it was, gave him that answer, that I was his wife, or widow, which the
malicious Jew said should not serve my turn. And then it was that the
Dutchman called him out again; and in this time of his withdrawing, the
merchant, finding, as above, that he was really in earnest,
counterfeited a little to be of his mind, and entered into proposals
with him for the thing itself.
In this they agreed to go to an advocate, or counsel, for directions how
to proceed, and to meet again the next day, against which time the
merchant was to appoint me to come again with the jewels, in order to
sell them. "No," says the merchant, "I will go farther with her than so;
I will desire her to leave the jewels with me, to show to another
person, in order to get the better price for them." "That's right," says
the Jew; "and I'll engage she shall never be mistress of them again;
they shall either be seized by us," says he, "in the king's name, or she
shall be glad to give them up to us to prevent her being put to the
torture."
The merchant said "Yes" to everything he offered, and they agreed to
meet the next morning about it, and I was to be persuaded to leave the
jewels with him, and come to them the next day at four o'clock in order
to make a good bargain for them; and on these conditions they parted.
But the honest Dutchman, filled with indignation at the barbarous
design, came directly to me and told me the whole story. "And now,
madam," says he, "you are to consider immediately what you have to do."
I told him, if I was sure to have justice, I would not fear all that
such a rogue could do to me; but how such things were carried on in
France I knew not. I told him the greatest difficulty would be to prove
our marriage, for that it was done in England, and in a remote part of
England too; and, which was worse, it would be hard to produce authentic
vouchers of it, because we were married in private. "But as to the death
of your husband, madam, what can be said to that?" said he. "Nay," said
I, "what can they say to it? In England," added I, "if they would offer
such an injury to any one, they must prove the fact or give just reason
for their suspicions. That my husband was murdered, that every one
knows; but that he was robbed, or of what, or how much, that none
knows--no, not myself; and why was I not questioned for it then? I have
lived in Paris ever since, lived publicly, and no man had yet the
impudence to suggest such a thing of me."
"I am fully satisfied of that," says the merchant; "but as this is a
rogue who will stick at nothing, what can we say? And who knows what he
may swear? Suppose he should swear that he knows your husband had those
particular jewels with him the morning when he went out, and that he
showed them to him to consider their value, and what price he should ask
the Prince de ---- for them?"
"Nay, by the same rule," said I, "he may swear that I murdered my
husband, if he finds it for his turn." "That's true," said he; "and if
he should, I do not see what could save you;" but added, "I have found
out his more immediate design. His design is to have you carried to the
Châtelet, that the suspicion may appear just, and then to get the jewels
out of your hands if possible; then, at last, to drop the prosecution on
your consenting to quit the jewels to him; and how you will do to avoid
this is the question which I would have you consider of."
"My misfortune, sir," said I, "is that I have no time to consider, and I
have no person to consider with or advise about it. I find that
innocence may be oppressed by such an impudent fellow as this; he that
does not value perjury has any man's life at his mercy. But, sir," said
I, "is the justice such here that, while I may be in the hands of the
public and under prosecution, he may get hold of my effects and get my
jewels into his hands?"
"I don't know," says he, "what may be done in that case; but if not he,
if the court of justice should get hold of them I do not know but you
may find it as difficult to get them out of their hands again, and, at
least, it may cost you half as much as they are worth; so I think it
would be a much better way to prevent their coming at them at all."
"But what course can I take to do that," says I, "now they have got
notice that I have them? If they get me into their hands they will
oblige me to produce them, or perhaps sentence me to prison till I do."
"Nay," says he, "as this brute says, too, put you to the question--that
is, to the torture, on pretence of making you confess who were the
murderers of your husband."
"Confess!" said I. "How can I confess what I know nothing of?"
"If they come to have you to the rack," said he, "they will make you
confess you did it yourself, whether you did it or no, and then you are
cast."
The very word rack frighted me to death almost, and I had no spirit left
in me. "Did it myself!" said I. "That's impossible!"
"No, madam," says he, "'tis far from impossible. The most innocent
people in the world have been forced to confess themselves guilty of
what they never heard of, much less had any hand in."
"What, then, must I do?" said I. "What would you advise me to?"
"Why," says he, "I would advise you to be gone. You intended to go away
in four or five days, and you may as well go in two days; and if you can
do so, I shall manage it so that he shall not suspect your being gone
for several days after." Then he told me how the rogue would have me
ordered to bring the jewels the next day for sale, and that then he
would have me apprehended; how he had made the Jew believe he would join
with him in his design, and that he (the merchant) would get the jewels
into his hands. "Now," says the merchant, "I shall give you bills for
the money you desired, immediately, and such as shall not fail of being
paid. Take your jewels with you, and go this very evening to St.
Germain-en-Laye; I'll send a man thither with you, and from thence he
shall guide you to-morrow to Rouen, where there lies a ship of mine,
just ready to sail for Rotterdam; you shall have your passage in that
ship on my account, and I will send orders for him to sail as soon as
you are on board, and a letter to my friend at Rotterdam to entertain
and take care of you."
This was too kind an offer for me, as things stood, not to be accepted,
and be thankful for; and as to going away, I had prepared everything for
parting, so that I had little to do but to go back, take two or three
boxes and bundles, and such things, and my maid Amy, and be gone.
Then the merchant told me the measures he had resolved to take to delude
the Jew while I made my escape, which was very well contrived indeed.
"First," said he, "when he comes to-morrow I shall tell him that I
proposed to you to leave the jewels with me, as we agreed, but that you
said you would come and bring them in the afternoon, so that we must
stay for you till four o'clock; but then, at that time, I will show a
letter from you, as if just come in, wherein you shall excuse your not
coming, for that some company came to visit you, and prevented you; but
that you desire me to take care that the gentleman be ready to buy your
jewels, and that you will come to-morrow at the same hour, without
fail.
"When to-morrow is come, we shall wait at the time, but you not
appearing, I shall seem most dissatisfied, and wonder what can be the
reason; and so we shall agree to go the next day to get out a process
against you. But the next day, in the morning, I'll send to give him
notice that you have been at my house, but he not being there, have made
another appointment, and that I desire to speak with him. When he comes,
I'll tell him you appear perfectly blind as to your danger, and that you
appeared much disappointed that he did not come, though you could not
meet the night before; and obliged me to have him here to-morrow at
three o'clock. When to-morrow comes," says he, "you shall send word that
you are taken so ill that you cannot come out for that day, but that you
will not fail the next day; and the next day you shall neither come or
send, nor let us ever hear any more of you; for by that time you shall
be in Holland, if you please."
I could not but approve all his measures, seeing they were so well
contrived, and in so friendly a manner, for my benefit; and as he seemed
to be so very sincere, I resolved to put my life in his hands.
Immediately I went to my lodgings, and sent away Amy with such bundles
as I had prepared for my travelling. I also sent several parcels of my
fine furniture to the merchant's house to be laid up for me, and
bringing the key of the lodgings with me, I came back to his house. Here
we finished our matters of money, and I delivered into his hands seven
thousand eight hundred pistoles in bills and money, a copy of an
assignment on the townhouse of Paris for four thousand pistoles, at
three per cent. interest, attested, and a procuration for receiving the
interest half-yearly; but the original I kept myself.
I could have trusted all I had with him, for he was perfectly honest,
and had not the least view of doing me any wrong. Indeed, after it was
so apparent that he had, as it were, saved my life, or at least saved me
from being exposed and ruined--I say, after this, how could I doubt him
in anything?
When I came to him, he had everything ready as I wanted, and as he had
proposed. As to my money, he gave me first of all an accepted bill,
payable at Rotterdam, for four thousand pistoles, and drawn from Genoa
upon a merchant at Rotterdam, payable to a merchant at Paris, and
endorsed by him to my merchant; this, he assured me, would be punctually
paid; and so it was, to a day. The rest I had in other bills of
exchange, drawn by himself upon other merchants in Holland. Having
secured my jewels too, as well as I could, he sent me away the same
evening in a friend's coach, which he had procured for me, to St.
Germain, and the next morning to Rouen. He also sent a servant of his
own on horseback with me, who provided everything for me, and who
carried his orders to the captain of the ship, which lay about three
miles below Rouen, in the river, and by his directions I went
immediately on board. The third day after I was on board the ship went
away, and we were out at sea the next day after that; and thus I took my
leave of France, and got clear of an ugly business, which, had it gone
on, might have ruined me, and sent me back as naked to England as I was
a little before I left it.
And now Amy and I were at leisure to look upon the mischiefs that we had
escaped; and had I had any religion or any sense of a Supreme Power,
managing, directing, and governing in both causes and events in this
world, such a case as this would have given anybody room to have been
very thankful to the Power who had not only put such a treasure into my
hand, but given me such an escape from the ruin that threatened me; but
I had none of those things about me. I had, indeed, a grateful sense
upon my mind of the generous friendship of my deliverer, the Dutch
merchant, by whom I was so faithfully served, and by whom, as far as
relates to second causes, I was preserved from destruction.
I say, I had a grateful sense upon my mind of his kindness and
faithfulness to me, and I resolved to show him some testimony of it as
soon as I came to the end of my rambles, for I was yet but in a state of
uncertainty, and sometimes that gave me a little uneasiness too. I had
paper indeed for my money, and he had showed himself very good to me in
conveying me away, as above; but I had not seen the end of things yet,
for unless the bills were paid, I might still be a great loser by my
Dutchman, and he might, perhaps, have contrived all that affair of the
Jew to put me into a fright and get me to run away, and that as if it
were to save my life; that if the bills should be refused, I was cheated
with a witness, and the like. But these were but surmises, and, indeed,
were perfectly without cause, for the honest man acted as honest men
always do, with an upright and disinterested principle, and with a
sincerity not often to be found in the world. What gain he made by the
exchange was just, and was nothing but what was his due, and was in the
way of his business; but otherwise he made no advantage of me at all.
When I passed in the ship between Dover and Calais and saw beloved
England once more under my view--England, which I counted my native
country, being the place I was bred up in, though not born there--a
strange kind of joy possessed my mind, and I had such a longing desire
to be there that I would have given the master of the ship twenty
pistoles to have stood over and set me on shore in the Downs; and when
he told me he could not do it--that is, that he durst not do it if I
would have given him a hundred pistoles--I secretly wished that a storm
would rise that might drive the ship over to the coast of England,
whether they would or not, that I might be set on shore anywhere upon
English ground.
This wicked wish had not been out of my thoughts above two or three
hours, but the master steering away to the north, as was his course to
do, we lost sight of land on that side, and only had the Flemish shore
in view on our right hand, or, as the seamen call it, the starboard
side; and then, with the loss of the sight, the wish for landing in
England abated, and I considered how foolish it was to wish myself out
of the way of my business; that if I had been on shore in England, I
must go back to Holland on account of my bills, which were so
considerable, and I having no correspondence there, that I could not
have managed it without going myself. But we had not been out of sight
of England many hours before the weather began to change; the winds
whistled and made a noise, and the seamen said to one another that it
would blow hard at night. It was then about two hours before sunset, and
we were passed by Dunkirk, and I think they said we were in sight of
Ostend; but then the wind grew high and the sea swelled, and all things
looked terrible, especially to us that understood nothing but just what
we saw before us; in short, night came on, and very dark it was; the
wind freshened and blew harder and harder, and about two hours within
night it blew a terrible storm.
I was not quite a stranger to the sea, having come from Rochelle to
England when I was a child, and gone from London, by the River Thames,
to France afterward, as I have said. But I began to be alarmed a little
with the terrible clamour of the men over my head, for I had never been
in a storm, and so had never seen the like, or heard it; and once
offering to look out at the door of the steerage, as they called it, it
struck me with such horror (the darkness, the fierceness of the wind,
the dreadful height of the waves, and the hurry the Dutch sailors were
in, whose language I did not understand one word of, neither when they
cursed or when they prayed); I say, all these things together filled me
with terror, and, in short, I began to be very much frighted.
When I was come back into the great cabin, there sat Amy, who was very
sea-sick, and I had a little before given her a sup of cordial waters to
help her stomach. When Amy saw me come back and sit down without
speaking, for so I did, she looked two or three times up at me; at last
she came running to me. "Dear madam," says she, "what is the matter?
What makes you look so pale? Why, you an't well; what is the matter?" I
said nothing still, but held up my hands two or three times. Amy doubled
her importunities; upon that I said no more but, "Step to the
steerage-door, and look out, as I did;" so she went away immediately,
and looked too, as I had bidden her; but the poor girl came back again
in the greatest amazement and horror that ever I saw any poor creature
in, wringing her hands and crying out she was undone! she was undone!
she should be drowned! they were all lost! Thus she ran about the cabin
like a mad thing, and as perfectly out of her senses as any one in such
a case could be supposed to be. I was frighted myself, but when I saw
the girl in such a terrible agony, it brought me a little to myself, and
I began to talk to her and put her in a little hope. I told her there
was many a ship in a storm that was not cast away, and I hoped we should
not be drowned; that it was true the storm was very dreadful, but I did
not see that the seamen were so much concerned as we were. And so I
talked to her as well as I could, though my heart was full enough of it,
as well as Amy's; and death began to stare in my face; ay, and something
else too--that is to say, conscience, and my mind was very much
disturbed; but I had nobody to comfort me.
But Amy being in so much worse a condition--that is to say, so much more
terrified at the storm than I was--I had something to do to comfort her.
She was, as I have said, like one distracted, and went raving about the
cabin, crying out she was undone! undone! she should be drowned! and the
like. And at last, the ship giving a jerk, by the force, I suppose, of
some violent wave, it threw poor Amy quite down, for she was weak enough
before with being sea-sick, and as it threw her forward, the poor girl
struck her head against the bulk-head, as the seamen call it, of the
cabin, and laid her as dead as a stone upon the floor or deck; that is
to say, she was so to all appearance.
I cried out for help, but it had been all one to have cried out on the
top of a mountain where nobody had been within five miles of me, for the
seamen were so engaged and made so much noise that nobody heard me or
came near me. I opened the great cabin door, and looked into the
steerage to cry for help, but there, to increase my fright, was two
seamen on their knees at prayers, and only one man who steered, and he
made a groaning noise too, which I took to be saying his prayers, but it
seems it was answering to those above, when they called to him to tell
him which way to steer.
Here was no help for me, or for poor Amy, and there she lay still so,
and in such a condition, that I did not know whether she was dead or
alive. In this fright I went to her, and lifted her a little way up,
setting her on the deck, with her back to the boards of the bulk-head;
and I got a little bottle out of my pocket, and I held it to her nose,
and rubbed her temples and what else I could do, but still Amy showed no
signs of life, till I felt for her pulse, but could hardly distinguish
her to be alive. However, after a great while, she began to revive, and
in about half-an-hour she came to herself, but remembered nothing at
first of what had happened to her for a good while more.
When she recovered more fully, she asked me where she was. I told her
she was in the ship yet, but God knows how long it might be. "Why,
madam," says she, "is not the storm over?" "No, no," says I, "Amy."
"Why, madam," says she, "it was calm just now" (meaning when she was in
the swooning fit occasioned by her fall). "Calm, Amy!" says I. "'Tis far
from calm. It may be it will be calm by-and-by, when we are all drowned
and gone to heaven."
"Heaven, madam!" says she. "What makes you talk so? Heaven! I go to
heaven! No, no; if I am drowned I am damned! Don't you know what a
wicked creature I have been? I have been a whore to two men, and have
lived a wretched, abominable life of vice and wickedness for fourteen
years. Oh, madam! you know it, and God knows it, and now I am to die--to
be drowned! Oh! what will become of me? I am undone for ever!--ay,
madam, for ever! to all eternity! Oh! I am lost! I am lost! If I am
drowned, I am lost for ever!"
All these, you will easily suppose, must be so many stabs into the very
soul of one in my own case. It immediately occurred to me, "Poor Amy!
what art thou that I am not? What hast thou been that I have not been?
Nay, I am guilty of my own sin and thine too." Then it came to my
remembrance that I had not only been the same with Amy, but that I had
been the devil's instrument to make her wicked; that I had stripped her,
and prostituted her to the very man that I had been naught with myself;
that she had but followed me, I had been her wicked example; and I had
led her into all; and that, as we had sinned together, now we were
likely to sink together.
All this repeated itself to my thoughts at that very moment, and every
one of Amy's cries sounded thus in my ears: "I am the wicked cause of it
all! I have been thy ruin, Amy! I have brought thee to this, and now
thou art to suffer for the sin I have enticed thee to! And if thou art
lost for ever, what must I be? what must be my portion?"
It is true this difference was between us, that I said all these things
within myself, and sighed and mourned inwardly; but Amy, as her temper
was more violent, spoke aloud, and cried, and called out aloud, like one
in agony.
I had but small encouragement to give her, and indeed could say but very
little, but I got her to compose herself a little, and not let any of
the people of the ship understand what she meant or what she said; but
even in her greatest composure she continued to express herself with the
utmost dread and terror on account of the wicked life she had lived,
crying out she should be damned, and the like, which was very terrible
to me, who knew what condition I was in myself.
Upon these serious considerations, I was very penitent too for my former
sins, and cried out, though softly, two or three times, "Lord, have
mercy upon me!" To this I added abundance of resolutions of what a life
I would live if it should please God but to spare my life but this one
time; how I would live a single and a virtuous life, and spend a great
deal of what I had thus wickedly got in acts of charity and doing good.
Under these dreadful apprehensions I looked back on the life I had led
with the utmost contempt and abhorrence. I blushed, and wondered at
myself how I could act thus, how I could divest myself of modesty and
honour, and prostitute myself for gain; and I thought, if ever it should
please God to spare me this one time from death, it would not be
possible that I should be the same creature again.
Amy went farther; she prayed, she resolved, she vowed to lead a new
life, if God would spare her but this time. It now began to be daylight,
for the storm held all night long, and it was some comfort to see the
light of another day, which none of us expected; but the sea went
mountains high, and the noise of the water was as frightful to us as the
sight of the waves; nor was any land to be seen, nor did the seamen know
whereabout they were. At last, to our great joy, they made land, which
was in England, and on the coast of Suffolk; and the ship being in the
utmost distress, they ran for the shore at all hazards, and with great
difficulty got into Harwich, where they were safe, as to the danger of
death; but the ship was so full of water and so much damaged that if
they had not laid her on shore the same day she would have sunk before
night, according to the opinion of the seamen, and of the workmen on
shore too who were hired to assist them in stopping their leaks.
Amy was revived as soon as she heard they had espied land, and went out
upon the deck; but she soon came in again to me. "Oh, madam!" says she,
"there's the land indeed to be seen. It looks like a ridge of clouds,
and may be all a cloud for aught I know; but if it be land, 'tis a
great way off, and the sea is in such a combustion, we shall all perish
before we can reach it. 'Tis the dreadfullest sight to look at the
waves that ever was seen. Why, they are as high as mountains; we shall
certainly be all swallowed up, for all the land is so near."
I had conceived some hope that, if they saw land, we should be
delivered; and I told her she did not understand things of that nature;
that she might be sure if they saw land they would go directly towards
it, and would make into some harbour; but it was, as Amy said, a
frightful distance to it. The land looked like clouds, and the sea went
as high as mountains, so that no hope appeared in the seeing the land,
but we were in fear of foundering before we could reach it. This made
Amy so desponding still; but as the wind, which blew from the east, or
that way, drove us furiously towards the land, so when, about
half-an-hour after, I stepped to the steerage-door and looked out, I saw
the land much nearer than Amy represented it; so I went in and
encouraged Amy again, and indeed was encouraged myself.
In about an hour, or something more, we saw, to our infinite
satisfaction, the open harbour of Harwich, and the vessel standing
directly towards it, and in a few minutes more the ship was in smooth
water, to our inexpressible comfort; and thus I had, though against my
will and contrary to my true interest, what I wished for, to be driven
away to England, though it was by a storm.