being over, the fears of death vanished with it; ay, and our fear of
what was beyond death also. Our sense of the life we had lived went off,
and with our return to life our wicked taste of life returned, and we
were both the same as before, if not worse. So certain is it that the
repentance which is brought about by the mere apprehensions of death
wears off as those apprehensions wear off, and deathbed repentance, or
storm repentance, which is much the same, is seldom true.
However, I do not tell you that this was all at once neither; the fright
we had at sea lasted a little while afterwards; at least the impression
was not quite blown off as soon as the storm; especially poor Amy. As
soon as she set her foot on shore she fell flat upon the ground and
kissed it, and gave God thanks for her deliverance from the sea; and
turning to me when she got up, "I hope, madam," says she, "you will
never go upon the sea again."
I know not what ailed me, not I; but Amy was much more penitent at sea,
and much more sensible of her deliverance when she landed and was safe,
than I was. I was in a kind of stupidity, I know not well what to call
it; I had a mind full of horror in the time of the storm, and saw death
before me as plainly as Amy, but my thoughts got no vent, as Amy's did.
I had a silent, sullen kind of grief, which could not break out either
in words or tears, and which was therefore much the worse to bear.
I had a terror upon me for my wicked life past, and firmly believed I
was going to the bottom, launching into death, where I was to give an
account of all my past actions; and in this state, and on that account,
I looked back upon my wickedness with abhorrence, as I have said above,
but I had no sense of repentance from the true motive of repentance; I
saw nothing of the corruption of nature, the sin of my life, as an
offence against God, as a thing odious to the holiness of His being, as
abusing His mercy and despising His goodness. In short, I had no
thorough effectual repentance, no sight of my sins in their proper
shape, no view of a Redeemer, or hope in Him. I had only such a
repentance as a criminal has at the place of execution, who is sorry,
not that he has committed the crime, as it is a crime, but sorry that he
is to be hanged for it.
It is true Amy's repentance wore off too, as well as mine, but not so
soon. However, we were both very grave for a time.
As soon as we could get a boat from the town we went on shore, and
immediately went to a public-house in the town of Harwich, where we
were to consider seriously what was to be done, and whether we should go
up to London or stay till the ship was refitted, which, they said, would
be a fortnight, and then go for Holland, as we intended, and as business
required.
Reason directed that I should go to Holland, for there I had all my
money to receive, and there I had persons of good reputation and
character to apply to, having letters to them from the honest Dutch
merchant at Paris, and they might perhaps give me a recommendation again
to merchants in London, and so I should get acquaintance with some
people of figure, which was what I loved; whereas now I knew not one
creature in the whole city of London, or anywhere else, that I could go
and make myself known to. Upon these considerations, I resolved to go to
Holland, whatever came of it.
But Amy cried and trembled, and was ready to fall into fits, when I did
but mention going upon the sea again, and begged of me not to go, or if
I would go, that I would leave her behind, though I was to send her
a-begging. The people in the inn laughed at her, and jested with her,
asked her if she had any sins to confess that she was ashamed should be
heard of, and that she was troubled with an evil conscience; told her,
if she came to sea, and to be in a storm, if she had lain with her
master, she would certainly tell her mistress of it, and that it was a
common thing for poor maids to confess all the young men they had lain
with; that there was one poor girl that went over with her mistress,
whose husband was a ......r, in ......, in the city of London, who
confessed, in the terror of a storm, that she had lain with her master,
and all the apprentices, so often, and in such-and-such places, and made
the poor mistress, when she returned to London, fly at her husband, and
make such a stir as was indeed the ruin of the whole family. Amy could
bear all that well enough, for though she had indeed lain with her
master, it was with her mistress's knowledge and consent, and, which was
worse, was her mistress's own doing. I record it to the reproach of my
own vice, and to expose the excesses of such wickedness as they deserve
to be exposed.
I thought Amy's fear would have been over by that time the ship would be
gotten ready, but I found the girl was rather worse and worse; and when
I came to the point that we must go on board or lose the passage, Amy
was so terrified that she fell into fits; so the ship went away without
us.
But my going being absolutely necessary, as above, I was obliged to go
in the packet-boat some time after, and leave Amy behind at Harwich, but
with directions to go to London and stay there to receive letters and
orders from me what to do. Now I was become, from a lady of pleasure, a
woman of business, and of great business too, I assure you.
I got me a servant at Harwich to go over with me, who had been at
Rotterdam, knew the place, and spoke the language, which was a great
help to me, and away I went. I had a very quick passage and pleasant
weather, and, coming to Rotterdam, soon found out the merchant to whom I
was recommended, who received me with extraordinary respect. And first
he acknowledged the accepted bill for four thousand pistoles, which he
afterwards paid punctually; other bills that I had also payable at
Amsterdam he procured to be received for me; and whereas one of the
bills for one thousand two hundred crowns was protested at Amsterdam, he
paid it me himself, for the honour of the indorser, as he called it,
which was my friend the merchant at Paris.
There I entered into a negotiation by his means for my jewels, and he
brought me several jewellers to look on them, and particularly one to
value them, and to tell me what every particular was worth. This was a
man who had great skill in jewels, but did not trade at that time, and
he was desired by the gentleman that I was with to see that I might not
be imposed upon.
All this work took me up near half a year, and by managing my business
thus myself, and having large sums to do with, I became as expert in it
as any she-merchant of them all. I had credit in the bank for a large
sum of money, and bills and notes for much more.
After I had been here about three months, my maid Amy writes me word
that she had received a letter from her friend, as she called him. That,
by the way, was the prince's gentleman, that had been Amy's
extraordinary friend indeed, for Amy owned to me he had lain with her a
hundred times, that is to say, as often as he pleased, and perhaps in
the eight years which that affair lasted it might be a great deal
oftener. This was what she called her friend, who she corresponded with
upon this particular subject, and, among other things, sent her this
particular news, that my extraordinary friend, my real husband, who rode
in the _gens d'armes_, was dead, that he was killed in a rencounter, as
they call it, or accidental scuffle among the troopers; and so the jade
congratulated me upon my being now a real free woman. "And now, madam,"
says she at the end of her letter, "you have nothing to do but to come
hither and set up a coach and a good equipage, and if beauty and a good
fortune won't make you a duchess, nothing will." But I had not fixed my
measures yet. I had no inclination to be a wife again. I had had such
bad luck with my first husband, I hated the thoughts of it. I found
that a wife is treated with indifference, a mistress with a strong
passion; a wife is looked upon as but an upper servant, a mistress is a
sovereign; a wife must give up all she has, have every reserve she makes
for herself be thought hard of, and be upbraided with her very
pin-money, whereas a mistress makes the saying true, that what the man
has is hers, and what she has is her own; the wife bears a thousand
insults, and is forced to sit still and bear it, or part, and be undone;
a mistress insulted helps herself immediately, and takes another.
These were my wicked arguments for whoring, for I never set against them
the difference another way--I may say, every other way; how that, first,
a wife appears boldly and honourably with her husband, lives at home,
and possesses his house, his servants, his equipages, and has a right to
them all, and to call them her own; entertains his friends, owns his
children, and has the return of duty and affection from them, as they
are here her own, and claims upon his estate, by the custom of England,
if he dies and leaves her a widow.
The whore skulks about in lodgings, is visited in the dark, disowned
upon all occasions before God and man; is maintained, indeed, for a
time, but is certainly condemned to be abandoned at last, and left to
the miseries of fate and her own just disaster. If she has any
children, her endeavour is to get rid of them, and not maintain them;
and if she lives, she is certain to see them all hate her, and be
ashamed of her. While the vice rages, and the man is in the devil's
hand, she has him; and while she has him, she makes a prey of him; but
if he happens to fall sick, if any disaster befalls him, the cause of
all lies upon her. He is sure to lay all his misfortunes at her door;
and if once he comes to repentance, or makes but one step towards a
reformation, he begins with her--leaves her, uses her as she deserves,
hates her, abhors her, and sees her no more; and that with this
never-failing addition, namely, that the more sincere and unfeigned his
repentance is, the more earnestly he looks up, and the more effectually
he looks in, the more his aversion to her increases, and he curses her
from the bottom of his soul; nay, it must be a kind of excess of charity
if he so much as wishes God may forgive her.
The opposite circumstances of a wife and whore are such and so many, and
I have since seen the difference with such eyes, as I could dwell upon
the subject a great while; but my business is history. I had a long
scene of folly yet to run over. Perhaps the moral of all my story may
bring me back again to this part, and if it does I shall speak of it
fully.
While I continued in Holland I received several letters from my friend
(so I had good reason to call him) the merchant in Paris, in which he
gave me a farther account of the conduct of that rogue the Jew, and how
he acted after I was gone; how impatient he was while the said merchant
kept him in suspense, expecting me to come again; and how he raged when
he found I came no more.
It seems, after he found I did not come, he found out by his unwearied
inquiry where I had lived, and that I had been kept as a mistress by
some great person; but he could never learn by who, except that he
learnt the colour of his livery. In pursuit of this inquiry he guessed
at the right person, but could not make it out, or offer any positive
proof of it; but he found out the prince's gentleman, and talked so
saucily to him of it that the gentleman treated him, as the French call
it, _à coup de baton_--that is to say, caned him very severely, as he
deserved; and that not satisfying him, or curing his insolence, he was
met one night late upon the Pont Neuf, in Paris, by two men, who,
muffling him up in a great cloak, carried him into a more private place
and cut off both his ears, telling him it was for talking impudently of
his superiors; adding that he should take care to govern his tongue
better and behave with more manners, or the next time they would cut his
tongue out of his head.
This put a check to his sauciness that way; but he comes back to the
merchant and threatened to begin a process against him for corresponding
with me, and being accessory to the murder of the jeweller, &c.
The merchant found by his discourse that he supposed I was protected by
the said Prince de ----; nay, the rogue said he was sure I was in his
lodgings at Versailles, for he never had so much as the least intimation
of the way I was really gone; but that I was there he was certain, and
certain that the merchant was privy to it. The merchant bade him
defiance. However, he gave him a great deal of trouble and put him to a
great charge, and had like to have brought him in for a party to my
escape; in which case he would have been obliged to have produced me,
and that in the penalty of some capital sum of money.
But the merchant was too many for him another way, for he brought an
information against him for a cheat; wherein laying down the whole fact,
how he intended falsely to accuse the widow of the jeweller for the
supposed murder of her husband; that he did it purely to get the jewels
from her; and that he offered to bring him (the merchant) in, to be
confederate with him, and to share the jewels between them; proving also
his design to get the jewels into his hands, and then to have dropped
the prosecution upon condition of my quitting the jewels to him. Upon
this charge he got him laid by the heels; so he was sent to the
Conciergerie--that is to say, to Bridewell--and the merchant cleared. He
got out of jail in a little while, though not without the help of money,
and continued teasing the merchant a long while, and at last threatening
to assassinate and murder him. So the merchant, who, having buried his
wife about two months before, was now a single man, and not knowing what
such a villain might do, thought fit to quit Paris, and came away to
Holland also.
It is most certain that, speaking of originals, I was the source and
spring of all that trouble and vexation to this honest gentleman; and as
it was afterwards in my power to have made him full satisfaction, and
did not, I cannot say but I added ingratitude to all the rest of my
follies; but of that I shall give a fuller account presently.
I was surprised one morning, when, being at the merchant's house who he
had recommended me to in Rotterdam, and being busy in his
counting-house, managing my bills, and preparing to write a letter to
him to Paris, I heard a noise of horses at the door, which is not very
common in a city where everybody passes by water; but he had, it seems,
ferried over the Maas from Willemstadt, and so came to the very door,
and I, looking towards the door upon hearing the horses, saw a gentleman
alight and come in at the gate. I knew nothing, and expected nothing,
to be sure, of the person; but, as I say, was surprised, and indeed more
than ordinarily surprised, when, coming nearer to me, I saw it was my
merchant of Paris, my benefactor, and indeed my deliverer.
I confess it was an agreeable surprise to me, and I was exceeding glad
to see him, who was so honourable and so kind to me, and who indeed had
saved my life. As soon as he saw me he ran to me, took me in his arms,
and kissed me with a freedom that he never offered to take with me
before. "Dear Madam ----," says he, "I am glad to see you safe in this
country; if you had stayed two days longer in Paris you had been
undone." I was so glad to see him that I could not speak a good while,
and I burst out into tears without speaking a word for a minute; but I
recovered that disorder, and said, "The more, sir, is my obligation to
you that saved my life;" and added, "I am glad to see you here, that I
may consider how to balance an account in which I am so much your
debtor." "You and I will adjust that matter easily," says he, "now we
are so near together. Pray where do you lodge?" says he.
"In a very honest, good house," said I, "where that gentleman, your
friend, recommended me," pointing to the merchant in whose house we then
were.
"And where you may lodge too, sir," says the gentleman, "if it suits
with your business and your other conveniency."
"With all my heart," says he. "Then, madam," adds he, turning to me, "I
shall be near you, and have time to tell you a story which will be very
long, and yet many ways very pleasant to you; how troublesome that
devilish fellow, the Jew, has been to me on your account, and what a
hellish snare he had laid for you, if he could have found you."
"I shall have leisure too, sir," said I, "to tell you all my adventures
since that, which have not been a few, I assure you."
In short, he took up his lodgings in the same house where I lodged, and
the room he lay in opened, as he was wishing it would, just opposite to
my lodging-room, so we could almost call out of bed to one another; and
I was not at all shy of him on that score, for I believed him perfectly
honest, and so indeed he was; and if he had not, that article was at
present no part of my concern.
It was not till two or three days, and after his first hurries of
business were over, that we began to enter into the history of our
affairs on every side, but when we began, it took up all our
conversation for almost a fortnight. First, I gave him a particular
account of everything that happened material upon my voyage, and how we
were driven into Harwich by a very terrible storm; how I had left my
woman behind me, so frighted with the danger she had been in that she
durst not venture to set her foot into a ship again any more, and that I
had not come myself if the bills I had of him had not been payable in
Holland; but that money, he might see, would make a woman go anywhere.
He seemed to laugh at all our womanish fears upon the occasion of the
storm, telling me it was nothing but what was very ordinary in those
seas, but that they had harbours on every coast so near that they were
seldom in danger of being lost indeed. "For," says he, "if they cannot
fetch one coast, they can always stand away for another, and run afore
it," as he called it, "for one side or other." But when I came to tell
him what a crazy ship it was, and how, even when they got into Harwich,
and into smooth water, they were fain to run the ship on shore, or she
would have sunk in the very harbour; and when I told him that when I
looked out at the cabin-door I saw the Dutchmen, one upon his knees
here, and another there, at their prayers, then indeed he acknowledged I
had reason to be alarmed; but, smiling, he added, "But you, madam," says
he, "are so good a lady, and so pious, you would but have gone to heaven
a little the sooner; the difference had not been much to you."
I confess when he said this it made all the blood turn in my veins, and
I thought I should have fainted. "Poor gentleman," thought I, "you know
little of me. What would I give to be really what you really think me to
be!" He perceived the disorder, but said nothing till I spoke; when,
shaking my head, "Oh, sir!" said I, "death in any shape has some terror
in it, but in the frightful figure of a storm at sea and a sinking ship,
it comes with a double, a treble, and indeed an inexpressible horror;
and if I were that saint you think me to be (which God knows I am not),
it is still very dismal. I desire to die in a calm, if I can." He said a
great many good things, and very prettily ordered his discourse between
serious reflection and compliment, but I had too much guilt to relish it
as it was meant, so I turned it off to something else, and talked of the
necessity I had on me to come to Holland, but I wished myself safe on
shore in England again.
He told me he was glad I had such an obligation upon me to come over
into Holland, however, but hinted that he was so interested in my
welfare, and, besides, had such further designs upon me, that if I had
not so happily been found in Holland he was resolved to have gone to
England to see me, and that it was one of the principal reasons of his
leaving Paris.
I told him I was extremely obliged to him for so far interesting himself
in my affairs, but that I had been so far his debtor before that I knew
not how anything could increase the debt; for I owed my life to him
already, and I could not be in debt for anything more valuable than
that. He answered in the most obliging manner possible, that he would
put it in my power to pay that debt, and all the obligations besides
that ever he had, or should be able to lay upon me.
I began to understand him now, and to see plainly that he resolved to
make love to me, but I would by no means seem to take the hint; and,
besides, I knew that he had a wife with him in Paris; and I had, just
then at least, no gust to any more intriguing. However, he surprised me
into a sudden notice of the thing a little while after by saying
something in his discourse that he did, as he said, in his wife's days.
I started at that word, "What mean you by that, sir?" said I. "Have you
not a wife at Paris?" "No, madam, indeed," said he; "my wife died the
beginning of September last," which, it seems, was but a little after I
came away.
We lived in the same house all this while, and as we lodged not far off
of one another, opportunities were not wanting of as near an
acquaintance as we might desire; nor have such opportunities the least
agency in vicious minds to bring to pass even what they might not intend
at first.
However, though he courted so much at a distance, yet his pretensions
were very honourable; and as I had before found him a most
disinterested friend, and perfectly honest in his dealings, even when I
trusted him with all I had, so now I found him strictly virtuous, till I
made him otherwise myself, even almost whether he would or no, as you
shall hear.
It was not long after our former discourse, when he repeated what he had
insinuated before, namely, that he had yet a design to lay before me,
which, if I would agree to his proposals, would more than balance all
accounts between us. I told him I could not reasonably deny him
anything; and except one thing, which I hoped and believed he would not
think of, I should think myself very ungrateful if I did not do
everything for him that lay in my power.
He told me what he should desire of me would be fully in my power to
grant, or else he should be very unfriendly to offer it; and still all
this while he declined making the proposal, as he called it, and so for
that time we ended our discourse, turning it off to other things. So
that, in short, I began to think he might have met with some disaster in
his business, and might have come away from Paris in some discredit, or
had had some blow on his affairs in general; and as really I had
kindness enough to have parted with a good sum to have helped him, and
was in gratitude bound to have done so, he having so effectually saved
to me all I had, so I resolved to make him the offer the first time I
had an opportunity, which two or three days after offered itself, very
much to my satisfaction.
He had told me at large, though on several occasions, the treatment he
had met with from the Jew, and what expense he had put him to; how at
length he had cast him, as above, and had recovered good damage of him,
but that the rogue was unable to make him any considerable reparation.
He had told me also how the Prince de ----'s gentleman had resented his
treatment of his master, and how he had caused him to be used upon the
Pont Neuf, &c., as I have mentioned above, which I laughed at most
heartily.
"It is a pity," said I, "that I should sit here and make that gentleman
no amends; if you would direct me, sir," said I, "how to do it, I would
make him a handsome present, and acknowledge the justice he had done to
me, as well as to the prince, his master." He said he would do what I
directed in it; so I told him I would send him five hundred crowns.
"That's too much," said he, "for you are but half interested in the
usage of the Jew; it was on his master's account he corrected him, not
on yours." Well, however, we were obliged to do nothing in it, for
neither of us knew how to direct a letter to him, or to direct anybody
to him; so I told him I would leave it till I came to England, for that
my woman, Amy, corresponded with him, and that he had made love to her.