oftentimes meet with. I had considered all that beforehand; and having
sent Amy beforehand, and remitted her money to do it, she had taken me
a very handsome house in ---- Street, near Charing Cross; had hired me
two maids and a footman, who she had put in a good livery; and having
hired a glass coach and four horses, she came with them and the
man-servant to Harwich to meet me, and had been there near a week before
I came, so I had nothing to do but to go away to London to my own house,
where I arrived in very good health, and where I passed for a French
lady, by the title of ----.
My first business was to get all my bills accepted, which, to cut the
story short, was all both accepted and currently paid; and I then
resolved to take me a country lodging somewhere near the town, to be
incognito, till I was brought to bed; which, appearing in such a figure
and having such an equipage, I easily managed without anybody's offering
the usual insults of parish inquiries. I did not appear in my new house
for some time, and afterwards I thought fit, for particular reasons, to
quit that house, and not to come to it at all, but take handsome large
apartments in the Pall Mall, in a house out of which was a private door
into the king's garden, by the permission of the chief gardener, who had
lived in the house.
I had now all my effects secured; but my money being my great concern at
that time, I found it a difficulty how to dispose of it so as to bring
me in an annual interest. However, in some time I got a substantial
safe mortgage for £14,000 by the assistance of the famous Sir Robert
Clayton, for which I had an estate of £1800 a year bound to me, and had
£700 per annum interest for it.
This, with some other securities, made me a very handsome estate of
above a thousand pounds a year; enough, one would think, to keep any
woman in England from being a whore.
I lay in at ----, about four miles from London, and brought a fine boy
into the world, and, according to my promise, sent an account of it to
my friend at Paris, the father of it; and in the letter told him how
sorry I was for his going away, and did as good as intimate that, if he
would come once more to see me, I should use him better than I had done.
He gave me a very kind and obliging answer, but took not the least
notice of what I had said of his coming over, so I found my interest
lost there for ever. He gave me joy of the child, and hinted that he
hoped I would make good what he had begged for the poor infant as I had
promised, and I sent him word again that I would fulfil his order to a
tittle; and such a fool and so weak I was in this last letter,
notwithstanding what I have said of his not taking notice of my
invitation, as to ask his pardon almost for the usage I gave him at
Rotterdam, and stooped so low as to expostulate with him for not taking
notice of my inviting him to come to me again, as I had done; and,
which was still more, went so far as to make a second sort of an offer
to him, telling him, almost in plain words, that if he would come over
now I would have him; but he never gave me the least reply to it at all,
which was as absolute a denial to me as he was ever able to give; so I
sat down, I cannot say contented, but vexed heartily that I had made the
offer at all, for he had, as I may say, his full revenge of me in
scorning to answer, and to let me twice ask that of him which he with so
much importunity begged of me before.
I was now up again, and soon came to my City lodging in the Pall Mall,
and here I began to make a figure suitable to my estate, which was very
great; and I shall give you an account of my equipage in a few words,
and of myself too.
I paid £60 a year for my new apartments, for I took them by the year;
but then they were handsome lodgings indeed, and very richly furnished.
I kept my own servants to clean and look after them, found my own
kitchen ware and firing. My equipage was handsome, but not very great; I
had a coach, a coachman, a footman, my woman Amy, who I now dressed like
a gentlewoman and made her my companion, and three maids; and thus I
lived for a time. I dressed to the height of every mode, went extremely
rich in clothes, and as for jewels, I wanted none. I gave a very good
livery, laced with silver, and as rich as anybody below the nobility
could be seen with; and thus I appeared, leaving the world to guess who
or what I was, without offering to put myself forward.
I walked sometimes in the Mall with my woman Amy, but I kept no company
and made no acquaintances, only made as gay a show as I was able to do,
and that upon all occasions. I found, however, the world was not
altogether so unconcerned about me as I seemed to be about them; and
first I understood that the neighbours began to be mighty inquisitive
about me, as who I was, and what my circumstances were.
Amy was the only person that could answer their curiosity or give any
account of me; and she, a tattling woman and a true gossip, took care to
do that with all the art that she was mistress of. She let them know
that I was the widow of a person of quality in France, that I was very
rich, that I came over hither to look after an estate that fell to me by
some of my relations who died here, that I was worth £40,000 all in my
own hands, and the like.
This was all wrong in Amy, and in me too, though we did not see it at
first, for this recommended me indeed to those sort of gentlemen they
call fortune-hunters, and who always besieged ladies, as they called
it--on purpose to take them prisoners, as I called it--that is to say,
to marry the women and have the spending of their money. But if I was
wrong in refusing the honourable proposals of the Dutch merchant, who
offered me the disposal of my whole estate, and had as much of his own
to maintain me with, I was right now in refusing those offers which came
generally from gentlemen of good families and good estates, but who,
living to the extent of them, were always needy and necessitous, and
wanted a sum of money to make themselves easy, as they call it--that is
to say, to pay off encumbrances, sisters' portions, and the like; and
then the woman is prisoner for life, and may live as they give her
leave. This life I had seen into clearly enough, and therefore I was not
to be catched that way. However, as I said, the reputation of my money
brought several of those sort of gentry about me, and they found means,
by one stratagem or other, to get access to my ladyship; but, in short,
I answered them well enough, that I lived single and was happy; that as
I had no occasion to change my condition for an estate, so I did not see
that by the best offer that any of them could make me I could mend my
fortune; that I might be honoured with titles indeed, and in time rank
on public occasions with the peeresses (I mention that because one that
offered at me was the eldest son of a peer), but that I was as well
without the title as long as I had the estate, and while I had £2000 a
year of my own I was happier than I could be in being prisoner of state
to a nobleman, for I took the ladies of that rank to be little better.
As I have mentioned Sir Robert Clayton, with whom I had the good fortune
to become acquainted, on account of the mortgage which he helped me to,
it is necessary to take notice that I had much advantage in my ordinary
affairs by his advice, and therefore I called it my good fortune; for as
he paid me so considerable an annual income as £700 a year, so I am to
acknowledge myself much a debtor, not only to the justice of his
dealings with me, but to the prudence and conduct which he guided me to,
by his advice, for the management of my estate. And as he found I was
not inclined to marry, he frequently took occasion to hint how soon I
might raise my fortune to a prodigious height if I would but order my
family economy so far within my revenue as to lay up every year
something to add to the capital.
I was convinced of the truth of what he said, and agreed to the
advantages of it. You are to take it as you go that Sir Robert supposed
by my own discourse, and especially by my woman Amy, that I had £2000 a
year income. He judged, as he said, by my way of living that I could not
spend above one thousand, and so, he added, I might prudently lay by
£1000 every year to add to the capital; and by adding every year the
additional interest or income of the money to the capital, he proved to
me that in ten years I should double the £1000 per annum that I laid by.
And he drew me out a table, as he called it, of the increase, for me to
judge by; and by which, he said, if the gentlemen of England would but
act so, every family of them would increase their fortunes to a great
degree, just as merchants do by trade; whereas now, says Sir Robert, by
the humour of living up to the extent of their fortunes, and rather
beyond, the gentlemen, says he, ay, and the nobility too, are almost all
of them borrowers, and all in necessitous circumstances.
As Sir Robert frequently visited me, and was (if I may say so from his
own mouth) very well pleased with my way of conversing with him, for he
knew nothing, not so much as guessed at what I had been; I say, as he
came often to see me, so he always entertained me with this scheme of
frugality; and one time he brought another paper, wherein he showed me,
much to the same purpose as the former, to what degree I should increase
my estate if I would come into his method of contracting my expenses;
and by this scheme of his, it appeared that, laying up a thousand pounds
a year, and every year adding the interest to it, I should in twelve
years' time have in bank one-and-twenty thousand and fifty-eight
pounds, after which I might lay up two thousand pounds a year.
I objected that I was a young woman, that I had been used to live
plentifully, and with a good appearance, and that I knew not how to be a
miser.
He told me that if I thought I had enough it was well, but that if I
desired to have more, this was the way; that in another twelve years I
should be too rich, so that I should not know what to do with it.
"Ay, sir," says I, "you are contriving how to make me a rich old woman,
but that won't answer my end; I had rather have £20,000 now than £60,000
when I am fifty years old."
"Then, madam," says he, "I suppose your honour has no children?"
"None, Sir Robert," said I, "but what are provided for." So I left him
in the dark as much as I found him. However, I considered his scheme
very well, though I said no more to him at that time, and I resolved,
though I would make a very good figure, I say I resolved to abate a
little of my expense, and draw in, live closer, and save something, if
not so much as he proposed to me. It was near the end of the year that
Sir Robert made this proposal to me, and when the year was up I went to
his house in the City, and there I told him I came to thank him for his
scheme of frugality; that I had been studying much upon it, and though I
had not been able to mortify myself so much as to lay up a thousand
pounds a year, yet, as I had not come to him for my interest
half-yearly, as was usual, I was now come to let him know that I had
resolved to lay up that seven hundred pounds a year, and never use a
penny of it, desiring him to help me to put it out to advantage.
Sir Robert, a man thoroughly versed in arts of improving money, but
thoroughly honest, said to me, "Madam, I am glad you approve of the
method that I proposed to you; but you have begun wrong; you should have
come for your interest at the half-year, and then you had had the money
to put out. Now you have lost half a year's interest of £350, which is
£9; for I had but 5 per cent, on the mortgage."
"Well, well, sir," says I, "can you put this out for me now?"
"Let it lie, madam," says he, "till the next year, and then I'll put out
your £1400 together, and in the meantime I'll pay you interest for the
£700." So he gave me his bill for the money, which he told me should be
no less than £6 per cent. Sir Robert Clayton's bill was what nobody
would refuse, so I thanked him and let it lie; and next year I did the
same, and the third year Sir Robert got me a good mortgage for £2200 at
£6 per cent interest. So I had £132 a year added to my income, which was
a very satisfying article.
But I return to my history. As I have said, I found that my measures
were all wrong; the posture I set up in exposed me to innumerable
visitors of the kind I have mentioned above. I was cried up for a vast
fortune, and one that Sir Robert Clayton managed for; and Sir Robert
Clayton was courted for me as much as I was for myself. But I had given
Sir Robert his cue. I had told him my opinion of matrimony, in just the
same terms as I had done my merchant, and he came into it presently. He
owned that my observation was just, and that if I valued my liberty, as
I knew my fortune, and that it was in my own hands, I was to blame if I
gave it away to any one.
But Sir Robert knew nothing of my design, that I aimed at being a kept
mistress, and to have a handsome maintenance; and that I was still for
getting money, and laying it up too, as much as he could desire me, only
by a worse way.
However, Sir Robert came seriously to me one day, and told me he had an
offer of matrimony to make to me that was beyond all that he had heard
had offered themselves, and this was a merchant. Sir Robert and I agreed
exactly in our notions of a merchant. Sir Robert said, and I found it to
be true, that a true-bred merchant is the best gentleman in the nation;
that in knowledge, in manners, in judgment of things, the merchant
outdid many of the nobility; that having once mastered the world, and
being above the demand of business, though no real estate, they were
then superior to most gentlemen, even in estate; that a merchant in
flush business and a capital stock is able to spend more money than a
gentleman of £5000 a year estate; that while a merchant spent, he only
spent what he got, and not that, and that he laid up great sums every
year; that an estate is a pond, but that a trade was a spring; that if
the first is once mortgaged, it seldom gets clear, but embarrassed the
person for ever; but the merchant had his estate continually flowing;
and upon this he named me merchants who lived in more real splendour and
spent more money than most of the noblemen in England could singly
expend, and that they still grew immensely rich.
He went on to tell me that even the tradesmen in London, speaking of the
better sort of trades, could spend more money in their families, and yet
give better fortunes to their children, than, generally speaking, the
gentry of England from £1000 a year downward could do, and yet grow rich
too.
The upshot of all this was to recommend to me rather the bestowing my
fortune upon some eminent merchant, who lived already in the first
figure of a merchant, and who, not being in want or scarcity of money,
but having a flourishing business and a flowing cash, would at the first
word settle all my fortune on myself and children, and maintain me like
a queen.
This was certainly right, and had I taken his advice, I had been really
happy; but my heart was bent upon an independency of fortune, and I told
him I knew no state of matrimony but what was at best a state of
inferiority, if not of bondage; that I had no notion of it; that I lived
a life of absolute liberty now, was free as I was born, and having a
plentiful fortune, I did not understand what coherence the words "honour
and obey" had with the liberty of a free woman; that I knew no reason
the men had to engross the whole liberty of the race, and make the
woman, notwithstanding any disparity of fortune, be subject to the laws
of marriage, of their own making; that it was my misfortune to be a
woman, but I was resolved it should not be made worse by the sex; and,
seeing liberty seemed to be the men's property, I would be a man-woman,
for, as I was born free, I would die so.
Sir Robert smiled, and told me I talked a kind of Amazonian language;
that he found few women of my mind, or that, if they were, they wanted
resolution to go on with it; that, notwithstanding all my notions, which
he could not but say had once some weight in them, yet he understood I
had broke in upon them, and had been married. I answered, I had so; but
he did not hear me say that I had any encouragement from what was past
to make a second venture; that I was got well out of the toil, and if I
came in again I should have nobody to blame but myself.
Sir Robert laughed heartily at me, but gave over offering any more
arguments, only told me he had pointed me out for some of the best
merchants in London, but since I forbade him he would give me no
disturbance of that kind. He applauded my way of managing my money, and
told me I should soon be monstrous rich; but he neither knew or
mistrusted that, with all this wealth, I was yet a whore, and was not
averse to adding to my estate at the farther expense of my virtue.
But to go on with my story as to my way of living. I found, as above,
that my living as I did would not answer; that it only brought the
fortune-hunters and bites about me, as I have said before, to make a
prey of me and my money; and, in short, I was harassed with lovers,
beaux, and fops of quality, in abundance, but it would not do. I aimed
at other things, and was possessed with so vain an opinion of my own
beauty, that nothing less than the king himself was in my eye. And this
vanity was raised by some words let fall by a person I conversed with,
who was, perhaps, likely enough to have brought such a thing to pass,
had it been sooner; but that game began to be pretty well over at
court. However, the having mentioned such a thing, it seems a little
too publicly, it brought abundance of people about me, upon a wicked
account too.
And now I began to act in a new sphere. The court was exceedingly gay
and fine, though fuller of men than of women, the queen not affecting to
be very much in public. On the other hand, it is no slander upon the
courtiers to say, they were as wicked as anybody in reason could desire
them. The king had several mistresses, who were prodigious fine, and
there was a glorious show on that side indeed. If the sovereign gave
himself a loose, it could not be expected the rest of the court should
be all saints; so far was it from that, though I would not make it worse
than it was, that a woman that had anything agreeable in her appearance
could never want followers.
I soon found myself thronged with admirers, and I received visits from
some persons of very great figure, who always introduced themselves by
the help of an old lady or two who were now become my intimates; and one
of them, I understood afterwards, was set to work on purpose to get into
my favour, in order to introduce what followed.
The conversation we had was generally courtly, but civil. At length some
gentlemen proposed to play, and made what they called a party. This, it
seems, was a contrivance of one of my female hangers-on, for, as I
said, I had two of them, who thought this was the way to introduce
people as often as she pleased; and so indeed it was. They played high
and stayed late, but begged my pardon, only asked leave to make an
appointment for the next night. I was as gay and as well pleased as any
of them, and one night told one of the gentlemen, my Lord ----, that
seeing they were doing me the honour of diverting themselves at my
apartment, and desired to be there sometimes, I did not keep a
gaming-table, but I would give them a little ball the next day if they
pleased, which they accepted very willingly.
Accordingly, in the evening the gentlemen began to come, where I let
them see that I understood very well what such things meant. I had a
large dining-room in my apartments, with five other rooms on the same
floor, all which I made drawing-rooms for the occasion, having all the
beds taken down for the day. In three of these I had tables placed,
covered with wine and sweetmeats, the fourth had a green table for play,
and the fifth was my own room, where I sat, and where I received all the
company that came to pay their compliments to me. I was dressed, you may
be sure, to all the advantage possible, and had all the jewels on that I
was mistress of. My Lord ----, to whom I had made the invitation, sent me
a set of fine music from the playhouse, and the ladies danced, and we
began to be very merry, when about eleven o'clock I had notice given me
that there were some gentlemen coming in masquerade. I seemed a little
surprised, and began to apprehend some disturbance, when my Lord ----
perceiving it, spoke to me to be easy, for that there was a party of the
guards at the door which should be ready to prevent any rudeness; and
another gentleman gave me a hint as if the king was among the masks. I
coloured as red as blood itself could make a face look, and expressed a
great surprise; however, there was no going back, so I kept my station
in my drawing-room, but with the folding-doors wide open.
A while after the masks came in, and began with a dance _à la comique_,
performing wonderfully indeed. While they were dancing I withdrew, and
left a lady to answer for me that I would return immediately. In less
than half-an-hour I returned, dressed in the habit of a Turkish
princess; the habit I got at Leghorn, when my foreign prince bought me a
Turkish slave, as I have said. The Maltese man-of-war had, it seems,
taken a Turkish vessel going from Constantinople to Alexandria, in which
were some ladies bound for Grand Cairo in Egypt; and as the ladies were
made slaves, so their fine clothes were thus exposed; and with this
Turkish slave I bought the rich clothes too. The dress was
extraordinary fine indeed; I had bought it as a curiosity, having never
seen the like. The robe was a fine Persian or India damask, the ground
white, and the flowers blue and gold, and the train held five yards. The
dress under it was a vest of the same, embroidered with gold, and set
with some pearl in the work and some turquoise stones. To the vest was a
girdle five or six inches wide, after the Turkish mode; and on both ends
where it joined, or hooked, was set with diamonds for eight inches
either way, only they were not true diamonds, but nobody knew that but
myself.
The turban, or head-dress, had a pinnacle on the top, but not above five
inches, with a piece of loose sarcenet hanging from it; and on the
front, just over the forehead, was a good jewel which I had added to it.
This habit, as above, cost me about sixty pistoles in Italy, but cost
much more in the country from whence it came; and little did I think
when I bought it that I should put it to such a use as this, though I
had dressed myself in it many times by the help of my little Turk, and
afterwards between Amy and I, only to see how I looked in it. I had sent
her up before to get it ready, and when I came up I had nothing to do
but slip it on, and was down in my drawing-room in a little more than a
quarter of an hour. When I came there the room was full of company; but
I ordered the folding-doors to be shut for a minute or two till I had
received the compliments of the ladies that were in the room, and had
given them a full view of my dress.
But my Lord ----, who happened to be in the room, slipped out at another
door, and brought back with him one of the masks, a tall, well-shaped
person, but who had no name, being all masked; nor would it have been
allowed to ask any person's name on such an occasion. The person spoke
in French to me, that it was the finest dress he had ever seen, and
asked me if he should have the honour to dance with me. I bowed, as
giving my consent, but said, as I had been a Mahometan, I could not
dance after the manner of this country; I supposed their music would not
play _à la Moresque_. He answered merrily. I had a Christian's face, and
he'd venture it that I could dance like a Christian; adding that so much
beauty could not be Mahometan. Immediately the folding-doors were flung
open, and he led me into the room. The company were under the greatest
surprise imaginable; the very music stopped awhile to gaze, for the
dress was indeed exceedingly surprising, perfectly new, very agreeable,
and wonderful rich.