good-humoured Quaker was so pleasant in her way that it was particularly
entertaining to us. We had no music at all, or dancing; only I now and
then sung a French song to divert my spouse, who desired it, and the
privacy of our mirth greatly added to the pleasure of it. I did not make
many clothes for my wedding, having always a great many rich clothes by
me, which, with a little altering for the fashion, were perfectly new.
The next day he pressed me to dress, though we had no company. At last,
jesting with him, I told him I believed I was able to dress me so, in
one kind of dress that I had by me, that he would not know his wife when
he saw her, especially if anybody else was by. No, he said, that was
impossible, and he longed to see that dress. I told him I would dress me
in it, if he would promise me never to desire me to appear in it before
company. He promised he would not, but wanted to know why too; as
husbands, you know, are inquisitive creatures, and love to inquire after
anything they think is kept from them; but I had an answer ready for
him. "Because," said I, "it is not a decent dress in this country, and
would not look modest." Neither, indeed, would it, for it was but one
degree off from appearing in one's shift, but was the usual wear in the
country where they were used. He was satisfied with my answer, and gave
me his promise never to ask me to be seen in it before company. I then
withdrew, taking only Amy and the Quaker with me; and Amy dressed me in
my old Turkish habit which I danced in formerly, &c., as before. The
Quaker was charmed with the dress, and merrily said, that if such a
dress should come to be worn here, she should not know what to do; she
should be tempted not to dress in the Quaker's way any more.
When all the dress was put on, I loaded it with jewels, and in
particular I placed the large breast-jewel which he had given me of a
thousand pistoles upon the front of the _tyhaia_, or head-dress, where
it made a most glorious show indeed. I had my own diamond necklace on,
and my hair was _tout brilliant_, all glittering with jewels.
His picture set with diamonds I had placed stitched to my vest, just, as
might be supposed, upon my heart (which is the compliment in such cases
among the Eastern people); and all being open at the breast, there was
no room for anything of a jewel there.
In this figure, Amy holding the train of my robe, I came down to him. He
was surprised, and perfectly astonished. He knew me, to be sure, because
I had prepared him, and because there was nobody else there but the
Quaker and Amy; but he by no means knew Amy, for she had dressed herself
in the habit of a Turkish slave, being the garb of my little Turk which
I had at Naples, as I have said; she had her neck and arms bare, was
bareheaded, and her hair braided in a long tassel hanging down her back;
but the jade could neither hold her countenance or her chattering
tongue, so as to be concealed long.
Well, he was so charmed with this dress that he would have me sit and
dine in it; but it was so thin, and so open before, and the weather
being also sharp, that I was afraid of taking cold; however, the fire
being enlarged and the doors kept shut, I sat to oblige him, and he
professed he never saw so fine a dress in his life. I afterwards told
him that my husband (so he called the jeweller that was killed) bought
it for me at Leghorn, with a young Turkish slave which I parted with at
Paris; and that it was by the help of that slave that I learned how to
dress in it, and how everything was to be worn, and many of the Turkish
customs also, with some of their language. This story agreeing with the
fact, only changing the person, was very natural, and so it went off
with him; but there was good reason why I should not receive any company
in this dress--that is to say, not in England. I need not repeat it; you
will hear more of it.
But when I came abroad I frequently put it on, and upon two or three
occasions danced in it, but always at his request.
We continued at the Quaker's lodgings for above a year; for now, making
as though it was difficult to determine where to settle in England to
his satisfaction, unless in London, which was not to mine, I pretended
to make him an offer, that, to oblige him, I began to incline to go and
live abroad with him; that I knew nothing could be more agreeable to
him, and that as to me, every place was alike; that, as I had lived
abroad without a husband so many years, it could be no burthen to me to
live abroad again, especially with him. Then we fell to straining our
courtesies upon one another. He told me he was perfectly easy at living
in England, and had squared all his affairs accordingly; for that, as he
had told me he intended to give over all business in the world, as well
the care of managing it as the concern about it, seeing we were both in
condition neither to want it or to have it be worth our while, so I
might see it was his intention, by his getting himself naturalised, and
getting the patent of baronet, &c. Well, for all that, I told him I
accepted his compliment, but I could not but know that his native
country, where his children were breeding up, must be most agreeable to
him, and that, if I was of such value to him, I would be there then, to
enhance the rate of his satisfaction; that wherever he was would be a
home to me, and any place in the world would be England to me if he was
with me; and thus, in short, I brought him to give me leave to oblige
him with going to live abroad, when, in truth, I could not have been
perfectly easy at living in England, unless I had kept constantly within
doors, lest some time or other the dissolute life I had lived here
should have come to be known, and all those wicked things have been
known too, which I now began to be very much ashamed of.
When we closed up our wedding week, in which our Quaker had been so very
handsome to us, I told him how much I thought we were obliged to her for
her generous carriage to us; how she had acted the kindest part through
the whole, and how faithful a friend she had been to me upon all
occasions; and then letting him know a little of her family unhappiness,
I proposed that I thought I not only ought to be grateful to her, but
really to do something extraordinary for her, towards making her easy in
her affairs. And I added, that I had no hangers-on that should trouble
him; that there was nobody belonged to me but what was thoroughly
provided for, and that, if I did something for this honest woman that
was considerable, it should be the last gift I would give to anybody in
the world but Amy; and as for her, we were not agoing to turn her
adrift, but whenever anything offered for her, we would do as we saw
cause; that, in the meantime, Amy was not poor, that she had saved
together between seven and eight hundred pounds. By the way, I did not
tell him how, and by what wicked ways she got it, but that she had it;
and that was enough to let him know she would never be in want of us.
My spouse was exceedingly pleased with my discourse about the Quaker,
made a kind of a speech to me upon the subject of gratitude, told me it
was one of the brightest parts of a gentlewoman, that it was so twisted
with honesty, nay, and even with religion too, that he questioned
whether either of them could be found where gratitude was not to be
found; that in this act there was not only gratitude, but charity; and
that to make the charity still more Christian-like, the object too had
real merit to attract it; he therefore agreed to the thing with all his
heart, only would have had me let him pay it out of his effects.
I told him, as for that, I did not design, whatever I had said formerly,
that we should have two pockets; and that though I had talked to him of
being a free woman, and an independent, and the like, and he had offered
and promised that I should keep all my own estate in my own hands; yet,
that since I had taken him, I would e'en do as other honest wives
did--where I thought fit to give myself, I should give what I had too;
that if I reserved anything, it should be only in case of mortality, and
that I might give it to his children afterwards, as my own gift; and
that, in short, if he thought fit to join stocks, we would see to-morrow
morning what strength we could both make up in the world, and bringing
it all together, consider, before we resolved upon the place of
removing, how we should dispose of what we had, as well as of ourselves.
This discourse was too obliging, and he too much of a man of sense not
to receive it as it was meant. He only answered, we would do in that as
we should both agree; but the thing under our present care was to show
not gratitude only, but charity and affection too, to our kind friend
the Quaker; and the first word he spoke of was to settle a thousand
pounds upon her for her life--that is to say, sixty pounds a year--but
in such a manner as not to be in the power of any person to reach but
herself. This was a great thing, and indeed showed the generous
principles of my husband, and for that reason I mention it; but I
thought that a little too much too, and particularly because I had
another thing in view for her about the plate; so I told him I thought,
if he gave her a purse with a hundred guineas as a present first, and
then made her a compliment of £40 per annum for her life, secured any
such way as she should desire, it would be very handsome.
He agreed to that; and the same day, in the evening, when we were just
going to bed, he took my Quaker by the hand, and, with a kiss, told her
that we had been very kindly treated by her from the beginning of this
affair, and his wife before, as she (meaning me) had informed him; and
that he thought himself bound to let her see that she had obliged
friends who knew how to be grateful; that for his part of the obligation
he desired she would accept of that, for an acknowledgment in part only
(putting the gold into her hand), and that his wife would talk with her
about what farther he had to say to her; and upon that, not giving her
time hardly to say "Thank ye," away he went upstairs into our
bedchamber, leaving her confused and not knowing what to say.
When he was gone she began to make very handsome and obliging
representations of her goodwill to us both, but that it was without
expectation of reward; that I had given her several valuable presents
before--and so, indeed, I had; for, besides the piece of linen which I
had given her at first, I had given her a suit of damask table-linen, of
the linen I bought for my balls, viz., three table-cloths and three
dozen of napkins; and at another time I gave her a little necklace of
gold beads, and the like; but that is by the way. But she mentioned
them, I say, and how she was obliged by me on many other occasions; that
she was not in condition to show her gratitude any other way, not being
able to make a suitable return; and that now we took from her all
opportunity, to balance my former friendship, and left her more in debt
than she was before. She spoke this in a very good kind of manner, in
her own way, but which was very agreeable indeed, and had as much
apparent sincerity, and I verily believe as real as was possible to be
expressed; but I put a stop to it, and bade her say no more, but accept
of what my spouse had given her, which was but in part, as she had heard
him say. "And put it up," says I, "and come and sit down here, and give
me leave to say something else to you on the same head, which my spouse
and I have settled between ourselves in your behalf." "What dost thee
mean?" says she, and blushed, and looked surprised, but did not stir.
She was going to speak again, but I interrupted her, and told her she
should make no more apologies of any kind whatever, for I had better
things than all this to talk to her of; so I went on, and told her, that
as she had been so friendly and kind to us on every occasion, and that
her house was the lucky place where we came together, and that she knew
I was from her own mouth acquainted in part with her circumstances, we
were resolved she should be the better for us as long as she lived. Then
I told what we had resolved to do for her, and that she had nothing more
to do but to consult with me how it should be effectually secured for
her, distinct from any of the effects which were her husband's; and that
if her husband did so supply her that she could live comfortably, and
not want it for bread or other necessaries, she should not make use of
it, but lay up the income of it, and add it every year to the principal,
so to increase the annual payment, which in time, and perhaps before she
might come to want it, might double itself; that we were very willing
whatever she should so lay up should be to herself, and whoever she
thought fit after her; but that the forty pounds a year must return to
our family after her life, which we both wished might be long and happy.
Let no reader wonder at my extraordinary concern for this poor woman, or
at my giving my bounty to her a place in this account. It is not, I
assure you, to make a pageantry of my charity, or to value myself upon
the greatness of my soul, that should give in so profuse a manner as
this, which was above my figure, if my wealth had been twice as much as
it was; but there was another spring from whence all flowed, and 'tis on
that account I speak of it. Was it possible I could think of a poor
desolate woman with four children, and her husband gone from her, and
perhaps good for little if he had stayed--I say, was I, that had tasted
so deep of the sorrows of such a kind of widowhood, able to look on her,
and think of her circumstances, and not be touched in an uncommon
manner? No, no; I never looked on her and her family, though she was not
left so helpless and friendless as I had been, without remembering my
own condition, when Amy was sent out to pawn or sell my pair of stays to
buy a breast of mutton and a bunch of turnips; nor could I look on her
poor children, though not poor and perishing, like mine, without tears;
reflecting on the dreadful condition that mine were reduced to, when
poor Amy sent them all into their aunt's in Spitalfields, and run away
from them. These were the original springs, or fountain-head, from
whence my affectionate thoughts were moved to assist this poor woman.
When a poor debtor, having lain long in the Compter, or Ludgate, or the
King's Bench for debt, afterwards gets out, rises again in the world,
and grows rich, such a one is a certain benefactor to the prisoners
there, and perhaps to every prison he passes by as long as he lives, for
he remembers the dark days of his own sorrow; and even those who never
had the experience of such sorrows to stir up their minds to acts of
charity would have the same charitable, good disposition did they as
sensibly remember what it is that distinguishes them from others by a
more favourable and merciful Providence.
This, I say, was, however, the spring of my concern for this honest,
friendly, and grateful Quaker; and as I had so plentiful a fortune in
the world, I resolved she should taste the fruit of her kind usage to me
in a manner that she could not expect.
All the while I talked to her I saw the disorder of her mind; the sudden
joy was too much for her, and she coloured, trembled, changed, and at
last grew pale, and was indeed near fainting, when she hastily rung a
little bell for her maid, who coming in immediately, she beckoned to
her--for speak she could not--to fill her a glass of wine; but she had
no breath to take it in, and was almost choked with that which she took
in her mouth. I saw she was ill, and assisted her what I could, and with
spirits and things to smell to just kept her from fainting, when she
beckoned to her maid to withdraw, and immediately burst out in crying,
and that relieved her. When she recovered herself a little she flew to
me, and throwing her arms about my neck, "Oh!" says she, "thou hast
almost killed me;" and there she hung, laying her head in my neck for
half a quarter of an hour, not able to speak, but sobbing like a child
that had been whipped.
I was very sorry that I did not stop a little in the middle of my
discourse and make her drink a glass of wine before it had put her
spirits into such a violent motion; but it was too late, and it was ten
to one odds but that it had killed her.
But she came to herself at last, and began to say some very good things
in return for my kindness. I would not let her go on, but told her I had
more to say to her still than all this, but that I would let it alone
till another time. My meaning was about the box of plate, good part of
which I gave her, and some I gave to Amy; for I had so much plate, and
some so large, that I thought if I let my husband see it he might be apt
to wonder what occasion I could ever have for so much, and for plate of
such a kind too; as particularly a great cistern for bottles, which cost
a hundred and twenty pounds, and some large candlesticks too big for any
ordinary use. These I caused Amy to sell; in short, Amy sold above three
hundred pounds' worth of plate; what I gave the Quaker was worth above
sixty pounds, and I gave Amy above thirty pounds' worth, and yet I had a
great deal left for my husband.
Nor did our kindness to the Quaker end with the forty pounds a year, for
we were always, while we stayed with her, which was above ten months,
giving her one good thing or another; and, in a word, instead of lodging
with her, she boarded with us, for I kept the house, and she and all
her family ate and drank with us, and yet we paid her the rent of the
house too; in short, I remembered my widowhood, and I made this widow's
heart glad many a day the more upon that account.
And now my spouse and I began to think of going over to Holland, where I
had proposed to him to live, and in order to settle all the
preliminaries of our future manner of living, I began to draw in my
effects, so as to have them all at command upon whatever occasion we
thought fit; after which, one morning I called my spouse up to me: "Hark
ye, sir," said I to him, "I have two very weighty questions to ask of
you. I don't know what answer you will give to the first, but I doubt
you will be able to give but a sorry answer to the other, and yet, I
assure you, it is of the last importance to yourself, and towards the
future part of your life, wherever it is to be."
He did not seem to be much alarmed, because he could see I was speaking
in a kind of merry way. "Let's hear your questions, my dear," says he,
"and I'll give the best answer I can to them." "Why, first," says I:
"I. You have married a wife here, made her a lady, and put her in
expectation of being something else still when she comes abroad. Pray
have you examined whether you are able to supply all her extravagant
demands when she comes abroad, and maintain an expensive Englishwoman in
all her pride and vanity? In short, have you inquired whether you are
able to keep her?
"II. You have married a wife here, and given her a great many fine
things, and you maintain her like a princess, and sometimes call her so.
Pray what portion have you had with her? what fortune has she been to
you? and where does her estate lie, that you keep her so fine? I am
afraid that you keep her in a figure a great deal above her estate, at
least above all that you have seen of it yet. Are you sure you han't got
a bite, and that you have not made a beggar a lady?"
"Well," says he, "have you any more questions to ask? Let's have them
all together; perhaps they may be all answered in a few words, as well
as these two." "No," says I, "these are the two grand questions--at
least for the present." "Why, then," says he, "I'll answer you in a few
words; that I am fully master of my own circumstances, and, without
farther inquiry, can let my wife you speak of know, that as I have made
her a lady I can maintain her as a lady, wherever she goes with me; and
this whether I have one pistole of her portion, or whether she has any
portion or no; and as I have not inquired whether she has any portion or
not, so she shall not have the less respect showed her from me, or be
obliged to live meaner, or be anyways straitened on that account; on the
contrary, if she goes abroad to live with me in my own country, I will
make her more than a lady, and support the expense of it too, without
meddling with anything she has; and this, I suppose," says he, "contains
an answer to both your questions together."
He spoke this with a great deal more earnestness in his countenance than
I had when I proposed my questions, and said a great many kind things
upon it, as the consequence of former discourses, so that I was obliged
to be in earnest too. "My dear," says I, "I was but in jest in my
questions; but they were proposed to introduce what I am going to say to
you in earnest; namely, that if I am to go abroad, 'tis time I should
let you know how things stand, and what I have to bring you with your
wife; how it is to be disposed and secured, and the like; and therefore
come," says I, "sit down, and let me show you your bargain here; I hope
you will find that you have not got a wife without a fortune."
He told me then, that since he found I was in earnest, he desired that I
would adjourn it till to-morrow, and then we would do as the poor people
do after they marry, feel in their pockets, and see how much money they
can bring together in the world. "Well," says I, "with all my heart;"
and so we ended our talk for that time.
As this was in the morning, my spouse went out after dinner to his
goldsmith's, as he said, and about three hours after returns with a
porter and two large boxes with him; and his servant brought another
box, which I observed was almost as heavy as the two that the porter
brought, and made the poor fellow sweat heartily; he dismissed the
porter, and in a little while after went out again with his man, and
returning at night, brought another porter with more boxes and bundles,
and all was carried up, and put into a chamber, next to our bedchamber;
and in the morning he called for a pretty large round table, and began
to unpack.
When the boxes were opened, I found they were chiefly full of books, and
papers, and parchments, I mean books of accounts, and writings, and such
things as were in themselves of no moment to me, because I understood
them not; but I perceived he took them all out, and spread them about
him upon the table and chairs, and began to be very busy with them; so I
withdrew and left him; and he was indeed so busy among them, that he
never missed me till I had been gone a good while; but when he had gone
through all his papers, and come to open a little box, he called for me
again. "Now," says he, and called me his countess, "I am ready to answer
your first question; if you will sit down till I have opened this box,
we will see how it stands."
So we opened the box; there was in it indeed what I did not expect, for
I thought he had sunk his estate rather than raised it; but he produced
me in goldsmiths' bills, and stock in the English East India Company,
about sixteen thousand pounds sterling; then he gave into my hands nine
assignments upon the Bank of Lyons in France, and two upon the rents of
the town-house in Paris, amounting in the whole to 5800 crowns per
annum, or annual rent, as it is called there; and lastly, the sum of
30,000 rixdollars in the Bank of Amsterdam; besides some jewels and gold
in the box to the value of about £1500 or £1600, among which was a very
good necklace of pearl of about £200 value; and that he pulled out and
tied about my neck, telling me that should not be reckoned into the
account.
I was equally pleased and surprised, and it was with an inexpressible
joy that I saw him so rich.
"You might well tell me," said I, "that you were able to make me
countess, and maintain me as such." In short, he was immensely rich; for
besides all this, he showed me, which was the reason of his being so
busy among the books, I say, he showed me several adventures he had
abroad in the business of his merchandise; as particularly an eighth
share in an East India ship then abroad; an account-courant with a
merchant at Cadiz in Spain; about £3000 lent upon bottomry, upon ships
gone to the Indies; and a large cargo of goods in a merchant's hands,
for sale at Lisbon in Portugal; so that in his books there was about
£12,000 more; all which put together, made about £27,000 sterling, and
£1320 a year.
I stood amazed at this account, as well I might, and said nothing to him
for a good while, and the rather because I saw him still busy looking
over his books. After a while, as I was going to express my wonder,
"Hold, my dear," says he, "this is not all neither;" then he pulled me
out some old seals, and small parchment rolls, which I did not
understand; but he told me they were a right of reversion which he had
to a paternal estate in his family, and a mortgage of 14,000 rixdollars,
which he had upon it, in the hands of the present possessor; so that was
about £3000 more.