. However, we had orders not to

fire upon the burghers, unless constrained to it by evident necessity,

and we rather chose to quit the place as we did than dispute it with a

desperate body of fellows, who wanted no advantage of us, except only

that of having possession of two bastions and one port of our retreat.

First, they were treble our number; for the burghers, being joined by

seven companies of the regular troops, made up above sixteen hundred

men, besides rabble, which was many more, whereas we were about eight

hundred in all; they also had the citadel and several pieces of cannon,

so that we could have made nothing of it if we had attacked them. But

they submitted three or four days after to other forces, the soldiers

within turning upon them and taking the citadel from them.

After this we lay still in quarters eight months. For the prince,

having secured the whole Milanese for King Philip, and no enemy

appearing for some time, had nothing to do but to receive the auxiliary

troops of France, and as they came, extend himself every way as he

could, in order to keep the imperialists (who were preparing to fall

into Italy with a great army) as much at a distance as possible, which

he did by taking possession of the city of Mantua, and of most of the

towns on that side, as far as the Lake De la Guarda and the river

Adige.

We lay in Mantua some time, but were afterwards drawn out by order of

the Count de Tesse (afterwards Marshal of France), to form the French

army, till the arrival of the Duke de Vendôme, who was to command in

chief. Here we had a severe campaign, _anno_ 1701, having Prince Eugene

of Savoy and an army of forty thousand Germans, all old soldiers, to

deal with; and though the French army was more numerous than the enemy

by twenty-five thousand men, yet, being on the defensive, and having so

many posts to cover, not knowing exactly where the Prince of Savoy, who

commanded the imperial army, would attack us, it obliged the French to

keep their troops so divided and so remote from one another that the

Germans pushed on their design with great success, as the histories of

those times more fully relate.

I was at the action of Carpi, July 1701, where we were worsted by the

Germans; indeed, were forced to quit our encampment and give up to the

prince the whole river Adige, and where our regiment sustained some

loss. But the enemies got little by us, and Monsieur Catinat, who

commanded at that time, drew up in order of battle the next day in

sight of the German army, and gave them a defiance; but they would not

stir, though we offered them battle two days together; for, having

gained the passage over the Adige by our quitting Rivoli, which was

then useless to us, their business was done.

Finding they declined a decisive action, our generals pressed them in

their quarters, and made them fight for every inch of ground they

gained; and at length, in the September following, we attacked them in

their intrenched posts of Chiar. Here we broke into the very heart of

their camp, where we made a very terrible slaughter. But I know not by

what mistake among our generals, or defect in the execution of their

orders, the brigade of Normandy and our Irish Brigade, who had so

bravely entered the German intrenchments, were not supported as we

should have been, so that we were obliged to sustain the shock of the

whole German army, and at last to quit the advantage we had gained, and

that not without loss; but, being timely reinforced by a great body of

horse, the enemy were in their turn beaten off too, and driven back

into their very camp. The Germans boasted of having a great victory

here, and indeed, in repulsing us after we had gained their camp, they

had the advantage. But had Monsieur de Tesse succoured us in time, as

old Catinat said he ought to have done, with twelve thousand foot which

he had with him, that day’s action had put an end to the war, and

Prince Eugene must have been glad to have gone back to Germany in more

haste than he came, if, perhaps, we had not cut him short by the way.

But the fate of things went another way, and the Germans continued all

that campaign to push forward and advance one post after another, till

they beat us quite out of the Milanese.

The latter part of this campaign we made only a party war, the French,

according to their volatile temper, being every day abroad, either

foraging or surprising the enemy’s foragers, plundering or

circumventing the plunders of the other side. But they very often came

short home, for the Germans had the better of them on several

occasions; and indeed so many lost their lives upon these petty

encounters that I think, including those who died of distempers gotten

by hard service and bad quarters, lying in the field even till the

middle of December among rivers and bogs, in a country so full of

canals and rivers as that part of Italy is known to be; I say, we lost

more men, and so did the enemy also, than would have been lost in a

general decisive battle.

The Duke of Savoy, to give him his due, pressed earnestly to put it to

a day and come to a battle with Prince Eugene; but the Duke de

Villeroi, Monsieur Catinat, and the Count de Tesse were all against it;

and the principal reason was, that they knew the weakness of the

troops, who had suffered so much on so many occasions that they were in

no condition to give battle to the Germans. So after, as I say, about

three months’ harassing one another with parties, we went into winter

quarters.

Before we marched out of the field, our regiment, with a detachment of

dragoons of six hundred, and about two hundred and fifty horse, went

out with a design to intercept Prince Commercy, a general of note under

Prince Eugene of Savoy. The detachment was intended to be only horse

and dragoons; but because it was the imperialists’ good luck to beat

many of our parties, and, as was given out, many more than we beat of

theirs, and because it was believed that the prince, who was an officer

of good note among them, would not go abroad but in very good company,

the Irish regiment of foot was ordered to be added, that, if possible,

they might meet with their match.

I was commanded, about two hours before, to pass about two hundred foot

and fifty dragoons at a small wood where our general had intelligence

that prince would post some men to secure his passage, which

accordingly I did. But Count Tesse, not thinking our party strong

enough, had marched himself, with a thousand horse and three hundred

grenadiers, to support us. And it was very well he did so; for Prince

Commercy, having intelligence of the first party, came forward sooner

than they expected, and fell upon them, and had entirely routed them

had not the Count, hearing the firing, advanced with the thousand horse

he had, with such expedition as to support his men in the very heat of

the action, by which means the Germans were defeated and forced to

retire. But the prince made a pretty good retreat, and after the action

came on to the wood where I was posted; but the surprise of his defeat

had prevented his sending a detachment to secure the pass at the wood,

as he intended.

The Count de Tesse, understanding that we were sent, as above, to the

wood, followed them close at the heels, to prevent our being cut off,

and, if it were possible that we should give them any check at the

wood, to fall in and have another brush with them. It was near night

before they came to the wood, by which means they could not discern our

number. But when they came up to the wood, fifty dragoons advanced to

discover the pass and see if all was clear. These we suffered to pass a

great way into the defile, or lane, that went through the wood, and

then clapping in between them and the entrance, cut off their retreat

so effectually that when they discovered us and fired, they were

instantly surrounded and cut in pieces, the officers who commanded them

and eight dragoons only being made prisoners.

This made the prince halt, not knowing what the case was or how strong

we were, and, to get better intelligence, sent two hundred horse to

surround or skirt the wood and beat up our quarter, and in the interim

the Count de Tesse appeared in his rear. We found the strait he was in

by the noise of our own troops at a distance; so we resolved to engage

the two hundred horse immediately. Accordingly our little troop of

horse drew up in the entrance of the lane and offered to skirmish, and

our foot, lying behind the hedge which went round the wood, stood ready

to act as occasion should offer. The horse, being attacked, gave way,

and retired into the lane; but the Germans were too old for us there.

They contented themselves to push us to the entrance, but would not be

drawn into a narrow pass without knowing whether the hedges were lined

or no.

But the prince, finding the French in his rear, and not being strong

enough to engage again, resolved to force his way through, and

commanded his dragoons to alight and enter the wood, to clear the

hedges on either side the lane, that he might pass with his cavalry.

This they did so vigorously, and were so much too strong for us, that

though we made good our ground a long time, yet our men were almost

half of them cut in pieces. However, we gave time to the French cavalry

to come up, and to fall on the prince’s troops and cut them off, and

take a great many prisoners, and then we retreated in our turn, opening

a gap for our own horse to break in. Three hundred of the dragoons were

killed, and two hundred of them taken prisoners.

In the first heat of this action, a German officer of dragoons, well

followed, had knocked down three men that stood next me; and, offering

me quarter, I was obliged to accept it, and gave him my sword; for our

men were upon the point of quitting their post and shifting every one

as they could. But the scale was turned, for our cavalry breaking in,

as above, the dragoons went to wreck, and the officer who had me

prisoner, turning to me, said, “We are all lost.” I asked him if I

could serve him. “Stand still a little,” says he; for his men fought

most desperately indeed. But about two hundred French horse appearing

in his rear too, he said to me in French, “I will be your prisoner,”

and returning me my sword, gave me also his own. A dragoon that stood

near him was just going to do the like, when he was shot dead, and the

horse coming up, the field was cleared in an instant. But Prince

Commercy went off with the rest of his party, and was pursued no

farther.

There were sixteen or seventeen of our men released, as I was, from

being taken; but they had not the luck I had, to take the officer that

had them in keeping. He had been so generous to me as not to ask what

money I had about me, though I had not much if he had. But I lost by

his civility, for then I could not have the assurance to ask him for

his money, though I understood he had near a hundred pistoles about

him. But he very handsomely at night, when we came to our tents, made

me a present of twenty pistoles, and in return I obtained leave for him

to go to Prince Eugene’s camp upon his parole, which he did, and so got

himself exchanged.

It was after this campaign that I was quartered at Cremona, when the

action happened there of which I have spoken already, and where our

Irish regiment did such service that they saved the town from being

really surprised, and indeed beat the Germans out again, after they had

been masters of three-quarters of the town six hours, and by which they

gained a very great reputation.

But I hasten on to my own history, for I am not writing a journal of

the wars, in which I had no long share.

The summer after this our two Irish regiments were drawn out into the

field, and had many a sore brush with the Germans; for Prince Eugene, a

vigilant general, gave us little rest, and gained many advantages by

his continual moving up and down, harassing his own men and ours too;

and whoever will do the French justice, and knew how they had behaved,

must acknowledge they never declined the Germans, but fought them upon

all occasions with the utmost resolution and courage; and though it

cost the blood of an infinite number of fine gentlemen, as well as

private soldiers, yet the Duke de Vendôme, who now commanded, though

King Philip was himself in the army this campaign, made the Prince of

Savoy a full return in his own kind, and drove him from post to post,

till he was just at the point of quitting the whole country of Italy.

All that gallant army Prince Eugene brought with him into Italy, which

was the best without doubt, for the goodness of the troops, that ever

were there, laid their bones in that country, and many thousands more

after them, till, the affairs of France declining in other places, they

were forced in their turn to give way to their fate, as may be seen in

the histories of those times, as above. But it is none of my business.

The part that I bore in these affairs was but short and sharp. We took

the field about the beginning of July 1702, and the Duke de Vendôme

ordered the whole army to draw the sooner together, in order to relieve

the city of Mantua, which was blocked up by the imperialists.

Prince Eugene was a politic, and indeed a fortunate, prince, and had

the year before pushed our army upon many occasions. But his good

fortune began to fail him a little this year, for our army was not only

more numerous than his, but the duke was in the field before him; and

as the prince had held Mantua closely blocked up all the winter, the

duke resolved to relieve the town, cost what it would. As I said, the

duke was first in the field; the prince was in no condition to prevent

his raising the blockade by force; so he drew off his troops, and

leaving several strong bodies of troops to protect Bersello, which the

Duke de Vendôme threatened, and Borgo Fort, where his magazine lay, he

drew all the rest of his forces together, to make head against us. By

this time the king of Spain was come into the army, and the Duke de

Vendôme lay with about thirty-five thousand men near Luzara, which he

had resolved to attack, to bring Prince Eugene to a battle. The Prince

of Vaudemont lay intrenched with twenty thousand more at Rivalto,

behind Mantua, to cover the frontiers of Milan, and there was near

twelve thousand in Mantua itself; and Monsieur Pracontal lay with ten

thousand men just under the cannon of one of the forts which guard the

causeway which leads into the city of Mantua; so that, had all these

joined, as they would have done in a few days more, the prince must

have been put to his shifts, and would have had enough to do to have

maintained himself in Italy; for he was master of no one place in the

country that could have held out a formal siege of fifteen days’ open

trenches, and he knew all this very well; and therefore it seems, while

the Duke of Vendôme resolved, if possible, to bring him to a battle,

and to that end made dispositions to attack Luzara, we were surprised

to find, the 15th of June 1702, the whole imperial army appeared in

_battalia_, and in full march, to attack us.

As it happened, our army was all marching in columns towards them, as

we had done for two days before; and I should have told you that, three

days before, the duke having noticed that General Visconti, with three

imperial regiments of horse and one of dragoons, was posted at

San-Victoria, on the Tessona, he resolved to attack them; and this

design was carried so secretly, that while Monsieur Visconti, though

our army was three leagues another way, was passing towards the

Modenese, he found himself unexpectedly attacked by six thousand horse

and dragoons of the French army. He defended himself very bravely for

near an hour; when, being overpowered, and finding he should be forced

into disorder, he sounded a retreat. But the squadrons had not faced

about to make their retreat scarce a quarter of an hour, when they

found themselves surrounded with a great body of infantry, who had

entirely cut off their retreat, except over the bridge of Tessona,

which being thronged with their baggage, they could neither get

backward or forward; so they thrust and tumbled over one another in

such a manner that they could preserve no kind of order; but abundance

fell into the river and were drowned, many were killed, and more taken

prisoners; so that, in a word, the whole three regiments of horse and

one of dragoons were entirely defeated.

This was a great blow to the prince, because they were some of the

choicest troops of his whole army. We took about four hundred

prisoners, and all their baggage, which was a very considerable booty,

and about eight hundred horses; and no doubt these troops were very

much wanted in the battle that ensued on the 15th, as I have said. Our

army being in full march, as above, to attack Luzara, a party of

Germans appeared, being about six hundred horse, and in less than an

hour more their whole army, in order of battle.

Our army formed immediately, and the duke posted the regiments as they

came up so much to their advantage that Prince Eugene was obliged to

alter his dispositions, and had this particular inconvenience upon his

hands, viz., to attack an army superior to his own, in all their most

advantageous posts; whereas, had he thought fit to have waited but one

day, we should have met him half-way. But this was owing to the pride

of the German generals, and their being so opinionated of the goodness

of their troops. The royal army was posted with the left to the great

river Po, on the other side of which the Prince of Vaudemont’s army lay

cannonading the intrenchments which the imperialists had made at Borgo

Fort; and hearing that there was like to be a general battle, he

detached twelve battalions and about a thousand horse, to reinforce the

royal army; all which, to our great encouragement, had time to join the

army, while Prince Eugene was making his new dispositions for the

attack. And yet it was the coming of these troops which caused Prince

Eugene to resolve to begin the fight, expecting to have come to an

action before they could come up. But he was disappointed in the reason

of fighting, and yet was obliged to fight too, which was an error in

the prince that it was too late to retrieve.

It was five o’clock in the evening before he could bring up his whole

line to engage; and then, after having cannonaded us to no great

purpose for half-an-hour, his right, commanded by the Prince de

Commercy, attacked our left wing with great fury. Our men received them

so well and seconded one another so punctually that they were repulsed

with a very great slaughter; and the Prince de Commercy being,

unhappily for them, killed in the first onset, the regiments, for want

of orders, and surprised with the fall of so great a man, were pushed

into disorder, and one whole brigade was entirely broke.

But their second line, advancing under General Herbeville, restored

things in the first. The battalions rallied, and they came boldly on to

charge a second time, and being seconded with new reinforcements from

their main body, our men had their turn, and were pushed to a canal

which lay on their left flank between them and the Po, behind which

they rallied; and being supported by new troops, as well horse as foot,

they fought on both sides with the utmost obstinacy, and with such

courage and skill that it was not possible to judge who should have had

the better could they have been able to have fought it out.

On the right of the royal army was posted the flower of the French

cavalry—namely, the gendarmes, the royal carbineers, and the queen’s

horse-guards, with four hundred horse more—and next them the infantry,

among which were our brigade. The horse advanced first to charge, and

they carried all before them sword in hand, receiving the fire of two

imperial regiments of cuirassiers without firing a shot, and falling in

among them, bore them down by the strength of their horses, putting

them into confusion, and left so clear a field for us to follow that

the first line of our infantry stood drawn up upon the ground which the

enemy at first possessed.

In this first attack the Marquis de Crequi, who commanded the whole

right wing, was killed—a loss which fully balanced the death of the

Prince de Commercy on the side of the Germans. After we had thus pushed

the enemy’s cavalry, as above, their troops, being rallied by the

dexterity of their generals and supported by three imperial regiments

of foot, came on again to the charge with such fury that nothing could

withstand them. And here two battalions of our Irish regiments were put

into disorder, and abundance of our men killed; and here also I had the

misfortune to receive a musket-shot, which broke my left arm; and that

was not all, for I was knocked down by a giant-like German soldier,

who, when he thought he had killed me, set his foot upon me, but was

immediately shot dead by one of my men, and fell just upon me, which,

my arm being broken, was a very great mischief to me; for the very

weight of the fellow, who was almost as big as a horse, was such that I

was not able to stir.

Our men were beaten back after this from the place where they stood;

and so I was left in possession of the enemy, but was not their

prisoner—that is to say, was not found till next morning, when a party

being sent, as usual, with surgeons to look after the wounded men among

the dead, found me almost smothered with the dead Germans and others

that lay near me. However, to do them justice, they used me with

humanity, and the surgeons set my arm very skilfully and well; and four

or five days after, I had liberty to go to Parma upon parole.

Both the armies continued fighting, especially on our left, till it was

so dark that it was impossible to know who they fired at, or for the

generals to see what they did; so they abated firing gradually, and, as

it may be truly said, the night parted them.

Both sides claimed the victory, and both concealed their losses as much

as it was possible; but it is certain that never battle was fought with

greater bravery and obstinacy than this was; and had there been

daylight to have fought it out, doubtless there would have been many

thousand more men killed on both sides.

All the Germans had to entitle them to the victory was, that they made

our left retire, as I have said, to the canal, and to the high banks or

mounds on the edge of the Po; but they had so much advantage in the

retreat—they fired from thence among the thickest of the enemy, and

could never be forced from their posts.

The best testimony the royal army had of the victory, and which was

certainly the better of the two, was, that, two days after the fight,

they attacked Guastalia, as it were in view of the German army, and

forced the garrison to surrender, and to swear not to serve again for

six months, which, they being fifteen hundred men, was a great loss to

the Germans; and yet Prince Eugene did not offer to relieve it. And

after that we took several other posts which the imperialists had

possession of, but were obliged to quit them upon the approach of the

French army, not being in a condition to fight another battle that

year.

My campaign was now at an end, and though I came lame off, I came off

much better than abundance of gentlemen; for in that bloody battle we

had above four hundred officers killed or wounded, whereof three were

general officers.

The campaign held on till December, and the Duke de Vendôme took Borgo

Fort and several other places from the Germans, who, in short, lost

ground every day in Italy. I was a prisoner a great while, and there

being no cartel settled, Prince Eugene ordered the French prisoners to

be sent into Hungary, which was a cruelty that could not be reasonably

exercised on them. However, a great many, by that banishment, found

means to make their escape to the Turks, by whom they were kindly

received, and the French ambassador at Constantinople took care of

them, and shipped them back again into Italy at the king’s charge.

But the Duke de Vendôme now took so many German prisoners that Prince

Eugene was tired of sending his prisoners to Hungary, and was obliged

to be at the charge of bringing some of them back again whom he had

sent thither, and come to agree to a general exchange of prisoners.

I was, as I have said, allowed for a time to go to Parma upon my

parole, where I continued for the recovery of my wound and broken arm

forty days, and was then obliged to render myself to the commanding

officer at Ferrara, where Prince Eugene coming soon after, I was, with

several other prisoners of war, sent away into the Milanese, to be kept

for an exchange of prisoners.

It was in the city of Trent that I continued about eight months. The

man in whose house I quartered was exceedingly civil to me, and took a

great deal of care of me, and I lived very easy. Here I contracted a

kind of familiarity, perfectly undesigned by me, with the daughter of

the burgher at whose house I had lodged, and, I know not by what

fatality that was upon me, I was prevailed with afterwards to marry

her. This was a piece of honesty on my side which I must acknowledge I

never intended to be guilty of; but the girl was too cunning for me,

for she found means to get some wine into my head more than I used to

drink, and though I was not so disordered with it but that I knew very

well what I did, yet in an unusual height of good humour I consented to

be married. This impolitic piece of honesty put me to many

inconveniences, for I knew not what to do with this clog which I had

loaded myself with. I could neither stay with her or take her with me,

so that I was exceedingly perplexed.

The time came soon after that I was released by the cartel, and so was

obliged to go to my regiment, which then was in quarters in the

Milanese, and from thence I got leave to go to Paris, upon my promise

to raise some recruits in England for the Irish regiments, by the help

of my correspondence there. Having thus leave to go to Paris, I took a

passport from the enemy’s army to go to Trent, and making a long

circuit, I went back thither, and very honestly packed up my baggage,

wife and all, and brought her away through Tyrol into Bavaria, and so

through Suabia and the Black Forest into Alsatia; from thence I came

into Lorraine, and so to Paris.

I had now a secret design to quit the war, for I really had had enough

of fighting. But it was counted so dishonourable a thing to quit while

the army was in the field that I could not dispense with it; but an

intervening accident made that part easy to me. The war was now renewed

between France and England and Holland, just as it was before; and the

French king, meditating nothing more than how to give the English a

diversion, fitted out a strong squadron of men-of-war and frigates at

Dunkirk, on board of which he embarked a body of troops of about six

thousand five hundred men, besides volunteers; and the new king, as we

called him, though more generally he was called the Chevalier de St.

George, was shipped along with them, and all for Scotland.

I pretended a great deal of zeal for this service, and that if I might

be permitted to sell my company in the Irish regiment I was in, and

have the chevalier’s brevet for a colonel, in case of raising troops

for him in Great Britain after his arrival, I would embark volunteer

and serve at my own expense. The latter gave me a great advantage with

the chevalier; for now I was esteemed as a man of consideration, and

one that must have a considerable interest in my own country. So I

obtained leave to sell my company, and having had a good round sum of

money remitted me from London, by the way of Holland, I prepared a very

handsome equipage, and away I went to Dunkirk to embark.

I was very well received by the chevalier; and as he had an account

that I was an officer in the Irish brigade, and had served in Italy,

and consequently was an old soldier, all this added to the character

which I had before, and made me have a great deal of honour paid me,

though at the same time I had no particular attachment to his person or

to his cause. Nor indeed did I much consider the cause of one side or

other. If I had, I should hardly have risked, not my life only, but

effects too, which were all, as I might say, from that moment forfeited

to the English government, and were too evidently in their power to

confiscate at their pleasure.

However, having just received a remittance from London of £300

sterling, and sold my company in the Irish regiment for very near as

much, I was not only insensibly drawn in, but was perfectly volunteer

in that dull cause, and away I went with them at all hazards. It

belongs very little to my history to give an account of that fruitless

expedition, only to tell you that, being so closely and effectually

chased by the English fleet, which was superior in force to the French,

I may say that, in escaping them, I escaped being hanged.

It was the good fortune of the French that they overshot the port they

aimed at, and intending for the Frith of Forth, or, as it is called,

the Frith of Edinburgh, the first land they made was as far north as a

place called Montrose, where it was not their business to land, and so

they were obliged to come back to the frith, and were gotten to the

entrance of it, and came to an anchor for the tide. But this delay or

hindrance gave time to the English, under Sir George Byng, to come to

the frith, and they came to an anchor, just as we did, only waiting to

go up the frith with the flood.

Had we not overshot the port, as above, all our squadron had been

destroyed in two days, and all we could have done had been to have

gotten into the pier or haven at Leith with the smaller frigates, and

have landed the troops and ammunition; but we must have set fire to the

men-of-war, for the English squadron was not above twenty-four hours

behind us, or thereabout.

Upon this surprise, the French admiral set sail from the north point of

the frith where we lay, and crowding away to the north, got the start

of the English fleet, and made their escape, with the loss of one ship

only, which, being behind the rest, could not get away.

When we were satisfied the English left chasing us, which was not till

the third night, when we altered our course and lost sight of them, we

stood over to the coast of Norway, and keeping that shore on board all

the way to the mouth of the Baltic, we came to an anchor again, and

sent two scouts abroad to learn news, to see if the sea was clear; and

being satisfied that the enemy did not chase us, we kept on with an

easier sail, and came all back again to Dunkirk; and glad I was to set

my foot on shore again; for all the while we were thus flying for our

lives I was under the greatest terror imaginable, and nothing but

halters and gibbets run in my head, concluding that, if I had been

taken, I should certainly have been hanged.

But the care was now over. I took my leave of the chevalier, and of the

army, and made haste to Paris. I came so unexpectedly to Paris, and to

my own lodgings, that it was my misfortune to make a discovery relating

to my wife which was not at all to my satisfaction; for I found her

ladyship had kept some company that I had reason to believe were not

such as an honest woman ought to have conversed with, and as I knew her

temper by what I had found of her myself, I grew very jealous and

uneasy about her. I must own it touched me very nearly, for I began to

have an extraordinary value for her, and her behaviour was very taking,

especially after I had brought her into France; but having a vein of

levity, it was impossible to prevent her running into such things in a

town so full of what they call gallantry as Paris.

It vexed me also to think that it should be my fate to be a cuckold

both abroad and at home, and sometimes I would be in such a rage about

it that I had no government of myself when I thought of it. Whole days,

and I may say sometimes whole nights, I spent musing and considering

what I should do to her, and especially what I should do to the

villain, whoever he was, that had thus abused and supplanted me. Here

indeed I committed murder more than once, or indeed than a hundred

times, in my imagination; and, as the devil is certainly an apparent

prompter to wickedness, if he is not the first mover of it in our

minds, he teased me night and day with proposals to kill my wife.

This horrid project he carried up so high, by raising fierce thoughts

and fomenting the blood upon my contemplation of the word cuckold,

that, in short, I left debating whether I should murder her or no, as a

thing out of the question, and determined; and my thoughts were then

taken up only with the management how I should kill her, and how to

make my escape after I had done it.

All this while I had no sufficient evidence of her guilt, neither had I

so much as charged her with it or let her know I suspected her,

otherwise than as she might perceive it in my conduct, and in the

change of my behaviour to her, which was such that she could not but

perceive that something troubled me. Yet she took no notice of it to

me, but received me very well, and showed herself to be glad of my

return. Nor did I find she had been extravagant in her expenses while I

was abroad. But jealousy, as the wise man says, is the wrath of a man;

her being so good a hussy at what money I had left her gave my

distempered fancy an opinion that she had been maintained by other

people, and so had had no occasion to spend.

I must confess she had a difficult point here upon her, though she had

been really honest; for, as my head was prepossessed of her dishonesty,

if she had been lavish I should have said she had spent it upon her

gentlemen; and as she had been frugal, I said she had been maintained

by them. Thus, I say, my head was distempered; I believed myself

abused, and nothing could put it out of my thoughts night or day.

All this while it was not visibly broken out between us; but I was so

fully possessed with the belief of it that I seemed to want no

evidence, and I looked with an evil eye upon everybody that came near

her or that she conversed with. There was an officer of the Guards du

Corps that lodged in the same house with us, a very honest gentleman

and a man of quality. I happened to be in a little drawing-room

adjoining to a parlour where my wife sat at that time, and this

gentleman came into the parlour, which, as he was one of the family, he

might have done without offence; but he, not knowing that I was in the

drawing-room, sat down and talked with my wife. I heard every word they

said, for the door between us was open; nor could I say that there

passed anything between them but cursory discourse. They talked of

casual things, of a young lady, a burgher’s daughter of nineteen, that

had been married the week before to an advocate in the Parliament of

Paris, vastly rich, and about sixty-three; and of another, a widow lady

of fortune in Paris, that had married her deceased husband’s _valet de

chamber_; and of such casual matters, that I could find no fault with

her now at all.

But it filled my head with jealous thoughts and fired my temper. Now I

fancied he used too much freedom with her, then that she used too much

freedom to him, and once or twice I was upon the point of breaking in

upon them and affronting them both, but I restrained myself. At length

he talked some thing merrily of the lady throwing away her maiden head,

as I understood it, upon an old man; but still it was nothing indecent.

But I, who was all on fire already, could bear it no longer, but

started up and came into the room, and catching at my wife’s words,

“Say you so, madam?” said I. “Was he too old for her?” and giving the

officer a look that I fancy was something akin to the face on the sign

called the Bull and Mouth, within Aldersgate, I went out into the

street.

The marquis—so he was styled—a man of honour and of spirit too, took it

as I meant it, and followed me in a moment and “hemmed” after me in the

street; upon which I stopped, and he came up to me. “Sir,” said he,

“our circumstances are very unhappy in France, that we cannot do

ourselves justice here without the most severe treatment in the world.

But, come on it what will, you must explain yourself to me on the

subject of your behaviour just now.”

I was a little cooled as to the point of my conduct to him in the very

few moments that had passed, and was very sensible that I was wrong to

him; and I said, therefore, to him, very frankly, “Sir, you are a

gentleman whom I know very well, and I have a very great respect for

you; but I had been disturbed a little about the conduct of my wife,

and were it your own case, what would you have done less?”

“I am sorry for any dislike between you and your wife,” says he; “but

what is that to me? Can you charge me with any indecency to her, except

my talking so and so?” (at which he repeated the words); “and as I knew

you were in the next room and heard every word, and that all the doors

were open, I thought no man could have taken amiss so innocent an

expression.”

“I could no otherwise take it amiss,” said I, “than as I thought it

implied a farther familiarity, and that you cannot expect should be

borne by any man of honour. However, sir,” said I, “I spoke only to my

wife. I said nothing to you, but gave you my hat as I passed you.”

“Yes,” said he, “and a look as full of rage as the devil. Are there no

words in such looks?”

“I can say nothing to that,” said I, “for I cannot see my own

countenance; but my rage, as you call it, was at my wife, not at you.”

“But hark you, sir,” said he, growing warm as I grew calm, “your anger

at your wife was for her discourse with me, and I think that concerns

me too, and I ought to resent it.”

“I think not, sir,” said I; “nor, had I found you in bed with my wife,

would I have quarrelled with you; for if my wife will let you lie with

her, it is she is the offender. What have I to do with you? You could

not lie with her if she was not willing; and if she is willing to be a

whore, I ought to punish her; but I should have no quarrel with you. I

will lie with your wife if I can, and then I am even with you.”

I spoke this all in good humour and in order to pacify him, but it

would not do; but he would have me give him satisfaction, as he called

it. I told him I was a stranger in the country, and perhaps should find

little mercy in their course of justice; that it was not my business to

fight any man in his vindicating his keeping company with my wife, for

that the injury was mine, in having a bad woman to deal with; that

there was no reason in the thing, that after any man should have found

the way into my bed, I, who am injured, should go and stake my life

upon an equal hazard against the man who has abused me.

Nothing would prevail with this person to be quiet for all this; but I

had affronted him, and no satisfaction could be made him but that at

the point of the sword; so we agreed to go away together to Lisle, in

Flanders. I was now soldier enough not to be afraid to look a man in

the face, and as the rage at my wife inspired me with courage, so he

let fall a word that fired and provoked me beyond all patience; for,

speaking of the distrust I had of my wife, he said, unless I had good

information I ought not to suspect my wife. I told him, if I had good

information, I should be past suspicion. He replied, if he was the

happy man, that had so much of her favour, he would take care then to

put me past the suspicion. I gave him as rough an answer as he could

desire, and he returned in French, _“Nous verrons à Lisle_;” that is to

say, “We will talk further of it at Lisle.”

I told him I did not see the benefit either to him or me of going so

far as Lisle to decide this quarrel, since now I perceived he was the

man I wanted; that we might decide this quarrel _au champ_, upon the

spot, and whoever had the fortune to fall the other might make his

escape to Lisle as well afterwards as before.

Thus we walked on talking very ill-naturedly on both sides, and yet

very mannerly, till we came clear of the suburbs of Paris, on the way

to Charenton; when, seeing the way clear, I told him under those trees

was a very fit place for us, pointing to a row of trees adjoining to

Monsieur ——’s garden-wall. So we went thither, and fell to work

immediately. After some fencing he made a home-thrust at me, and run me

into my arm, a long slanting wound, but at the same time received my

point into his body, and soon after fell. He spoke some words before he

dropped; first he told me I had killed him; then he said he had indeed

wronged me, and as he knew it, he ought not to have fought me. He

desired I would make my escape immediately, which I did into the city,

but no farther, nobody, as I thought, having seen us together. In the

afternoon, about six hours after the action, messengers brought news,

one on the heels of another, that the marquis was mortally wounded, and

carried into a house at Charenton. That account, saying he was not

dead, surprised me a little, not doubting but that, concluding I had

made my escape, he would own who it was. However, I discovered nothing

of my concern, but, going up into my chamber, I took out of a cabinet

there what money I had, which indeed was so much as I thought would be

sufficient for my expenses. But having an accepted bill for two

thousand livres, I walked sedately to a merchant who knew me, and got

fifty pistoles of him upon my bill, letting him know my business called

me to England, and I would take the rest of him when he had received

it.

Having furnished myself thus, I provided me a horse for my servant, for

I had one very good one of my own, and once more ventured home to my

lodging, where I heard again that the marquis was not dead. My wife all

this while covered her concern for the marquis so well that she gave me

no room to make any remark upon her; but she saw evidently the marks of

rage and deep resentment in my behaviour after some little stay, and

perceiving me making preparation for a journey, she said to me, “Are

you going out of town?” “Yes, madam,” says I, “that you may have room

to mourn for your friend the marquis;” at which she started, and showed

she was indeed in a most terrible fright, and making a thousand crosses

about herself, with a great many callings upon the Blessed Virgin and

her country saints, she burst out at last, “Is it possible? Are you the

man that has killed the marquis? Then you are undone, and I too.”

“You may, madam, be a loser by the marquis being killed; but I’ll take

care to be as little a loser by you as I can. ’Tis enough; the marquis

has honestly confessed your guilt, and I have done with you.” She would

have thrown herself into my arms, protesting her innocence, and told me

she would fly with me, and would convince me of her fidelity by such

testimonies as I could not but be satisfied with, but I thrust her

violently from me. “_Allez, infame!_” said I. “Go, infamous creature,

and take from me the necessity I should be under, if I stayed, of

sending you to keep company with your dear friend the marquis.” I

thrust her away with such force that she fell backward upon the floor,

and cried out most terribly, and indeed she had reason, for she was

very much hurt.

It grieved me indeed to have thrust her away with such force, but you

must consider me now in the circumstances of a man enraged, and, as it

were, out of himself, furious and mad. However, I took her up from the

floor and laid her on the bed, and calling up her maid, bid her go and

take care of her mistress; and, going soon after out of doors, I took

horse and made the best of my way, not towards Calais or Dunkirk, or

towards Flanders, whither it might be suggested I was fled, and whither

they did pursue me the same evening, but I took the direct road for

Lorraine, and riding all night and very hard, I passed the Maine the

next day at night, at Chalons, and came safe into the Duke of

Lorraine’s dominions the third day, where I rested one day only to

consider what course to take; for it was still a most difficult thing

to pass any way, but that I should either be in the king of France’s

dominions or be taken by the French allies as a subject of France. But

getting good advice from a priest at Bar le Duc, who, though I did not

tell him the particulars of my case, yet guessed how it was, it being,

as he said, very usual for gentlemen in my circumstances to fly that

way;—upon this supposition, this kind _padre_ got me a church pass;

that is to say, he made me a purveyor for the abbey of ——, and, as

such, got me a passport to go to Deux Ponts, which belonged to the king

of Sweden. Having such authority there, and the priest’s recommendation

to an ecclesiastic in the place, I got passports from thence in the

king of Sweden’s name to Cologne, and then I was thoroughly safe. So,

making my way to the Netherlands without any difficulty, I came to the

Hague, and from thence, though very privately and by several names, I

came to England. And thus I got clear of my Italian wife—whore I should

have called her; for, after I had made her so myself, how should I

expect any other of her?

Being arrived at London, I wrote to my friend at Paris, but dated my

letters from the Hague, where I ordered him to direct his answers. The

chief business of my writing was to know if my bill was paid him, to

inquire if any pursuit was made after me, and what other news he had

about me or my wife, and particularly how it had fared with the

marquis.

I received an answer in a few days, importing that he had received the

money on my bill, which he was ready to pay as I should direct; that

the marquis was not dead; “but,” said he, “you have killed him another

way, for he has lost his commission in the Guards, which was worth to

him twenty thousand livres, and he is yet a close prisoner in the

Bastile;” that pursuit was ordered after me upon suspicion; that they

had followed me to Amiens, on the road to Dunkirk, and to Chastean de

Cambresis, on the way to Flanders, but missing me that way, had given

it over; that the marquis had been too well instructed to own that he

had fought with me, but said that he was assaulted on the road, and

unless I could be taken, he would take his trial and come off for want

of proof; that my flying was a circumstance indeed that moved strongly

against him, because it was known that we had had some words that day,

and were seen to walk together, but that, nothing being proved on

either side, he would come off with the loss of his commission, which,

however, being very rich, he could bear well enough.

As to my wife, he wrote me word she was inconsolable, and had cried

herself to death almost; but he added (very ill-natured indeed),

whether it was for me or for the marquis, that he could not determine.

He likewise told me she was in very bad circumstances and very low, so

that, if I did not take some care of her, she would come to be in very

great distress.

The latter part of this story moved me indeed, for I thought, however

it was, I ought not to let her starve; and, besides, poverty was a

temptation which a woman could not easily withstand, and I ought not to

be the instrument to drive her to a horrid necessity of crime, if I

could prevent it.

Upon this I wrote to him again to go to her, and talk with her, and

learn as much as he could of her particular circumstances; and that, if

he found she was really in want, and, particularly, that she did not

live a scandalous life, he should give her twenty pistoles, and tell

her, if she would engage to live retired and honestly, she should have

so much annually, which was enough to subsist her.

She took the first twenty pistoles, but bade him tell me that I had

wronged her and unjustly charged her, and I ought to do her justice;

and I had ruined her by exposing her in such a manner as I had, having

no proof of my charge or ground for any suspicion; that, as to twenty

pistoles a year, it was a mean allowance to a wife that had travelled

over the world, as she had done with me, and the like; and so

expostulated with him to obtain forty pistoles a year of me, which I

consented to. But she never gave me the trouble of paying above one

year; for after that the marquis was so fond of her again that he took

her away to himself, and, as my friend wrote me word, had settled four

hundred crowns a year on her, and I never heard any more of her.

I was now in London, but was obliged to be very retired and change my

name, letting nobody in the nation know who I was, except my merchant

by whom I corresponded with my people in Virginia; and particularly

with my tutor, who was now become the head manager of my affairs, and

was in very good circumstances himself also by my means. But he

deserved all I did or could do for him, for he was a most faithful

friend as well as servant, as ever man had, in that country at least.

I was not the easiest man alive, in the retired, solitary manner I now

lived in; and I experienced the truth of the text, that “it is not good

for man to be alone,” for I was extremely melancholy and heavy, and

indeed knew not what to do with myself, particularly because I was

under some restraint, that I was too afraid to go abroad. At last I

resolved to go quite away, and go to Virginia again, and there live

retired as I could.

But when I came to consider that part more narrowly, I could not

prevail with myself to live a private life. I had got a wandering kind

of taste, and knowledge of things begat a desire of increasing it, and

an exceeding delight I had in it, though I had nothing to do in the

armies or in war, and did not design ever to meddle with it again. Yet

I could not live in the world and not inquire what was doing in it; nor

could I think of living in Virginia, where I was to hear my news twice

a year, and read the public accounts of what was just then upon the

stocks, as the history of things past.

This was my notion: I was now in my native country, where my

circumstances were easy, and though I had ill-luck abroad, for I

brought little money home with me, yet, by a little good management, I

might soon have money by me. I had nobody to keep but myself, and my

plantations in Virginia generally returned me from £400 to £600 a year,

one year above £700, and to go thither, I concluded, was to be buried

alive; so I put off all thoughts of it, and resolved to settle

somewhere in England where I might know everybody and nobody know me. I

was not long in concluding where to pitch, for as I spoke the French

tongue perfectly well, having been so many years among them, it was

easy for me to pass for a Frenchman. So I went to Canterbury, called

myself an Englishman among the French, and a Frenchman among the

English; and on that score was the more perfectly concealed, going by

the name of Monsieur Charnot with the French, and was called Mr.

Charnock among the English.

Here indeed I lived perfectly incog. I made no particular acquaintance

so as to be intimate, and yet I knew everybody, and everybody knew me.

I discoursed in common, talked French with the Walloons, and English

with the English; and lived retired and sober, and was well enough

received by all sorts; but as I meddled with nobody’s business, so

nobody meddled with mine; I thought I lived pretty well.

But I was not fully satisfied. A settled family life was the thing I

loved; had made two pushes at it, as you have heard, but with

ill-success; yet the miscarriage of what was past did not discourage me

at all, but I resolved to marry. I looked out for a woman as suitable

as I could, but always found some thing or other to shock my fancy,

except once a gentleman’s daughter of good fashion; but I met with so

many repulses of one kind or another that I was forced to give it over;

and indeed, though I might be said to be a lover in this suit, and had

managed myself so well with the young lady that I had no difficulty

left but what would soon have been adjusted, yet her father was so

difficult, made so many objections, was to-day not pleased one way,

to-morrow another, that he would stand by nothing that he himself had

proposed, nor could he be ever brought to be of the same mind two days

together; so that we at last put an end to the pretensions, for she

would not marry without her father’s consent, and I would not steal

her, and so that affair ended.

I cannot say but I was a little vexed at the disappointment of this, so

I left the city of Canterbury and went to London in the stage-coach.

Here I had an odd scene presented as ever happened of its kind.

There was in the stage-coach a young woman and her maid. She was

sitting in a very melancholy posture, for she was in the coach before

me, and sighed most dreadfully all the way, and whenever her maid spoke

to her she burst out into tears. I was not long in the coach with her

but, seeing she made such a dismal figure, I offered to comfort her a

little, and inquired into the occasion of her affliction. But she would

not speak a word; but her maid, with a force of crying too, said her

master was dead, at which word the lady burst out again into a passion

of crying, and between mistress and maid this was all I could get for

the morning part of that day. When we came to dine, I offered the lady,

that seeing, I supposed, she would not dine with the company, if she

would please to dine with me, I would dine in a separate room; for the

rest of the company were foreigners. Her maid thanked me in her

mistresses name, but her mistress could eat nothing, and desired to be

private.

Here, however, I had some discourse with the maid, from whom I learned

that the lady was wife to a captain of a ship, who was outward bound to

somewhere in the Straits—I think it was to Zante and Venice; that,

being gone no farther than the Downs, he was taken sick, and after

about ten days’ illness had died at Deal; that his wife, hearing of his

sickness, had gone to Deal to see him, and had come but just time

enough to see him die; had stayed there to bury him, and was now coming

to London in a sad, disconsolate condition indeed.

I heartily pitied the young gentlewoman indeed, and said some things to

her in the coach to let her know I did so, which she gave no answer to,

but in civility now and then made a bow, but never gave me the least

opportunity to see her face, or so much as to know whether she had a

face or no, much less to guess what form of a face it was. It was

winter time, and the coach put up at Rochester, not going through in a

day, as was usual in summer; and a little before we came to Rochester I

told the lady I understood she had ate nothing to-day, that such a

course would but make her sick, and, doing her harm, could do her

deceased husband no good; and therefore I entreated her that, as I was

a stranger, and only offered a civility to her in order to abate her

severely afflicting herself, she would yield so far to matters of

ceremony as let us sup together as passengers; for, as to the

strangers, they did not seem to understand the custom or to desire it.

She bowed, but gave no answer; only, after pressing her by arguments,

which she could not deny was very civil and kind, she returned, she

gave me thanks, but she could not eat. “Well, madam,” said I, “do but

sit down; though you think you cannot eat, perhaps you may eat a bit.

Indeed you must eat, or you will destroy yourself at this rate of

living, and upon the road too; in a word, you will be sick indeed.” I

argued with her. The maid put in, and said, “Do, madam; pray try to

divert yourself a little.” I pressed her again, and she bowed to me

very respectfully, but still said, “No,” and she could not eat. The

maid continued to importune her, and said, “Dear madam, do. The

gentleman is a civil gentleman; pray, madam, do;” and then, turning to

me, said, “My mistress will, sir, I hope,” and seemed pleased, and

indeed was so.

However, I went on to persuade her; and, taking no notice of what her

maid said, that I was a civil gentleman, I told her, “I am a stranger

to you, madam; but if I thought you were shy of me on any account, as

to civility, I will send my supper up to you in your own chamber, and

stay below myself.” She bowed then to me twice, and looked up, which

was the first time, and said she had no suspicion of that kind; that my

offer was so civil that she was as much ashamed to refuse it as she

should be ashamed to accept it, if she was where she was known; that

she thought I was not quite a stranger to her, for she had seen me

before; that she would accept my offer so far as to sit at table,

because I desired it; but she could not promise me to eat, and that she

hoped I would take the other as a constraint upon her, in return to so

much kindness.

She startled me when she said she had seen me before; for I had not the

least knowledge of her, nor did I remember so much as to have heard of

her name; for I had asked her name of her maid; and indeed it made me

almost repent my compliment, for it was many ways essential to me not

to be known. However, I could not go back; and, besides, if I was

known, it was essentially necessary to me to know who it was that knew

me, and by what circumstances; so I went on with my compliment.

We came to the inn but just before it was dark. I offered to hand my

widow out of the coach, and she could not decline it; but though her

hoods were not then much over her face, yet, being dark, I could see

little of her then. I waited on her then into the stairfoot, and led

her up the inn-stairs to a dining-room which the master of the house

offered to show us, as if for the whole company; but she declined going

in there, and said she desired rather to go directly to her chamber,

and turning to her maid, bade her speak to the innkeeper to show her to

her lodging-room. So I waited on her to the door, and took my leave,

telling her I would expect her at supper.

In order to treat her moderately well, and not extravagantly, for I had

no thoughts of anything farther than civility, which was the effect of

mere compassion for the unhappiness of the most truly disconsolate

woman that I ever met with; I say, in order to treat her handsomely,

but not extravagantly, I provided what the house afforded, which was a

couple of partridges and a very good dish of stewed oysters. They

brought us up afterwards a neat’s tongue and a ham that was almost cut

quite down, but we ate none of it; for the other was fully enough for

us both, and the maid made her supper off the oysters we had left,

which were enough.

I mention this because it should appear I did not treat her as a person

I was making any court to, for I had nothing of that in my thoughts;

but merely in pity to the poor woman, who I saw in a circumstance that

was indeed very unhappy.

When I gave her maid notice that supper was ready, she fetched her

mistress, coming in before her with a candle in her hand, and then it

was that I saw her face, and being in her dishabille, she had no hood

over her eyes or black upon her head, when I was truly surprised to see

one of the most beautiful faces upon earth. I saluted her, and led her

to the fireside, the table, though spread, being too far from the fire,

the weather being cold.

She was now something sociable, though very grave, and sighed often on

account of her circumstances. But she so handsomely governed her grief,

yet so artfully made it mingle itself with all her discourse, that it

added exceedingly to her behaviour, which was every way most

exquisitely genteel. I had a great deal of discourse with her, and upon

many subjects, and by degrees took her name, that is to say, from

herself, as I had done before from her maid; also the place where she

lived, viz., near Ratcliff, or rather Stepney, where I asked her leave

to pay her a visit when she thought fit to admit company, which she

seemed to intimate would not be a great while.

It is a subject too surfeiting to entertain people with the beauty of a

person they will never see. Let it suffice to tell them she was the

most beautiful creature of her sex that I ever saw before or since; and

it cannot be wondered if I was charmed with her the very first moment I

saw her face. Her behaviour was likewise a beauty in itself, and was so

extraordinary that I cannot say I can describe it.

The next day she was much more free than she was the first night, and I

had so much conversation as to enter into particulars of things on both

sides; also she gave me leave to come and see her house, which,

however, I did not do under a fortnight or thereabouts, because I did

not know how far she would dispense with the ceremony which it was

necessary to keep up at the beginning of the mourning.

However, I came as a man that had business with her, relating to the

ship her husband was dead out of, and the first time I came was

admitted; and, in short, the first time I came I made love to her. She

received that proposal with disdain. I cannot indeed say she treated me

with any disrespect, but she said she abhorred the offer, and would

hear no more of it. How I came to make such a proposal to her I scarce

knew then, though it was very much my intention from the first.

In the meantime I inquired into her circumstances and her character,

and heard nothing but what was very agreeable of them both; and, above

all, I found she had the report of the best-humoured lady and the

best-bred of all that part of the town; and now I thought I had found

what I had so often wished for to make me happy and had twice

miscarried in, and resolved not to miss her, if it was possible to

obtain her.

It came indeed a little into my thoughts that I was a married man, and

had a second wife alive, who, though she was false to me and a whore,

yet I was not legally divorced from her, and that she was my wife for

all that. But I soon got over that part; for, first, as she was a

whore, and the marquis had confessed it to me, I was divorced in law,

and I had a power to put her away. But having had the misfortune of

fighting a duel, and being obliged to quit the country, I could not

claim the legal process which was my right, and therefore might

conclude myself as much divorced as if it had been actually done, and

so that scruple vanished.

I suffered now two months to run without pressing my widow any more,

only I kept a strict watch to find if any one else pretended to her. At

the end of two months I visited her again, when I found she received me

with more freedom, and we had no more sighs and sobs about the last

husband; and though she would not let me press my former proposal so

far as I thought I might have done, yet I found I had leave to come

again, and it was the article of decency which she stood upon as much

as anything; that I was not disagreeable to her, and that my using her

so handsomely upon the road had given me a great advantage in her

favour.

I went on gradually with her, and gave her leave to stand off for two

months more. But then I told her the matter of decency, which was but a

ceremony, was not to stand in competition with the matter of affection;

and, in short, I could not bear any longer delay, but that, if she

thought fit, we might marry privately; and, to cut the story short, as

I did my courtship, in about five months I got her in the mind, and we

were privately married, and that with so very exact a concealment that

her maid, that was so instrumental in it, yet had no knowledge of it

for near a month more.

I was now, not only in my imagination, but in reality, the most happy

creature in the world, as I was so infinitely satisfied with my wife,

who was indeed the best-humoured woman in the world, a most

accomplished, beautiful creature indeed, perfectly well-bred, and had

not one ill quality about her; and this happiness continued without the

least interruption for about six years.

But I, that was to be the most unhappy fellow alive in the article of

matrimony, had at last a disappointment of the worst sort even here. I

had three fine children by her, and in her time of lying-in with the

last she got some cold, that she did not in a long time get off; and,

in short, she grew very sickly. In being so continually ill and out of

order, she very unhappily got a habit of drinking cordials and hot

liquors. Drink, like the devil, when it gets hold of any one, though

but a little, it goes on by little and little to their destruction. So

in my wife, her stomach being weak and faint, she first took this

cordial, then that, till, in short, she could not live without them,

and from a drop to a sup, from a sup to a dram, from a dram to a glass,

and so on to two, till at last she took, in short, to what we call

drinking.

As I likened drink to the devil, in its gradual possession of the

habits and person, so it is yet more like the devil in its encroachment

on us, where it gets hold of our senses. In short, my beautiful,

good-humoured, modest, well-bred wife grew a beast, a slave to strong

liquor, and would be drunk at her own table—nay, in her own closet by

herself, till, instead of a well-made, fine shape, she was as fat as a

hostess; her fine face, bloated and blotched, had not so much as the

ruins of the most beautiful person alive—nothing remained but a good

eye; that indeed she held to the last. In short, she lost her beauty,

her shape, her manners, and at last her virtue; and, giving herself up

to drinking, killed herself in about a year and a half after she first

began that cursed trade, in which time she twice was exposed in the

most scandalous manner with a captain of a ship, who, like a villain,

took the advantage of her being in drink and not knowing what she did.

But it had this unhappy effect, that instead of her being ashamed and

repenting of it when she came to herself, it hardened her in the crime,

and she grew as void of modesty at last as of sobriety.

Oh, the power of intemperance! and how it encroaches on the best

dispositions in the world; how it comes upon us gradually and

insensibly; and what dismal effects it works upon our morals, changing

the most virtuous, regular, well-instructed, and well-inclined tempers

into worse than brutal! That was a good story, whether real or

invented, of the devil tempting a young man to murder his father. No,

he said; that was unnatural. “Why, then,” says the devil, “go and lie

with your mother.” “No,” says he; “that is abominable.” “Well, then,”

says the devil, “if you will do nothing else to oblige me, go and get

drunk.” “Ay, ay,” says the fellow, “I will do that.” So he went and

made himself drunk as a swine, and when he was drunk, he murdered his

father and lay with his mother.

Never was a woman more virtuous, modest, chaste, sober; she never so

much as desired to drink any thing strong; it was with the greatest

entreaty that I could prevail with her to drink a glass or two of wine,

and rarely, if ever, above one or two at a time; even in company she

had no inclination to it. Not an immodest word ever came out of her

mouth, nor would she suffer it in any one else in her hearing without

resentment and abhorrence. But upon that weakness and illness after her

last lying-in, as above, the nurse pressed her, whenever she found

herself faint and a sinking of her spirits, to take this cordial and

that dram, to keep up her spirits, till it became necessary even to

keep her alive, and gradually increased to a habit, so that it was no

longer her physic but her food. Her appetite sunk and went quite away,

and she ate little or nothing, but came at last to such a dreadful

height that, as I have said, she would be drunk in her own

dressing-room by eleven o’clock in the morning, and, in short, at last

was never sober.

In this life of hellish excess, as I have said, she lost all that was

before so valuable in her, and a villain, if it be proper to call a man

who was really a gentleman by such a name, who was an intimate

acquaintance, coming to pretend a visit to her, made her and her maid

so drunk together that he lay with them both; with the mistress, the

maid being in the room, and with the maid, the mistress being in the

room; after which he, it seems, took the like liberty with them both as

often as he thought fit, till the wench, being with child, discovered

it for herself, and for her mistress too. Let any one judge what was my

case now. I, that for six years thought myself the happiest man alive,

was now the most miserable, distracted creature. As to my wife, I loved

her so well, and was so sensible of the disaster of her drinking being

the occasion of it all, that I could not resent it to such a degree as

I had done in her predecessor; but I pitied her heartily. However, I

put away all her servants, and almost locked her up; that is to say, I

set new people over her, who would not suffer any one to come near her

without my knowledge.

But what to do with the villain that had thus abused both her and me,

that was the question that remained. To fight him upon equal terms, I

thought, was a little hard; that after a man had treated me as he had

done, he deserved no fair play for his life. So I resolved to wait for

him in Stepney fields, and which way he often came home pretty late,

and pistol him in the dark, and, if possible, to let him know what I

killed him for before I did it. But when I came to consider of this, it

shocked my temper too as well as principle, and I could not be a

murderer, whatever else I could be, or whatever I was provoked to be.

However, I resolved, on the other hand, that I would severely correct

him for what he had done, and it was not long before I had an

opportunity; for, hearing one morning that he was walking across the

fields from Stepney to Shadwell, which way I knew he often went, I

waited for his coming home again, and fairly met him.

I had not many words with him, but told him I had long looked for him;

that he knew the villainy he had been guilty of in my family, and he

could not believe, since he knew also that I was fully informed of it,

but that I must be a great coward, as well as a cuckold, or that I

would resent it, and that it was now a very proper time to call him to

an account for it; and therefore bade him, if he durst show his face to

what he had done, and defend the name of a captain of a man-of-war, as

they said he had been, to draw.

He seemed surprised at the thing, and began to parley, and would lessen

the crime of it; but I told him it was not a time to talk that way,

since he could not deny the fact; and to lessen the crime was to lay it

the more upon the woman, who, I was sure, if he had not first debauched

with wine, he could never have brought to the rest; and, seeing he

refused to draw, I knocked him down with my cane at one blow, and I

would not strike him again while he lay on the ground, but waited to

see him recover a little; for I saw plainly he was not killed. In a few

minutes he came to himself again, and then I took him fast by one

wrist, and caned him as severely as I was able, and as long as I could

hold it for want of breath, but forbore his head, because I was

resolved he should feel it. In this condition at last he begged for

mercy, but I was deaf to all pity a great while, till he roared out

like a boy soundly whipped. Then I took his sword from him and broke it

before his face, and left him on the ground, giving him two or three

kicks on the backside, and bade him go and take the law of me if he

thought fit.

I had now as much satisfaction as indeed could be taken of a coward,

and had no more to say to him; but as I knew it would make a great

noise about the town, I immediately removed my family, and, that I

might be perfectly concealed, went into the north of England, and lived

in a little town called ——, not far from Lancaster, where I lived

retired, and was no more heard of for about two years. My wife, though

more confined than she used to be, and so kept up from the lewd part

which, I believe, in the intervals of her intemperance, she was truly

ashamed of and abhorred, yet retained the drinking part, which

becoming, as I have said, necessary for her subsistence, she soon

ruined her health, and in about a year and a half after my removal into

the north she died.

Thus I was once more a free man, and, as one would think, should by

this time have been fully satisfied that matrimony was not appointed to

be a state of felicity to me.

I should have mentioned that the villain of a captain who I had

drubbed, as above, pretended to make a great stir about my assaulting

him on the highway, and that I had fallen upon him with three ruffians,

with an intent to murder him; and this began to obtain belief among the

people in the neighbourhood. I sent him word of so much of it as I had

heard, and told him I hoped it did not come from his own mouth; but if

it did, I expected he would publicly disown it, he himself declaring he

knew it to be false, or else I should be forced to act the same thing

over again, till I had disciplined him into better manners; and that he

might be assured that if he continued to pretend that I had anybody

with me when I caned him, I would publish the whole story in print,

and, besides that, would cane him again wherever I met him, and as

often as I met him, till he thought fit to defend himself with his

sword like a gentleman.

He gave me no answer to this letter; and the satisfaction I had for

that was, that I gave twenty or thirty copies of it about among the

neighbours, which made it as public as if I had printed it (that is, as

to his acquaintance and mine), and made him so hissed at and hated that

he was obliged to remove into some other part of the town—whither I did

not inquire.

My wife being now dead, I knew not what course to take in the world,

and I grew so disconsolate and discouraged that I was next door to

being distempered, and sometimes, indeed, I thought myself a little

touched in my head. But it proved nothing but vapours and the vexation

of this affair, and in about a year’s time, or thereabouts, it wore off

again.

I had rambled up and down in a most discontented, unsettled posture

after this, I say, about a year, and then I considered I had three

innocent children, and I could take no care of them, and that I must

either go away and leave them to the wide world or settle here and get

somebody to look after them, and that better a mother-in-law than no

mother; for to live such a wandering life it would not do; so I

resolved I would marry as anything offered, though it was mean, and the

meaner the better. I concluded my next wife should be only taken as an

upper servant; that is to say, a nurse to my children and housekeeper

to myself; “and let her be whore or honest woman,” said I, “as she

likes best; I am resolved I will not much concern myself about that;”

for I was now one desperate, that valued not how things went.

In this careless, and indeed rash, foolish humour, I talked to myself

thus: “If I marry an honest woman, my children will be taken care of;

if she be a slut and abuses me, as I see everybody does, I will kidnap

her and send her to Virginia, to my plantations there, and there she

shall work hard enough and fare hard enough to keep her chaste, I’ll

warrant her.”

I knew well enough at first that these were mad, hare-brained notions,

and I thought no more of being serious in them than I thought of being

a man in the moon; but I know not how it happened to me, I reasoned and

talked to myself in this wild manner so long that I brought myself to

be seriously desperate; that is, to resolve upon another marriage, with

all the suppositions of unhappiness that could be imagined to fall out.

And yet even this rash resolution of my senses did not come presently

to action; for I was half a year after this before I fixed upon

anything. At last, as he that seeks mischief shall certainly find it,

so it was with me. There happened to be a young, or rather a

middle-aged, woman in the next town, which was but a half-mile off, who

usually was at my house and among my children every day when the

weather was tolerable; and though she came but merely as a neighbour,

and to see us, yet she was always helpful in directing and ordering

things for them, and mighty handy about them, as well before my wife

died as after.

Her father was one that I employed often to go to Liverpool, and

sometimes to Whitehaven, and do business for me; for having, as it

were, settled myself in the northern parts of England, I had ordered

part of my effects to be shipped, as occasion of shipping offered, to

either of those two towns, to which, the war continuing very sharp, it

was safer coming, as to privateers, than about through the Channel to

London.

I took a mighty fancy at last that this girl would answer my end,

particularly that I saw she was mighty useful among the children; so,

on the other hand, the children loved her very well, and I resolved to

love her too, flattering myself mightily, that as I had married two

gentlewomen and one citizen, and they proved all three whores, I should

now find what I wanted in an innocent country wench.

I took up a world of time in considering of this matter; indeed scarce

any of my matches were done without very mature consideration. The

second was the worst in that article, but in this I thought of it, I

believe, four months most seriously before I resolved, and that very

prudence spoiled the whole thing. However, at last being resolved, I

took Mrs. Margaret one day as she passed by my parlour-door, called her

in, and told her I wanted to speak with her. She came readily in, but

blushed mightily when I bade her sit down in a chair just by me.

I used no great ceremony with her, but told her that I had observed she

had been mighty kind to my children, and was very tender to them, and

that they all loved her, and that, if she and I could agree about it, I

intended to make her their mother, if she was not engaged to somebody

else. The girl sat still and said never a word till I said those words,

“if she was not engaged to somebody else;” when she seemed struck.

However, I took no notice of it, other than this, “Look ye, Moggy,”

said I (so they call them in the country), “if you have promised

yourself, you must tell me.” For we all knew that a young fellow, a

good clergyman’s wicked son, had hung about her a great while, two or

three years, and made love to her, but could never get the girl in the

mind, it seems, to have him.

She knew I was not ignorant of it, and therefore, after her first

surprise was over, she told me Mr. —— had, as I knew, often come after

her, but she had never promised him anything, and had for several years

refused him; her father always telling her that he was a wicked fellow,

and that he would be her ruin if she had him.

“Well, Moggy, then,” says I, “what dost say to me? Art thou free to

make me a wife?” She blushed and looked down upon the ground, and would

not speak a good while; but when I pressed her to tell me, she looked

up, and said she supposed I was but jesting with her. Well, I got over

that, and told her I was in very good earnest with her, and I took her

for a sober, honest, modest girl, and, as I said, one that my children

loved mighty well, and I was in earnest with her; if she would give me

her consent, I would give her my word that I would have her, and we

would be married to-morrow morning. She looked up again at that, and

smiled a little, and said no, that was too soon too to say yes. She

hoped I would give her some time to consider of it, and to talk with

her father about it.

I told her she needed not much time to consider about it; but, however,

I would give her till to-morrow morning, which was a great while. By

this time I had kissed Moggy two or three times, and she began to be

freer with me; and when I pressed her to marry me the next morning, she

laughed, and told me it was not lucky to be married in her old clothes.

I stopped her mouth presently with that, and told her she should not be

married in her old clothes, for I would give her some new. “Ay, it may

be afterwards,” says Moggy, and laughed again. “No, just now,” says I.

“Come along with me, Moggy;” so I carried her upstairs into my wife’s

room that was, and showed her a new morning-gown of my wife’s, that she

had never worn above two or three times, and several other fine things.

“Look you there, Moggy,” says I, “there is a wedding-gown for you; give

me your hand now that you will have me to-morrow morning. And as to

your father, you know he has gone to Liverpool on my business, but I

will answer for it he shall not be angry when he comes home to call his

master son-in-law; and I ask him no portion. Therefore give me thy hand

for it, Moggy,” says I very merrily to her, and kissed her again; and

the girl gave me her hand, and very pleasantly too, and I was mightily

pleased with it, I assure you.

There lived about three doors from us an ancient gentleman who passed

for a doctor of physic, but who was really a Romish priest in orders,

as there are many in that part of the country; and in the evening I

sent to speak with him. He knew that I understood his profession, and

that I had lived in popish countries, and, in a word, believed me a

Roman too, for I was such abroad. When he came to me I told him the

occasion for which I sent for him, and that it was to be to-morrow

morning. He readily told me, if I would come and see him in the

evening, and bring Moggy with me, he would marry us in his own study,

and that it was rather more private to do it in the evening than in the

morning. So I called Moggy again to me, and told her, since she and I

had agreed the matter for to-morrow, it was as well to be done

overnight, and told her what the doctor had said.

Moggy blushed again, and said she must go home first, that she could

not be ready before to-morrow. “Look ye, Moggy,” says I, “you are my

wife now, and you shall never go away from me a maid. I know what you

mean; you would go home to shift you. Come, Moggy,” says I, “come along

with me again upstairs.” So I carried her to a chest of linen, where

were several new shifts of my last wife’s, which she had never worn at

all, and some that had been worn.

“There is a clean smock for you, Moggy,” says I, “and to-morrow you

shall have all the rest.” When I had done this, “Now, Moggy,” says I,

“go and dress you;” so I locked her in, and went downstairs. “Knock,”

says I, “when you are dressed.”

After some time Moggy did not knock, but down she came into my room,

completely dressed, for there were several other things that I bade her

take, and the clothes fitted her as if they had been made for her. It

seems she slipped the lock back.

“Well, Moggy,” says I, “now you see you shan’t be married in your old

clothes;” so I took her in my arms and kissed her; and well pleased I

was as ever I was in my life, or with anything I ever did in my life.

As soon as it was dark Moggy slipped away beforehand, as the doctor and

I had agreed, to the old gentleman’s housekeeper, and I came in about

half-an-hour after; and there we were married in the doctor’s

study—that is to say, in his oratory or chapel, a little room within

his study—and we stayed and supped with him afterwards.

Then, after a short stay more, I went home first, because I would send

the children all to bed, and the other servants out of the way; and

Moggy came some time after, and so we lay together that night. The next

morning I let all the family know that Moggy was my wife, and my three

children were rejoiced at it to the last degree. And now I was a

married man a fourth time; and, in short, I was really more happy in

this plain country girl than with any of all the wives I had had. She

was not young, being about thirty-three, but she brought me a son the

first year. She was very pretty, well-shaped, and of a merry, cheerful

disposition, but not a beauty. She was an admirable family manager,

loved my former children, and used them not at all the worse for having

some of her own. In a word, she made me an excellent wife, but lived

with me but four years, and died of a hurt she got of a fall while she

was with child, and in her I had a very great loss indeed.

And yet such was my fate in wives, that, after all the blushing and

backwardness of Mrs. Moggy at first, Mrs. Moggy had, it seems, made a

slip in her younger days, and was got with child ten years before, by a

gentleman of a great estate in that country, who promised her marriage,

and afterwards deserted her. But as that had happened long before I

came into the country, and the child was dead and forgotten, the people

were so good to her, and so kind to me, that, hearing I had married

her, nobody ever spoke of it; neither did I ever hear of it or suspect

it till after she was in her grave, and then it was of small

consequence to me one way or other; and she was a faithful, virtuous,

obliging wife to me. I had very severe affliction indeed while she

lived with me; for the smallpox, a frightful distemper in that country,

broke into my family, and carried off three of my children and a

maid-servant; so that I had only one of my former wife’s, and one by my

Moggy, the first a son, the last a daughter.

While these things were in agitation came on the invasion of the Scots

and the fight at Preston; and I have cause to bless the memory of my

Moggy; for I was all on fire on that side, and just going away with

horse and arms to join the Lord Derwentwater. But Moggy begged me off

(as I may call it), and hung about me so with her tears and

importunities that I sat still and looked on; for which I had reason to

be thankful.

I was really a sorrowful father, and the loss of my children stuck

close to me; but the loss of my wife stuck closer to me than all the

rest. Nor was my grief lessened or my kindest thoughts abated in the

least by the account I heard of her former miscarriages, seeing they

were so long before I knew her, and were not discovered by me or to me

in her lifetime.

All these things put together made me very comfortless. And now I

thought Heaven summoned me to retire to Virginia, the place, and, as I

may say, the only place, I had been blessed at, or had met with

anything that deserved the name of success in, and where, indeed, my

affairs being in good hands, the plantations were increased to such a

degree that some years my return here made up eight hundred pounds, and

one year almost a thousand. So I resolved to leave my native country

once more, and taking my son with me, and leaving Moggy’s daughter with

her grandfather, I made him my principal agent, left him considerable

in his hands for the maintenance of the child, and left my will in his

hand, by which, if I died before I should otherwise provide for her, I

left her £2000 portion, to be paid by my son out of the estate I had in

Virginia, and the whole estate, if he died unmarried.

I embarked for Virginia in the year ——, at the town of Liverpool, and

had a tolerable voyage thither, only that we met with a pirate ship, in

the latitude of 48 degrees, who plundered us of every thing they could

come at that was for their turn; that is to say, provisions,

ammunition, small-arms, and money. But, to give the rogues their due,

though they were the most abandoned wretches that were ever seen, they

did not use us ill. And as to my loss, it was not considerable; the

cargo which I had on board was in goods, and was of no use to them; nor

could they come at those things without rummaging the whole ship, which

they did not think worth their while.

I found all my affairs in very good order at Virginia, my plantations

prodigiously increased, and my manager, who first inspired me with

travelling thoughts, and made me master of any knowledge worth naming,

received me with a transport of joy, after a ramble of four-and-twenty

years.

I ought to remember it, to the encouragement of all faithful servants,

that he gave me an account, which, I believe, was critically just, of

the whole affairs of the plantations, each by themselves, and balanced

in years, every year’s produce being fully transmitted, charges

deducted, to my order at London.

I was exceedingly satisfied, as I had good reason indeed, with his

management; and with his management, as much in its degree, of his own

I can safely say it. He had improved a very large plantation of his own

at the same time, which he began upon the foot of the country’s

allowance of land and the encouragement he had from me.

When he had given me all this pleasing, agreeable account, you will not

think it strange that I had a desire to see the plantations, and to

view all the servants, which, in both the works, were upwards of three

hundred; and as my tutor generally bought some every fleet that came

from England, I had the mortification to see two or three of the

Preston gentlemen there, who, being prisoners of war, were spared from

the public execution, and sent over to that slavery, which to gentlemen

must be worse than death.

I do not mention what I did or said relating to them here. I shall

speak at large of it when the rest of them came over, which more nearly

concerned me.

But one circumstance occurred to me here that equally surprised me and

terrified me to the last degree. Looking over all the servants, as I

say above, and viewing the plantations narrowly and frequently, I came

one day by a place where some women were at work by themselves. I was

seriously reflecting on the misery of human life, when I saw some of

those poor wretches. Thought I, “They have perhaps lived gay and

pleasantly in the world, notwithstanding, through a variety of

distresses, they may have been brought to this; and if a body was to

hear the history of some of them now, it would perhaps be as moving and

as seasonable a sermon as any minister in the country could preach.”

While I was musing thus and looking at the women, on a sudden I heard a

combustion among other of the women-servants, who were almost behind

me, in the same work, and help was called loudly for, one of the women

having swooned away. They said she would die immediately if something

was not done to relieve her. I had nothing about me but a little

bottle, which we always carried about us there with rum, to give any

servant a dram that merited that favour; so I turned my horse and went

up towards the place. But as the poor creature was lying flat on the

ground, and the rest of the women-servants about her, I did not see

her, but gave them the bottle, and they rubbed her temples with it,

and, with much ado, brought her to life, and gave her a little to

drink. But she could drink none of it, and was exceeding ill

afterwards, so that she was carried to the infirmary—so they call it in

the religious houses in Italy where the sick nuns and friars are

carried; but here, in Virginia, I think they should call it the

condemned hole, for it really was only a place just fit for people to

die in, not a place to be cured in.

The sick woman refusing to drink, one of the women-servants brought me

the bottle again, and I bade them drink it among them, which had almost

set them together by the ears for the liquor, there being not enough to

give every one a sup.

I went home to my house immediately, and reflecting on the miserable

provision was wont to be made for poor servants when they were sick, I

inquired of my manager if it was so still. He said he believed mine was

better than any in the country; but he confessed it was but sad

lodging. However, he said he would go and look after it immediately and

see how it was.

He came to me again about an hour after, and told me the woman was very

ill, and frighted with her condition; that she seemed to be very

penitent for some things in her past life, which lay heavy upon her

mind, believing she should die; that she asked him if there was no

minister to comfort poor dying servants; and he told her that she knew

they had no minister nearer than such a place, but that, if she lived

till morning, he should be sent for. He told me, also, that he had

removed her into a room where their chief workman used to lodge; that

he had given her a pair of sheets, and everything he could that he

thought she wanted, and had appointed another woman-servant to tend her

and sit up with her.

“Well,” says I, “that’s well; for I cannot bear to have poor creatures

lie and perish, by the mere hardship of the place they are in, when

they are sick and want help. Besides,” said I, “some of those

unfortunate creatures they call convicts may be peopie that have been

tenderly brought up.” “Really, sir,” says he, “this poor creature, I

always said, had something of a gentlewoman in her. I could see it by

her behaviour, and I have heard the other women say that she lived very

great once, and that she had fifteen hundred pound to her portion; and

I dare say she has been a handsome woman in her time, and she has a

hand as fine as a lady’s now, though it be tanned with the weather. I

dare say she was never brought up to labour as she does here, and she

says to the rest that it will kill her.”

“Truly,” says I, “it may be so, and that may be the reason that she

faints under it;” and I added, “Is there nothing you can put her to

within doors that may not be so laborious and expose her to so much

heat and cold?” He told me yes, there was. He could set her to be the

housekeeper, for the woman that lately was such was out of her time,

and was married and turned planter. “Why, then, let her have it,” said

I, “if she recovers; and in the meantime go,” said I, “and tell her so;

perhaps the comfort of it may help to restore her.”

He did so, and with that, taking good care of her, and giving her good

warm diet, the woman recovered, and in a little time was abroad again;

for it was the mere weight of labour, and being exposed to hard lodging

and mean diet, to one so tenderly bred, that struck her and she fainted

at her work.

When she was made housekeeper she was quite another body. She put all

the household into such excellent order, and managed their provisions

so well, that my tutor admired her conduct, and would be every now and

then speaking of her to me, that she was an excellent manager. “I’ll

warrant,” says he, “she has been bred a gentlewoman, and she has been a

fine woman in her time too.” In a word, he said so many good things of

her that I had a mind to see her. So one day I took occasion to go to

the plantation-house, as they called it, and into a parlour always

reserved for the master of the plantation. There she had opportunity to

see me before I could see her, and as soon as she had seen me she knew

me; but indeed had I seen her an hundred times I should not have known

her. She was, it seems, in the greatest confusion and surprise at

seeing who I was that it was possible for any one to be; and when I

ordered my manager to bring her into the room, he found her crying, and

begged him to excuse her, that she was frighted, and should die away if

she came near me.

I, not imagining anything but that the poor creature was afraid of me

(for masters in Virginia are terrible things), bade him tell her she

need to be under no concern at my calling for her; for it was not for

any hurt nor for any displeasure, but that I had some orders to give

her. So, having, as he thought, encouraged her, though her surprise was

of another kind, he brought her in. When she came in she held a

handkerchief in her hand, wiping her eyes, as if she had cried. “Mrs.

Housekeeper,” said I, speaking cheerfully to her, “don’t be concerned

at my sending for you; I have had a very good account of your

management, and I called for you to let you know I am very well pleased

with it; and if it falls in my way to do you any good, if your

circumstances will allow it, I may be willing enough to help you out of

your misery.”

She made low courtesies, but said nothing. However, she was so far

encouraged that she took her hand from her face, and I saw her face

fully; and I believe she did it desiring I should discover who she was;

but I really knew nothing of her, any more than if I had never seen her

in my life, but went on, as I thought, to encourage her, as I used to

do with any that I saw deserved it.

In the meantime my tutor, who was in the room, went out on some

business or other—I know not what. As soon as he was gone she burst out

into a passion, and fell down on her knees just before me: “Oh, sir!”

says she, “I see you don’t know me. Be merciful to me; I am your

miserable divorced wife!”

I was astonished; I was frighted; I trembled like one in an ague; I was

speechless; in a word, I was ready to sink, and she fell flat on her

face, and lay there as if she had been dead. I was speechless, I say,

as a stone. I had only presence of mind enough to step to the door and

fasten it, that my tutor might not come in; then, going back to her, I

took her up and spoke comfortably to her, and told her I no more knew

her than if I had never seen her.

“Oh, sir!” said she, “afflictions are dreadful things; such as I have

suffered have been enough to alter my countenance; but forgive,” said

she, “for God’s sake, the injuries I have done you. I have paid dear

for all my wickedness, and it is just, it is righteous, that God should

bring me to your foot, to ask your pardon for all my brutish doings.

Forgive me, sir,” said she, “I beseech you, and let me be your slave or

servant for it as long as I live; it is all I ask;” and with those

words she fell upon her knees again and cried so vehemently that it was

impossible for her to stop it or to speak a word more. I took her up

again, made her sit down, desired her to compose herself, and to hear

what I was going to say; though indeed it touched me so sensibly that I

was hardly able to speak any more than she was.

First, I told her it was such a surprise to me that I was not able to

say much to her; and indeed the tears run down my face almost as fast

as they did on hers. I told her that I should only tell her now, that,

as nobody had yet known anything that had passed, so it was absolutely

necessary not a word of it should be known; that it should not be the

worse for her that she was thus thrown in my hands again; but that I

could do nothing for her if it was known, and, therefore, that her

future good or ill fortune would depend upon her entire concealing it;

that, as my manager would come in again presently, she should go back

to her part of the house, and go on in the business as she did before;

that I would come to her and talk more at large with her in a day or

two. So she retired, after assuring me that not a word of it should go

out of her mouth; and indeed she was willing to retire before my tutor

came again, that he might not see the agony she was in.

I was so perplexed about this surprising incident that I hardly knew

what I did or said all that night; nor was I come to any settled

resolution in the morning what course to take in it. However, in the

morning I called my tutor, and told him that I had been exceedingly

concerned about the poor distressed creature, the housekeeper; that I

had heard some of her story, which was very dismal; that she had been

in very good circumstances and was bred very well, and that I was glad

he had removed her out of the field into the house; but still she was

almost naked, and that I would have him go down to the warehouse and

give her some linen, especially head-clothes, and all sorts of small

things such as hoods, gloves, stockings, shoes, petticoats, &c., and to

let her choose for herself; also a morning-gown of calico, and a mantua

of a better kind of calico; that is to say, new clothe her; which he

did, but brought me word that he found her all in tears, and that she

had cried all night long, and, in short, he believed she would indeed

cry herself to death; that all the while she was receiving the things

he gave her she cried; that now and then she would struggle with and

stop it, but that then, upon another word speaking, she would burst out

again, so that it grieved everybody that saw her.

I was really affected with her case very much, but struggled hard with

myself to hide it, and turned the discourse to something else. In the

meantime, though I did not go to her the next day, nor till the third

day, yet I studied day and night how to act, and what I should do in

this remarkable case.

When I came to the house, which was the third day, she came into the

room I was in, clothed all over with my things which I had ordered her,

and told me she thanked God she was now my servant again and wore my

livery, thanked me for the clothes I had sent her, and said it was much

more than she had deserved from me.

I then entered into discourses with her, nobody being present but

ourselves; and first I told her she should name no more of the unkind

things that had passed, for she had humbled herself more than enough on

that subject, and I would never reproach her with anything that was

past. I found that she had been the deepest sufferer by far. I told her

it was impossible for me, in my present circumstances, to receive her

there as a wife who came over as a convict, neither did she know so

little as to desire it; but I told her I might be instrumental to put

an end to her misfortunes in the world, and especially to the miserable

part of it which was her present load, provided she could effectually

keep her own counsel and never let the particulars come out of her

mouth, and that from the day she did she might date her irrevocable

ruin.

She was as sensible of the necessity of that part as I was, and told me

all she could claim of me would be only to deliver her from her present

calamity that she was not able to support; and that then, if I pleased,

she might live such a life as that she might apply the residue of what

time she should have wholly to repentance; that she was willing to do

the meanest offices in the world for me; and though she should rejoice

to hear that I would forgive her former life, yet that she would not

look any higher than to be my servant as long as she lived; and, in the

meantime, I might be satisfied she would never let any creature so much

as know that I had ever seen her before.

I asked her if she was willing to let me into any part of the history

of her life since she and I parted; but I did not insist upon it

otherwise than as she thought convenient. She said, as her breach with

me began first in folly and ended in sin, so her whole life afterwards

was a continued series of calamity, sin and sorrow, sin and shame, and

at last misery; that she was deluded into gay company and to an

expensive way of living which betrayed her to several wicked courses to

support the expenses of it; that after a thousand distresses and

difficulties, being not able to maintain herself, she was reduced to

extreme poverty; that she would many times have humbled herself to me

in the lowest and most submissive manner in the world, being sincerely

penitent for her first crime, but that she could never hear of me, nor

which way I was gone; that she was by that means so abandoned that she

wanted bread, and those wants and distresses brought her into bad

company of another kind, and that she fell in among a gang of thieves,

with whom she herded for some time, and got money enough a great while,

but under the greatest dread and terror imaginable, being in the

constant fear of coming to shame; that afterwards what she feared was

come upon her, and for a very trifling attempt in which she was not

principal, but accidentally concerned, she was sent to this place. She

told me her life was such a collection of various fortunes—up and down,

in plenty and in misery, in prison and at liberty, at ease and in

torment—that it would take up a great many days to give me a history of

it; that I was come to see the end of it, as I had seen the best part

of the beginning; that I knew she was brought up tenderly and fared

delicately; but that now she was, with the prodigal, brought to desire

husks with swine, and even to want that supply. Her tears flowed so

strongly upon this discourse that they frequently interrupted her, so

that she could not go on without difficulty, and at last could not go

on at all. So I told her I would excuse her telling any more of her

story at that time; that I saw it was but a renewing of her grief, and

that I would rather contribute to her forgetting what was past, and

desired her to say no more of it; so I broke off that part.

In the meantime I told her, since Providence had thus cast her upon my

hands again, I would take care that she should not want, and that she

should not live hardly neither, though I could go no further at

present; and thus we parted for that time, and she continued in the

business of housekeeper; only that, to ease her, I gave her an

assistant; and, though I would not have it called so, it was neither

more or less than a servant to wait on her and do everything for her;

and told her, too, that it was so.

After she had been some time in this place she recovered her spirits

and grew cheerful; her fallen flesh plumped up, and the sunk and hollow

parts filled again, so that she began to recover something of that

brightness and charming countenance which was once so very agreeable to

me; and sometimes I could not help having warm desires towards her, and

of taking her into her first station again; but there were many

difficulties occurred which I could not get over a great while.

But in the meantime another odd accident happened which put me to a

very great difficulty, and more than I could have thought such a thing

could be capable of. My tutor, a man of wit and learning, and full of

generous principles, who was at first moved with compassion for the

misery of this gentlewoman, and, even then, thought there were some

things more than common in her, as I have hinted; now when, as I say,

she was recovered, and her sprightly temper restored and comforted, he

was charmed so with her conversation that, in short, he fell in love

with her.

I hinted in my former account of her that she had a charming tongue,

was mistress of abundance of wit, that she sung incomparably fine, and

was perfectly well-bred. These all remained with her still, and made

her a very agreeable person; and, in short, he came to me one evening

and told me that he came to ask my leave to let him marry the

housekeeper.

I was exceedingly perplexed at this proposal, but, however, I gave him

no room to perceive that. I told him I hoped he had considered well of

it before he brought it so far as to offer it to me, and supposed that

he had agreed that point so that I had no consent to give, but as she

had almost four years of her time to serve.

He answered no; he paid such a regard to me that he would not so much

as take one step in such a thing without my knowledge, and assured me

he had not so much as mentioned it to her. I knew not what answer

indeed to make to him, but at last I resolved to put it off from myself

to her, because then I should have opportunity to talk with her

beforehand. So I told him he was perfectly free to act in the matter as

he thought fit; that I could not say either one thing or another to it,

neither had I any right to meddle in it. As to her serving out her time

with me, that was a trifle, and not worth naming, but I hoped he would

consider well every circumstance before he entered upon such an affair

as that.

He told me he had fully considered it already, and that he was

resolved, seeing I was not against it, to have her whatever came of it,

for he believed he should be the happiest man alive with her. Then he

ran on in his character of her, how clever a woman she was in the

management of all manner of business, how admirable conversation she

was, what a wit, what a memory, what a vast share of knowledge, and the

like; all which I knew to be the truth, and yet short of her just

character too; for, as she was all that formerly when she was mine, she

was vastly improved in the school of affliction, and was all the bright

part, with a vast addition of temper, prudence, judgment, and all that

she formerly wanted.

I had not much patience, as you may well imagine, till I saw my honest

housekeeper, to communicate this secret to her, and to see what course

she would steer on so nice an occasion. But I was suddenly taken so ill

with a cold which held for two days that I could not stir out of doors;

and in this time the matter was all done and over; for my tutor had

gone the same night and made his attack; but was coldly received at

first, which very much surprised him, for he made no doubt to have her

consent at first word. However, the next day he came again, and again

the third day, when, finding he was in earnest, and yet that she could

not think of anything of that kind, she told him, in few words, that

she thought herself greatly obliged to him for such a testimony of his

respect to her, and should have embraced it willingly, as anybody would

suppose one in her circumstances should do, but that she would not

abuse him so much, for that she must acknowledge to him she was under

obligations that prevented her; that was, in short, that she was a

married woman and had a husband alive.

This was so sincere but so effectual an answer that he could have no

room to reply one word to it, but that he was very sorry, and that it

was a very great affliction to him, and as great a disappointment as

ever he met with.

The next day after he had received this repulse I came to the

plantation-house, and, sending for the housekeeper, I began with her,

and told her that I understood she would have a very advantageous

proposal made to her, and that I would have her consider well of it,

and then told her what my tutor had said to me.

She immediately fell a-crying, at which I seemed to wonder very much.

“Oh, sir!” says she, “how can you name such a thing to me?” I told her

that I could name it the better to her because I had been married

myself since I parted from her. “Yes, sir,” says she; “but the case

alters; the crime being on my side, I ought not to marry; but,” says

she, “that is not the reason at all, but I cannot do it.” I pretended

to press her to it, though not sincerely, I must acknowledge, for my

heart had turned toward her for some time, and I had fully forgiven her

in my mind all her former conduct; but, I say, I seemed to press her to

it, at which she burst out in a passion. “No, no,” says she; “let me be

your slave rather than the best man’s wife in the world.” I reasoned

with her upon her circumstances, and how such a marriage would restore

her to a state of ease and plenty, and none in the world might ever

know or suspect who or what she had been. But she could not bear it;

but, with tears, again raising her voice that I was afraid she would be

heard, “I beseech you,” says she, “do not speak of it any more. I was

once yours, and I will never belong to any man else in the world. Let

me be as I am, or anything else you please to make me, but not a wife

to any man alive but yourself.”

I was so moved with the passion she was in at speaking this that I knew

not what I said or did for some time. At length I said to her, “It is a

great pity you had not long ago been as sincere as you are now; it had

been better for us both. However, as it is, you shall not be forced to

anything against your mind, nor shall you be the worse treated for

refusing; but how will you put him off? No doubt he expects you will

receive his proposal as an advantage; and as he sees no farther into

your circumstances, so it is.” “Oh, sir!” says she, “I have done all

that already. He has his answer, and is fully satisfied. He will never

trouble you any more on that head;” and then she told me what answer

she had given him.

From that minute I resolved that I would certainly take her again to be

my wife as before. I thought she had fully made me amends for her

former ill conduct, and she deserved to be forgiven (and so indeed she

did, if ever woman did, considering also what dreadful penance she had

undergone, and how long she had lived in misery and distress); and that

Providence had, as it were, cast her upon me again, and, above all, had

given her such an affection to me and so resolved a mind that she could

refuse so handsome an offer of deliverance rather than be farther

separated from me.

As I resolved this in my mind, so I thought it was cruel to conceal it

any longer from her. Nor, in deed, could I contain myself any longer,

but I took her in my arms: “Well,” says I, “you have given me such a

testimony of affection in this that I can no longer withstand. I

forgive you all that ever was between us on this account, and, since

you will be nobody’s but mine, you shall be mine again as you were at

first.”

But this was too much for her the other way, and now she was so far

overcome with my yielding to her that, had she not got vent to her

passion by the most vehement crying, she must have died in my arms; and

I was forced to let her go and set her down in a chair, where she cried

for a quarter of an hour before she could speak a word.