exceedingly, and I began to be very pensive, knowing that I was really
the instrument of her disaster; but the preservation of my own life,
which was so evidently in danger, took off all my tenderness; and
seeing that she was not put to death, I was very easy at her
transportation, because she was then out of the way of doing me any
mischief, whatever should happen.
The disaster of this woman was some months before that of the
last-recited story, and was indeed partly occasion of my governess
proposing to dress me up in men’s clothes, that I might go about
unobserved, as indeed I did; but I was soon tired of that disguise, as
I have said, for indeed it exposed me to too many difficulties.
I was now easy as to all fear of witnesses against me, for all those
that had either been concerned with me, or that knew me by the name of
Moll Flanders, were either hanged or transported; and if I should have
had the misfortune to be taken, I might call myself anything else, as
well as Moll Flanders, and no old sins could be placed into my account;
so I began to run a-tick again with the more freedom, and several
successful adventures I made, though not such as I had made before.
We had at that time another fire happened not a great way off from the
place where my governess lived, and I made an attempt there, as before,
but as I was not soon enough before the crowd of people came in, and
could not get to the house I aimed at, instead of a prize, I got a
mischief, which had almost put a period to my life and all my wicked
doings together; for the fire being very furious, and the people in a
great fright in removing their goods, and throwing them out of window,
a wench from out of a window threw a feather-bed just upon me. It is
true, the bed being soft, it broke no bones; but as the weight was
great, and made greater by the fall, it beat me down, and laid me dead
for a while. Nor did the people concern themselves much to deliver me
from it, or to recover me at all; but I lay like one dead and neglected
a good while, till somebody going to remove the bed out of the way,
helped me up. It was indeed a wonder the people in the house had not
thrown other goods out after it, and which might have fallen upon it,
and then I had been inevitably killed; but I was reserved for further
afflictions.
This accident, however, spoiled my market for that time, and I came
home to my governess very much hurt and bruised, and frighted to the
last degree, and it was a good while before she could set me upon my
feet again.
It was now a merry time of the year, and Bartholomew Fair was begun. I
had never made any walks that way, nor was the common part of the fair
of much advantage to me; but I took a turn this year into the
cloisters, and among the rest I fell into one of the raffling shops. It
was a thing of no great consequence to me, nor did I expect to make
much of it; but there came a gentleman extremely well dressed and very
rich, and as ’tis frequent to talk to everybody in those shops, he
singled me out, and was very particular with me. First he told me he
would put in for me to raffle, and did so; and some small matter coming
to his lot, he presented it to me (I think it was a feather muff); then
he continued to keep talking to me with a more than common appearance
of respect, but still very civil, and much like a gentleman.
He held me in talk so long, till at last he drew me out of the raffling
place to the shop-door, and then to a walk in the cloister, still
talking of a thousand things cursorily without anything to the purpose.
At last he told me that, without compliment, he was charmed with my
company, and asked me if I durst trust myself in a coach with him; he
told me he was a man of honour, and would not offer anything to me
unbecoming him as such. I seemed to decline it a while, but suffered
myself to be importuned a little, and then yielded.
I was at a loss in my thoughts to conclude at first what this gentleman
designed; but I found afterwards he had had some drink in his head, and
that he was not very unwilling to have some more. He carried me in the
coach to the Spring Garden, at Knightsbridge, where we walked in the
gardens, and he treated me very handsomely; but I found he drank very
freely. He pressed me also to drink, but I declined it.
Hitherto he kept his word with me, and offered me nothing amiss. We
came away in the coach again, and he brought me into the streets, and
by this time it was near ten o’clock at night, and he stopped the coach
at a house where, it seems, he was acquainted, and where they made no
scruple to show us upstairs into a room with a bed in it. At first I
seemed to be unwilling to go up, but after a few words I yielded to
that too, being willing to see the end of it, and in hope to make
something of it at last. As for the bed, etc., I was not much concerned
about that part.
Here he began to be a little freer with me than he had promised; and I
by little and little yielded to everything, so that, in a word, he did
what he pleased with me; I need say no more. All this while he drank
freely too, and about one in the morning we went into the coach again.
The air and the shaking of the coach made the drink he had get more up
in his head than it was before, and he grew uneasy in the coach, and
was for acting over again what he had been doing before; but as I
thought my game now secure, I resisted him, and brought him to be a
little still, which had not lasted five minutes but he fell fast
asleep.
I took this opportunity to search him to a nicety. I took a gold watch,
with a silk purse of gold, his fine full-bottom periwig and
silver-fringed gloves, his sword and fine snuff-box, and gently opening
the coach door, stood ready to jump out while the coach was going on;
but the coach stopped in the narrow street beyond Temple Bar to let
another coach pass, I got softly out, fastened the door again, and gave
my gentleman and the coach the slip both together, and never heard more
of them.
This was an adventure indeed unlooked for, and perfectly undesigned by
me; though I was not so past the merry part of life, as to forget how
to behave, when a fop so blinded by his appetite should not know an old
woman from a young. I did not indeed look so old as I was by ten or
twelve years; yet I was not a young wench of seventeen, and it was easy
enough to be distinguished. There is nothing so absurd, so surfeiting,
so ridiculous, as a man heated by wine in his head, and wicked gust in
his inclination together; he is in the possession of two devils at
once, and can no more govern himself by his reason than a mill can
grind without water; his vice tramples upon all that was in him that
had any good in it, if any such thing there was; nay, his very sense is
blinded by its own rage, and he acts absurdities even in his views;
such a drinking more, when he is drunk already; picking up a common
woman, without regard to what she is or who she is, whether sound or
rotten, clean or unclean, whether ugly or handsome, whether old or
young, and so blinded as not really to distinguish. Such a man is worse
than a lunatic; prompted by his vicious, corrupted head, he no more
knows what he is doing than this wretch of mine knew when I picked his
pocket of his watch and his purse of gold.
These are the men of whom Solomon says, “They go like an ox to the
slaughter, till a dart strikes through their liver”; an admirable
description, by the way, of the foul disease, which is a poisonous
deadly contagion mingling with the blood, whose centre or foundation is
in the liver; from whence, by the swift circulation of the whole mass,
that dreadful nauseous plague strikes immediately through his liver,
and his spirits are infected, his vitals stabbed through as with a
dart.
It is true this poor unguarded wretch was in no danger from me, though
I was greatly apprehensive at first of what danger I might be in from
him; but he was really to be pitied in one respect, that he seemed to
be a good sort of man in himself; a gentleman that had no harm in his
design; a man of sense, and of a fine behaviour, a comely handsome
person, a sober solid countenance, a charming beautiful face, and
everything that could be agreeable; only had unhappily had some drink
the night before, had not been in bed, as he told me when we were
together; was hot, and his blood fired with wine, and in that condition
his reason, as it were asleep, had given him up.
As for me, my business was his money, and what I could make of him; and
after that, if I could have found out any way to have done it, I would
have sent him safe home to his house and to his family, for ’twas ten
to one but he had an honest, virtuous wife and innocent children, that
were anxious for his safety, and would have been glad to have gotten
him home, and have taken care of him till he was restored to himself.
And then with what shame and regret would he look back upon himself!
how would he reproach himself with associating himself with a whore!
picked up in the worst of all holes, the cloister, among the dirt and
filth of all the town! how would he be trembling for fear he had got
the pox, for fear a dart had struck through his liver, and hate himself
every time he looked back upon the madness and brutality of his
debauch! how would he, if he had any principles of honour, as I verily
believe he had—I say, how would he abhor the thought of giving any ill
distemper, if he had it, as for aught he knew he might, to his modest
and virtuous wife, and thereby sowing the contagion in the life-blood
of his posterity.
Would such gentlemen but consider the contemptible thoughts which the
very women they are concerned with, in such cases as these, have of
them, it would be a surfeit to them. As I said above, they value not
the pleasure, they are raised by no inclination to the man, the passive
jade thinks of no pleasure but the money; and when he is, as it were,
drunk in the ecstasies of his wicked pleasure, her hands are in his
pockets searching for what she can find there, and of which he can no
more be sensible in the moment of his folly that he can forethink of it
when he goes about it.
I knew a woman that was so dexterous with a fellow, who indeed deserved
no better usage, that while he was busy with her another way, conveyed
his purse with twenty guineas in it out of his fob-pocket, where he had
put it for fear of her, and put another purse with gilded counters in
it into the room of it. After he had done, he says to her, “Now han’t
you picked my pocket?” She jested with him, and told him she supposed
he had not much to lose; he put his hand to his fob, and with his
fingers felt that his purse was there, which fully satisfied him, and
so she brought off his money. And this was a trade with her; she kept a
sham gold watch, that is, a watch of silver gilt, and a purse of
counters in her pocket to be ready on all such occasions, and I doubt
not practiced it with success.
I came home with this last booty to my governess, and really when I
told her the story, it so affected her that she was hardly able to
forbear tears, to know how such a gentleman ran a daily risk of being
undone every time a glass of wine got into his head.
But as to the purchase I got, and how entirely I stripped him, she told
me it pleased her wonderfully. “Nay child,” says she, “the usage may,
for aught I know, do more to reform him than all the sermons that ever
he will hear in his life.” And if the remainder of the story be true,
so it did.
I found the next day she was wonderful inquisitive about this
gentleman; the description I had given her of him, his dress, his
person, his face, everything concurred to make her think of a gentleman
whose character she knew, and family too. She mused a while, and I
going still on with the particulars, she starts up; says she, “I’ll lay
£100 I know the gentleman.”
“I am sorry you do,” says I, “for I would not have him exposed on any
account in the world; he has had injury enough already by me, and I
would not be instrumental to do him any more.” “No, no,” says she, “I
will do him no injury, I assure you, but you may let me satisfy my
curiosity a little, for if it is he, I warrant you I find it out.” I
was a little startled at that, and told her, with an apparent concern
in my face, that by the same rule he might find me out, and then I was
undone. She returned warmly, “Why, do you think I will betray you,
child? No, no,” says she, “not for all he is worth in the world. I have
kept your counsel in worse things than these; sure you may trust me in
this.” So I said no more at that time.
She laid her scheme another way, and without acquainting me of it, but
she was resolved to find it out if possible. So she goes to a certain
friend of hers who was acquainted in the family that she guessed at,
and told her friend she had some extraordinary business with such a
gentleman (who, by the way, was no less than a baronet, and of a very
good family), and that she knew not how to come at him without somebody
to introduce her. Her friend promised her very readily to do it, and
accordingly goes to the house to see if the gentleman was in town.
The next day she come to my governess and tells her that Sir —— was at
home, but that he had met with a disaster and was very ill, and there
was no speaking with him. “What disaster?” says my governess hastily,
as if she was surprised at it. “Why,” says her friend, “he had been at
Hampstead to visit a gentleman of his acquaintance, and as he came back
again he was set upon and robbed; and having got a little drink too, as
they suppose, the rogues abused him, and he is very ill.” “Robbed!”
says my governess, “and what did they take from him?” “Why,” says her
friend, “they took his gold watch and his gold snuff-box, his fine
periwig, and what money he had in his pocket, which was considerable,
to be sure, for Sir —— never goes without a purse of guineas about
him.”
“Pshaw!” says my old governess, jeering, “I warrant you he has got
drunk now and got a whore, and she has picked his pocket, and so he
comes home to his wife and tells her he has been robbed. That’s an old
sham; a thousand such tricks are put upon the poor women every day.”
“Fie!” says her friend, “I find you don’t know Sir ——; why he is as
civil a gentleman, there is not a finer man, nor a soberer, graver,
modester person in the whole city; he abhors such things; there’s
nobody that knows him will think such a thing of him.” “Well, well,”
says my governess, “that’s none of my business; if it was, I warrant I
should find there was something of that kind in it; your modest men in
common opinion are sometimes no better than other people, only they
keep a better character, or, if you please, are the better hypocrites.”
“No, no,” says her friend, “I can assure you Sir —— is no hypocrite, he
is really an honest, sober gentleman, and he has certainly been
robbed.” “Nay,” says my governess, “it may be he has; it is no business
of mine, I tell you; I only want to speak with him; my business is of
another nature.” “But,” says her friend, “let your business be of what
nature it will, you cannot see him yet, for he is not fit to be seen,
for he is very ill, and bruised very much.” “Ay,” says my governess,
“nay, then he has fallen into bad hands, to be sure.” And then she
asked gravely, “Pray, where is he bruised?” “Why, in the head,” says
her friend, “and one of his hands, and his face, for they used him
barbarously.” “Poor gentleman,” says my governess, “I must wait, then,
till he recovers”; and adds, “I hope it will not be long, for I want
very much to speak with him.”
Away she comes to me and tells me this story. “I have found out your
fine gentleman, and a fine gentleman he was,” says she; “but, mercy on
him, he is in a sad pickle now. I wonder what the d—l you have done to
him; why, you have almost killed him.” I looked at her with disorder
enough. “I killed him!” says I; “you must mistake the person; I am sure
I did nothing to him; he was very well when I left him,” said I, “only
drunk and fast asleep.” “I know nothing of that,” says she, “but he is
in a sad pickle now”; and so she told me all that her friend had said
to her. “Well, then,” says I, “he fell into bad hands after I left him,
for I am sure I left him safe enough.”
About ten days after, or a little more, my governess goes again to her
friend, to introduce her to this gentleman; she had inquired other ways
in the meantime, and found that he was about again, if not abroad
again, so she got leave to speak with him.
She was a woman of a admirable address, and wanted nobody to introduce
her; she told her tale much better than I shall be able to tell it for
her, for she was a mistress of her tongue, as I have said already. She
told him that she came, though a stranger, with a single design of
doing him a service and he should find she had no other end in it; that
as she came purely on so friendly an account, she begged promise from
him, that if he did not accept what she should officiously propose he
would not take it ill that she meddled with what was not her business.
She assured him that as what she had to say was a secret that belonged
to him only, so whether he accepted her offer or not, it should remain
a secret to all the world, unless he exposed it himself; nor should his
refusing her service in it make her so little show her respect as to do
him the least injury, so that he should be entirely at liberty to act
as he thought fit.
He looked very shy at first, and said he knew nothing that related to
him that required much secrecy; that he had never done any man any
wrong, and cared not what anybody might say of him; that it was no part
of his character to be unjust to anybody, nor could he imagine in what
any man could render him any service; but that if it was so
disinterested a service as she said, he could not take it ill from any
one that they should endeavour to serve him; and so, as it were, left
her a liberty either to tell him or not to tell, as she thought fit.
She found him so perfectly indifferent, that she was almost afraid to
enter into the point with him; but, however, after some other
circumlocutions she told him that by a strange and unaccountable
accident she came to have a particular knowledge of the late unhappy
adventure he had fallen into, and that in such a manner, that there was
nobody in the world but herself and him that were acquainted with it,
no, not the very person that was with him.
He looked a little angrily at first. “What adventure?” said he. “Why,”
said she, “of your being robbed coming from Knightbr——; Hampstead, sir,
I should say,” says she. “Be not surprised, sir,” says she, “that I am
able to tell you every step you took that day from the cloister in
Smithfield to the Spring Garden at Knightsbridge, and thence to the ——
in the Strand, and how you were left asleep in the coach afterwards. I
say, let not this surprise you, for, sir, I do not come to make a booty
of you, I ask nothing of you, and I assure you the woman that was with
you knows nothing who you are, and never shall; and yet perhaps I may
serve you further still, for I did not come barely to let you know that
I was informed of these things, as if I wanted a bribe to conceal them;
assure yourself, sir,” said she, “that whatever you think fit to do or
say to me, it shall be all a secret as it is, as much as if I were in
my grave.”
He was astonished at her discourse, and said gravely to her, “Madam,
you are a stranger to me, but it is very unfortunate that you should be
let into the secret of the worst action of my life, and a thing that I
am so justly ashamed of, that the only satisfaction of it to me was,
that I thought it was known only to God and my own conscience.” “Pray,
sir,” says she, “do not reckon the discovery of it to me to be any part
of your misfortune. It was a thing, I believe, you were surprised into,
and perhaps the woman used some art to prompt you to it; however, you
will never find any just cause,” said she, “to repent that I came to
hear of it; nor can your own mouth be more silent in it that I have
been, and ever shall be.”
“Well,” says he, “but let me do some justice to the woman too; whoever
she is, I do assure you she prompted me to nothing, she rather declined
me. It was my own folly and madness that brought me into it all, ay,
and brought her into it too; I must give her her due so far. As to what
she took from me, I could expect no less from her in the condition I
was in, and to this hour I know not whether she robbed me or the
coachman; if she did it, I forgive her, and I think all gentlemen that
do so should be used in the same manner; but I am more concerned for
some other things that I am for all that she took from me.”
My governess now began to come into the whole matter, and he opened
himself freely to her. First she said to him, in answer to what he had
said about me, “I am glad, sir, you are so just to the person that you
were with; I assure you she is a gentlewoman, and no woman of the town;
and however you prevailed with her so far as you did, I am sure ’tis
not her practice. You ran a great venture indeed, sir; but if that be
any part of your care, I am persuaded you may be perfectly easy, for I
dare assure you no man has touched her, before you, since her husband,
and he has been dead now almost eight years.”
It appeared that this was his grievance, and that he was in a very
great fright about it; however, when my governess said this to him, he
appeared very well pleased, and said, “Well, madam, to be plain with
you, if I was satisfied of that, I should not so much value what I
lost; for, as to that, the temptation was great, and perhaps she was
poor and wanted it.” “If she had not been poor, sir ——,” says my
governess, “I assure you she would never have yielded to you; and as
her poverty first prevailed with her to let you do as you did, so the
same poverty prevailed with her to pay herself at last, when she saw
you were in such a condition, that if she had not done it, perhaps the
next coachman might have done it.”
“Well,” says he, “much good may it do her. I say again, all the
gentlemen that do so ought to be used in the same manner, and then they
would be cautious of themselves. I have no more concern about it, but
on the score which you hinted at before, madam.” Here he entered into
some freedoms with her on the subject of what passed between us, which
are not so proper for a woman to write, and the great terror that was
upon his mind with relation to his wife, for fear he should have
received any injury from me, and should communicate it farther; and
asked her at last if she could not procure him an opportunity to speak
with me. My governess gave him further assurances of my being a woman
clear from any such thing, and that he was as entirely safe in that
respect as he was with his own lady; but as for seeing me, she said it
might be of dangerous consequence; but, however, that she would talk
with me, and let him know my answer, using at the same time some
arguments to persuade him not to desire it, and that it could be of no
service to him, seeing she hoped he had no desire to renew a
correspondence with me, and that on my account it was a kind of putting
my life in his hands.
He told her he had a great desire to see me, that he would give her any
assurances that were in his power, not to take any advantages of me,
and that in the first place he would give me a general release from all
demands of any kind. She insisted how it might tend to a further
divulging the secret, and might in the end be injurious to him,
entreating him not to press for it; so at length he desisted.
They had some discourse upon the subject of the things he had lost, and
he seemed to be very desirous of his gold watch, and told her if she
could procure that for him, he would willingly give as much for it as
it was worth. She told him she would endeavour to procure it for him,
and leave the valuing it to himself.
Accordingly the next day she carried the watch, and he gave her thirty
guineas for it, which was more than I should have been able to make of
it, though it seems it cost much more. He spoke something of his
periwig, which it seems cost him threescore guineas, and his snuff-box,
and in a few days more she carried them too; which obliged him very
much, and he gave her thirty more. The next day I sent him his fine
sword and cane gratis, and demanded nothing of him, but I had no mind
to see him, unless it had been so that he might be satisfied I knew who
he was, which he was not willing to.
Then he entered into a long talk with her of the manner how she came to
know all this matter. She formed a long tale of that part; how she had
it from one that I had told the whole story to, and that was to help me
dispose of the goods; and this confidante brought the things to her,
she being by profession a pawnbroker; and she hearing of his worship’s
disaster, guessed at the thing in general; that having gotten the
things into her hands, she had resolved to come and try as she had
done. She then gave him repeated assurances that it should never go out
of her mouth, and though she knew the woman very well, yet she had not
let her know, meaning me, anything of it; that is to say, who the
person was, which, by the way, was false; but, however, it was not to
his damage, for I never opened my mouth of it to anybody.
I had a great many thoughts in my head about my seeing him again, and
was often sorry that I had refused it. I was persuaded that if I had
seen him, and let him know that I knew him, I should have made some
advantage of him, and perhaps have had some maintenance from him; and
though it was a life wicked enough, yet it was not so full of danger as
this I was engaged in. However, those thoughts wore off, and I declined
seeing him again, for that time; but my governess saw him often, and he
was very kind to her, giving her something almost every time he saw
her. One time in particular she found him very merry, and as she
thought he had some wine in his head, and he pressed her again very
earnestly to let him see that woman that, as he said, had bewitched him
so that night, my governess, who was from the beginning for my seeing
him, told him he was so desirous of it that she could almost yield of
it, if she could prevail upon me; adding that if he would please to
come to her house in the evening, she would endeavour it, upon his
repeated assurances of forgetting what was past.
Accordingly she came to me, and told me all the discourse; in short,
she soon biassed me to consent, in a case which I had some regret in my
mind for declining before; so I prepared to see him. I dressed me to
all the advantage possible, I assure you, and for the first time used a
little art; I say for the first time, for I had never yielded to the
baseness of paint before, having always had vanity enough to believe I
had no need of it.
At the hour appointed he came; and as she observed before, so it was
plain still, that he had been drinking, though very far from what we
call being in drink. He appeared exceeding pleased to see me, and
entered into a long discourse with me upon the old affair. I begged his
pardon very often for my share of it, protested I had not any such
design when first I met him, that I had not gone out with him but that
I took him for a very civil gentleman, and that he made me so many
promises of offering no uncivility to me.
He alleged the wine he drank, and that he scarce knew what he did, and
that if it had not been so, I should never have let him take the
freedom with me that he had done. He protested to me that he never
touched any woman but me since he was married to his wife, and it was a
surprise upon him; complimented me upon being so particularly agreeable
to him, and the like; and talked so much of that kind, till I found he
had talked himself almost into a temper to do the same thing over
again. But I took him up short. I protested I had never suffered any
man to touch me since my husband died, which was near eight years. He
said he believed it to be so truly; and added that madam had intimated
as much to him, and that it was his opinion of that part which made his
desire to see me again; and that since he had once broke in upon his
virtue with me, and found no ill consequences, he could be safe in
venturing there again; and so, in short, it went on to what I expected,
and to what will not bear relating.
My old governess had foreseen it, as well as I, and therefore led him
into a room which had not a bed in it, and yet had a chamber within it
which had a bed, whither we withdrew for the rest of the night; and, in
short, after some time being together, he went to bed, and lay there
all night. I withdrew, but came again undressed in the morning, before
it was day, and lay with him the rest of the time.
Thus, you see, having committed a crime once is a sad handle to the
committing of it again; whereas all the regret and reflections wear off
when the temptation renews itself. Had I not yielded to see him again,
the corrupt desire in him had worn off, and ’tis very probable he had
never fallen into it with anybody else, as I really believe he had not
done before.
When he went away, I told him I hoped he was satisfied he had not been
robbed again. He told me he was satisfied in that point, and could
trust me again, and putting his hand in his pocket, gave me five
guineas, which was the first money I had gained that way for many
years.
I had several visits of the like kind from him, but he never came into
a settled way of maintenance, which was what I would have best pleased
with. Once, indeed, he asked me how I did to live. I answered him
pretty quick, that I assured him I had never taken that course that I
took with him, but that indeed I worked at my needle, and could just
maintain myself; that sometime it was as much as I was able to do, and
I shifted hard enough.
He seemed to reflect upon himself that he should be the first person to
lead me into that, which he assured me he never intended to do himself;
and it touched him a little, he said, that he should be the cause of
his own sin and mine too. He would often make just reflections also
upon the crime itself, and upon the particular circumstances of it with
respect to himself; how wine introduced the inclinations, how the devil
led him to the place, and found out an object to tempt him, and he made
the moral always himself.
When these thoughts were upon him he would go away, and perhaps not
come again in a month’s time or longer; but then as the serious part
wore off, the lewd part would wear in, and then he came prepared for
the wicked part. Thus we lived for some time; though he did not keep,
as they call it, yet he never failed doing things that were handsome,
and sufficient to maintain me without working, and, which was better,
without following my old trade.
But this affair had its end too; for after about a year, I found that
he did not come so often as usual, and at last he left if off
altogether without any dislike to bidding adieu; and so there was an
end of that short scene of life, which added no great store to me, only
to make more work for repentance.
However, during this interval I confined myself pretty much at home; at
least, being thus provided for, I made no adventures, no, not for a
quarter of a year after he left me; but then finding the fund fail, and
being loth to spend upon the main stock, I began to think of my old
trade, and to look abroad into the street again; and my first step was
lucky enough.
I had dressed myself up in a very mean habit, for as I had several
shapes to appear in, I was now in an ordinary stuff-gown, a blue apron,
and a straw hat and I placed myself at the door of the Three Cups Inn
in St. John Street. There were several carriers used the inn, and the
stage-coaches for Barnet, for Totteridge, and other towns that way
stood always in the street in the evening, when they prepared to set
out, so that I was ready for anything that offered, for either one or
other. The meaning was this; people come frequently with bundles and
small parcels to those inns, and call for such carriers or coaches as
they want, to carry them into the country; and there generally attend
women, porters’ wives or daughters, ready to take in such things for
their respective people that employ them.
It happened very oddly that I was standing at the inn gate, and a woman
that had stood there before, and which was the porter’s wife belonging
to the Barnet stage-coach, having observed me, asked if I waited for
any of the coaches. I told her Yes, I waited for my mistress, that was
coming to go to Barnet. She asked me who was my mistress, and I told
her any madam’s name that came next me; but as it seemed, I happened
upon a name, a family of which name lived at Hadley, just beyond
Barnet.
I said no more to her, or she to me, a good while; but by and by,
somebody calling her at a door a little way off, she desired me that if
anybody called for the Barnet coach, I would step and call her at the
house, which it seems was an alehouse. I said Yes, very readily, and
away she went.
She was no sooner gone but comes a wench and a child, puffing and
sweating, and asks for the Barnet coach. I answered presently, “Here.”
“Do you belong to the Barnet coach?” says she. “Yes, sweetheart,” said
I; “what do ye want?” “I want room for two passengers,” says she.
“Where are they, sweetheart?” said I. “Here’s this girl, pray let her
go into the coach,” says she, “and I’ll go and fetch my mistress.”
“Make haste, then, sweetheart,” says I, “for we may be full else.” The
maid had a great bundle under her arm; so she put the child into the
coach, and I said, “You had best put your bundle into the coach too.”
“No,” says she, “I am afraid somebody should slip it away from the
child.” “Give to me, then,” said I, “and I’ll take care of it.” “Do,
then,” says she, “and be sure you take of it.” “I’ll answer for it,”
said I, “if it were for £20 value.” “There, take it, then,” says she,
and away she goes.
As soon as I had got the bundle, and the maid was out of sight, I goes
on towards the alehouse, where the porter’s wife was, so that if I had
met her, I had then only been going to give her the bundle, and to call
her to her business, as if I was going away, and could stay no longer;
but as I did not meet her, I walked away, and turning into Charterhouse
Lane, then crossed into Bartholomew Close, so into Little Britain, and
through the Bluecoat Hospital, into Newgate Street.
To prevent my being known, I pulled off my blue apron, and wrapped the
bundle in it, which before was made up in a piece of painted calico,
and very remarkable; I also wrapped up my straw hat in it, and so put
the bundle upon my head; and it was very well that I did thus, for
coming through the Bluecoat Hospital, who should I meet but the wench
that had given me the bundle to hold. It seems she was going with her
mistress, whom she had been gone to fetch, to the Barnet coaches.
I saw she was in haste, and I had no business to stop her; so away she
went, and I brought my bundle safe home to my governess. There was no
money, nor plate, or jewels in the bundle, but a very good suit of
Indian damask, a gown and a petticoat, a laced-head and ruffles of very
good Flanders lace, and some linen and other things, such as I knew
very well the value of.
This was not indeed my own invention, but was given me by one that had
practised it with success, and my governess liked it extremely; and
indeed I tried it again several times, though never twice near the same
place; for the next time I tried it in White Chapel, just by the corner
of Petticoat Lane, where the coaches stand that go out to Stratford and
Bow, and that side of the country, and another time at the Flying
Horse, without Bishopgate, where the Cheston coaches then lay; and I
had always the good luck to come off with some booty.
Another time I placed myself at a warehouse by the waterside, where the
coasting vessels from the north come, such as from Newcastle-upon-Tyne,
Sunderland, and other places. Here, the warehouses being shut, comes a
young fellow with a letter; and he wanted a box and a hamper that was
come from Newcastle-upon-Tyne. I asked him if he had the marks of it;
so he shows me the letter, by virtue of which he was to ask for it, and
which gave an account of the contents, the box being full of linen, and
the hamper full of glass ware. I read the letter, and took care to see
the name, and the marks, the name of the person that sent the goods,
the name of the person that they were sent to; then I bade the
messenger come in the morning, for that the warehouse-keeper would not
be there any more that night.
Away went I, and getting materials in a public house, I wrote a letter
from Mr. John Richardson of Newcastle to his dear cousin Jemmy Cole, in
London, with an account that he sent by such a vessel (for I remembered
all the particulars to a title), so many pieces of huckaback linen, so
many ells of Dutch holland and the like, in a box, and a hamper of
flint glasses from Mr. Henzill’s glasshouse; and that the box was
marked I. C. No. 1, and the hamper was directed by a label on the
cording.
About an hour after, I came to the warehouse, found the
warehouse-keeper, and had the goods delivered me without any scruple;
the value of the linen being about £22.
I could fill up this whole discourse with the variety of such
adventures, which daily invention directed to, and which I managed with
the utmost dexterity, and always with success.
At length—as when does the pitcher come safe home that goes so very
often to the well?—I fell into some small broils, which though they
could not affect me fatally, yet made me known, which was the worst
thing next to being found guilty that could befall me.
I had taken up the disguise of a widow’s dress; it was without any real
design in view, but only waiting for anything that might offer, as I
often did. It happened that while I was going along the street in
Covent Garden, there was a great cry of “Stop thief! Stop thief!” some
artists had, it seems, put a trick upon a shopkeeper, and being
pursued, some of them fled one way, and some another; and one of them
was, they said, dressed up in widow’s weeds, upon which the mob
gathered about me, and some said I was the person, others said no.
Immediately came the mercer’s journeyman, and he swore aloud I was the
person, and so seized on me. However, when I was brought back by the
mob to the mercer’s shop, the master of the house said freely that I
was not the woman that was in his shop, and would have let me go
immediately; but another fellow said gravely, “Pray stay till Mr. ——”
(meaning the journeyman) “comes back, for he knows her.” So they kept
me by force near half an hour. They had called a constable, and he
stood in the shop as my jailer; and in talking with the constable I
inquired where he lived, and what trade he was; the man not
apprehending in the least what happened afterwards, readily told me his
name, and trade, and where he lived; and told me as a jest, that I
might be sure to hear of his name when I came to the Old Bailey.
Some of the servants likewise used me saucily, and had much ado to keep
their hands off me; the master indeed was civiller to me than they, but
he would not yet let me go, though he owned he could not say I was in
his shop before.
I began to be a little surly with him, and told him I hoped he would
not take it ill if I made myself amends upon him in a more legal way
another time; and desired I might send for friends to see me have right
done me. No, he said, he could give no such liberty; I might ask it
when I came before the justice of peace; and seeing I threatened him,
he would take care of me in the meantime, and would lodge me safe in
Newgate. I told him it was his time now, but it would be mine by and
by, and governed my passion as well as I was able. However, I spoke to
the constable to call me a porter, which he did, and then I called for
pen, ink, and paper, but they would let me have none. I asked the
porter his name, and where he lived, and the poor man told it me very
willingly. I bade him observe and remember how I was treated there;
that he saw I was detained there by force. I told him I should want his
evidence in another place, and it should not be the worse for him to
speak. The porter said he would serve me with all his heart. “But,
madam,” says he, “let me hear them refuse to let you go, then I may be
able to speak the plainer.”
With that I spoke aloud to the master of the shop, and said, “Sir, you
know in your own conscience that I am not the person you look for, and
that I was not in your shop before, therefore I demand that you detain
me here no longer, or tell me the reason of your stopping me.” The
fellow grew surlier upon this than before, and said he would do neither
till he thought fit. “Very well,” said I to the constable and to the
porter; “you will be pleased to remember this, gentlemen, another
time.” The porter said, “Yes, madam”; and the constable began not to
like it, and would have persuaded the mercer to dismiss him, and let me
go, since, as he said, he owned I was not the person. “Good, sir,” says
the mercer to him tauntingly, “are you a justice of peace or a
constable? I charged you with her; pray do you do your duty.” The
constable told him, a little moved, but very handsomely, “I know my
duty, and what I am, sir; I doubt you hardly know what you are doing.”
They had some other hard words, and in the meantime the journeyman,
impudent and unmanly to the last degree, used me barbarously, and one
of them, the same that first seized upon me, pretended he would search
me, and began to lay hands on me. I spit in his face, called out to the
constable, and bade him to take notice of my usage. “And pray, Mr.
Constable,” said I, “ask that villain’s name,” pointing to the man. The
constable reproved him decently, told him that he did not know what he
did, for he knew that his master acknowledged I was not the person that
was in his shop; “and,” says the constable, “I am afraid your master is
bringing himself, and me too, into trouble, if this gentlewoman comes
to prove who she is, and where she was, and it appears that she is not
the woman you pretend to.” “Damn her,” says the fellow again, with a
impudent, hardened face, “she is the lady, you may depend upon it; I’ll
swear she is the same body that was in the shop, and that I gave the
pieces of satin that is lost into her own hand. You shall hear more of
it when Mr. William and Mr. Anthony (those were other journeymen) come
back; they will know her again as well as I.”
Just as the insolent rogue was talking thus to the constable, comes
back Mr. William and Mr. Anthony, as he called them, and a great rabble
with them, bringing along with them the true widow that I was pretended
to be; and they came sweating and blowing into the shop, and with a
great deal of triumph, dragging the poor creature in the most butcherly
manner up towards their master, who was in the back shop, and cried out
aloud, “Here’s the widow, sir; we have catched her at last.” “What do
ye mean by that?” says the master. “Why, we have her already; there she
sits,” says he, “and Mr. ——,” says he, “can swear this is she.” The
other man, whom they called Mr. Anthony, replied, “Mr. —— may say what
he will, and swear what he will, but this is the woman, and there’s the
remnant of satin she stole; I took it out of her clothes with my own
hand.”
I sat still now, and began to take a better heart, but smiled and said
nothing; the master looked pale; the constable turned about and looked
at me. “Let ’em alone, Mr. Constable,” said I; “let “em go on.” The
case was plain and could not be denied, so the constable was charged
with the right thief, and the mercer told me very civilly he was sorry
for the mistake, and hoped I would not take it ill; that they had so
many things of this nature put upon them every day, that they could not
be blamed for being very sharp in doing themselves justice. “Not take
it ill, sir!” said I; “how can I take it well! If you had dismissed me
when your insolent fellow seized on me it the street, and brought me to
you, and when you yourself acknowledged I was not the person, I would
have put it by, and not taken it ill, because of the many ill things I
believe you have put upon you daily; but your treatment of me since has
been insufferable, and especially that of your servant; I must and will
have reparation for that.”
Then he began to parley with me, said he would make me any reasonable
satisfaction, and would fain have had me tell him what it was I
expected. I told him that I should not be my own judge, the law should
decide it for me; and as I was to be carried before a magistrate, I
should let him hear there what I had to say. He told me there was no
occasion to go before the justice now, I was at liberty to go where I
pleased; and so, calling to the constable, told him he might let me go,
for I was discharged. The constable said calmly to him, “sir, you asked
me just now if I knew whether I was a constable or justice, and bade me
do my duty, and charged me with this gentlewoman as a prisoner. Now,
sir, I find you do not understand what is my duty, for you would make
me a justice indeed; but I must tell you it is not in my power. I may
keep a prisoner when I am charged with him, but ’tis the law and the
magistrate alone that can discharge that prisoner; therefore ’tis a
mistake, sir; I must carry her before a justice now, whether you think
well of it or not.” The mercer was very high with the constable at
first; but the constable happening to be not a hired officer, but a
good, substantial kind of man (I think he was a corn-handler), and a
man of good sense, stood to his business, would not discharge me
without going to a justice of the peace; and I insisted upon it too.
When the mercer saw that, “Well,” says he to the constable, “you may
carry her where you please; I have nothing to say to her.” “But, sir,”
says the constable, “you will go with us, I hope, for ’tis you that
charged me with her.” “No, not I,” says the mercer; “I tell you I have
nothing to say to her.” “But pray, sir, do,” says the constable; “I
desire it of you for your own sake, for the justice can do nothing
without you.” “Prithee, fellow,” says the mercer, “go about your
business; I tell you I have nothing to say to the gentlewoman. I charge
you in the king’s name to dismiss her.” “Sir,” says the constable, “I
find you don’t know what it is to be constable; I beg of you don’t
oblige me to be rude to you.” “I think I need not; you are rude enough
already,” says the mercer. “No, sir,” says the constable, “I am not
rude; you have broken the peace in bringing an honest woman out of the
street, when she was about her lawful occasion, confining her in your
shop, and ill-using her here by your servants; and now can you say I am
rude to you? I think I am civil to you in not commanding or charging
you in the king’s name to go with me, and charging every man I see that
passes your door to aid and assist me in carrying you by force; this
you cannot but know I have power to do, and yet I forbear it, and once
more entreat you to go with me.” Well, he would not for all this, and
gave the constable ill language. However, the constable kept his
temper, and would not be provoked; and then I put in and said, “Come,
Mr. Constable, let him alone; I shall find ways enough to fetch him
before a magistrate, I don’t fear that; but there’s the fellow,” says
I, “he was the man that seized on me as I was innocently going along
the street, and you are a witness of the violence with me since; give
me leave to charge you with him, and carry him before the justice.”
“Yes, madam,” says the constable; and turning to the fellow “Come,
young gentleman,” says he to the journeyman, “you must go along with
us; I hope you are not above the constable’s power, though your master
is.”
The fellow looked like a condemned thief, and hung back, then looked at
his master, as if he could help him; and he, like a fool, encourage the
fellow to be rude, and he truly resisted the constable, and pushed him
back with a good force when he went to lay hold on him, at which the
constable knocked him down, and called out for help; and immediately
the shop was filled with people, and the constable seized the master
and man, and all his servants.
This first ill consequence of this fray was, that the woman they had
taken, who was really the thief, made off, and got clear away in the
crowd; and two other that they had stopped also; whether they were
really guilty or not, that I can say nothing to.
By this time some of his neighbours having come in, and, upon inquiry,
seeing how things went, had endeavoured to bring the hot-brained mercer
to his senses, and he began to be convinced that he was in the wrong;
and so at length we went all very quietly before the justice, with a
mob of about five hundred people at our heels; and all the way I went I
could hear the people ask what was the matter, and other reply and say,
a mercer had stopped a gentlewoman instead of a thief, and had
afterwards taken the thief, and now the gentlewoman had taken the
mercer, and was carrying him before the justice. This pleased the
people strangely, and made the crowd increase, and they cried out as
they went, “Which is the rogue? which is the mercer?” and especially
the women. Then when they saw him they cried out, “That’s he, that’s
he”; and every now and then came a good dab of dirt at him; and thus we
marched a good while, till the mercer thought fit to desire the
constable to call a coach to protect himself from the rabble; so we
rode the rest of the way, the constable and I, and the mercer and his
man.
When we came to the justice, which was an ancient gentleman in
Bloomsbury, the constable giving first a summary account of the matter,
the justice bade me speak, and tell what I had to say. And first he
asked my name, which I was very loth to give, but there was no remedy,
so I told him my name was Mary Flanders, that I was a widow, my husband
being a sea captain, died on a voyage to Virginia; and some other
circumstances I told which he could never contradict, and that I lodged
at present in town with such a person, naming my governess; but that I
was preparing to go over to America, where my husband’s effects lay,
and that I was going that day to buy some clothes to put myself into
second mourning, but had not yet been in any shop, when that fellow,
pointing to the mercer’s journeyman, came rushing upon me with such
fury as very much frighted me, and carried me back to his master’s
shop, where, though his master acknowledged I was not the person, yet
he would not dismiss me, but charged a constable with me.
Then I proceeded to tell how the journeyman treated me; how they would
not suffer me to send for any of my friends; how afterwards they found
the real thief, and took the very goods they had lost upon her, and all
the particulars as before.
Then the constable related his case: his dialogue with the mercer about
discharging me, and at last his servant’s refusing to go with him, when
he had charged him with him, and his master encouraging him to do so,
and at last his striking the constable, and the like, all as I have
told it already.
The justice then heard the mercer and his man. The mercer indeed made a
long harangue of the great loss they have daily by lifters and thieves;
that it was easy for them to mistake, and that when he found it he
would have dismissed me, etc., as above. As to the journeyman, he had
very little to say, but that he pretended other of the servants told
him that I was really the person.
Upon the whole, the justice first of all told me very courteously I was
discharged; that he was very sorry that the mercer’s man should in his
eager pursuit have so little discretion as to take up an innocent
person for a guilty person; that if he had not been so unjust as to
detain me afterward, he believed I would have forgiven the first
affront; that, however, it was not in his power to award me any
reparation for anything, other than by openly reproving them, which he
should do; but he supposed I would apply to such methods as the law
directed; in the meantime he would bind him over.
But as to the breach of the peace committed by the journeyman, he told
me he should give me some satisfaction for that, for he should commit
him to Newgate for assaulting the constable, and for assaulting me
also.
Accordingly he sent the fellow to Newgate for that assault, and his
master gave bail, and so we came away; but I had the satisfaction of
seeing the mob wait upon them both, as they came out, hallooing and
throwing stones and dirt at the coaches they rode in; and so I came
home to my governess.
After this hustle, coming home and telling my governess the story, she
falls a-laughing at me. “Why are you merry?” says I; “the story has not
so much laughing room in it as you imagine; I am sure I have had a
great deal of hurry and fright too, with a pack of ugly rogues.”
“Laugh!” says my governess; “I laugh, child, to see what a lucky
creature you are; why, this job will be the best bargain to you that
ever you made in your life, if you manage it well. I warrant you,” says
she, “you shall make the mercer pay you £500 for damages, besides what
you shall get out of the journeyman.”
I had other thoughts of the matter than she had; and especially,
because I had given in my name to the justice of peace; and I knew that
my name was so well known among the people at Hick’s Hall, the Old
Bailey, and such places, that if this cause came to be tried openly,
and my name came to be inquired into, no court would give much damages,
for the reputation of a person of such a character. However, I was
obliged to begin a prosecution in form, and accordingly my governess
found me out a very creditable sort of a man to manage it, being an
attorney of very good business, and of a good reputation, and she was
certainly in the right of this; for had she employed a pettifogging
hedge solicitor, or a man not known, and not in good reputation, I
should have brought it to but little.
I met this attorney, and gave him all the particulars at large, as they
are recited above; and he assured me it was a case, as he said, that
would very well support itself, and that he did not question but that a
jury would give very considerable damages on such an occasion; so
taking his full instructions he began the prosecution, and the mercer
being arrested, gave bail. A few days after his giving bail, he comes
with his attorney to my attorney, to let him know that he desired to
accommodate the matter; that it was all carried on in the heat of an
unhappy passion; that his client, meaning me, had a sharp provoking
tongue, that I used them ill, gibing at them, and jeering them, even
while they believed me to be the very person, and that I had provoked
them, and the like.
My attorney managed as well on my side; made them believe I was a widow
of fortune, that I was able to do myself justice, and had great friends
to stand by me too, who had all made me promise to sue to the utmost,
and that if it cost me a thousand pounds I would be sure to have
satisfaction, for that the affronts I had received were insufferable.
However, they brought my attorney to this, that he promised he would
not blow the coals, that if I inclined to accommodation, he would not
hinder me, and that he would rather persuade me to peace than to war;
for which they told him he should be no loser; all which he told me
very honestly, and told me that if they offered him any bribe, I should
certainly know it; but upon the whole he told me very honestly that if
I would take his opinion, he would advise me to make it up with them,
for that as they were in a great fright, and were desirous above all
things to make it up, and knew that, let it be what it would, they
would be allotted to bear all the costs of the suit; he believed they
would give me freely more than any jury or court of justice would give
upon a trial. I asked him what he thought they would be brought to. He
told me he could not tell as to that, but he would tell me more when I
saw him again.
Some time after this, they came again to know if he had talked with me.
He told them he had; that he found me not so averse to an accommodation
as some of my friends were, who resented the disgrace offered me, and
set me on; that they blowed the coals in secret, prompting me to
revenge, or do myself justice, as they called it; so that he could not
tell what to say to it; he told them he would do his endeavour to
persuade me, but he ought to be able to tell me what proposal they
made. They pretended they could not make any proposal, because it might
be made use of against them; and he told them, that by the same rule he
could not make any offers, for that might be pleaded in abatement of
what damages a jury might be inclined to give. However, after some
discourse and mutual promises that no advantage should be taken on
either side, by what was transacted then or at any other of those
meetings, they came to a kind of a treaty; but so remote, and so wide
from one another, that nothing could be expected from it; for my
attorney demanded £500 and charges, and they offered £50 without
charges; so they broke off, and the mercer proposed to have a meeting
with me myself; and my attorney agreed to that very readily.
My attorney gave me notice to come to this meeting in good clothes, and
with some state, that the mercer might see I was something more than I
seemed to be that time they had me. Accordingly I came in a new suit of
second mourning, according to what I had said at the justice’s. I set
myself out, too, as well as a widow’s dress in second mourning would
admit; my governess also furnished me with a good pearl necklace, that
shut in behind with a locket of diamonds, which she had in pawn; and I
had a very good figure; and as I stayed till I was sure they were come,
I came in a coach to the door, with my maid with me.
When I came into the room the mercer was surprised. He stood up and
made his bow, which I took a little notice of, and but a little, and
went and sat down where my own attorney had pointed to me to sit, for
it was his house. After a little while the mercer said, he did not know
me again, and began to make some compliments his way. I told him, I
believed he did not know me at first, and that if he had, I believed he
would not have treated me as he did.
He told me he was very sorry for what had happened, and that it was to
testify the willingness he had to make all possible reparation that he
had appointed this meeting; that he hoped I would not carry things to
extremity, which might be not only too great a loss to him, but might
be the ruin of his business and shop, in which case I might have the
satisfaction of repaying an injury with an injury ten times greater;
but that I would then get nothing, whereas he was willing to do me any
justice that was in his power, without putting himself or me to the
trouble or charge of a suit at law.
I told him I was glad to hear him talk so much more like a man of sense
than he did before; that it was true, acknowledgment in most cases of
affronts was counted reparation sufficient; but this had gone too far
to be made up so; that I was not revengeful, nor did I seek his ruin,
or any man’s else, but that all my friends were unanimous not to let me
so far neglect my character as to adjust a thing of this kind without a
sufficient reparation of honour; that to be taken up for a thief was
such an indignity as could not be put up; that my character was above
being treated so by any that knew me, but because in my condition of a
widow I had been for some time careless of myself, and negligent of
myself, I might be taken for such a creature, but that for the
particular usage I had from him afterwards,—and then I repeated all as
before; it was so provoking I had scarce patience to repeat it.
Well, he acknowledged all, and was might humble indeed; he made
proposals very handsome; he came up to £100 and to pay all the law
charges, and added that he would make me a present of a very good suit
of clothes. I came down to £300, and I demanded that I should publish
an advertisement of the particulars in the common newspapers.
This was a clause he never could comply with. However, at last he came
up, by good management of my attorney, to £150 and a suit of black silk
clothes; and there I agree, and as it were, at my attorney’s request,
complied with it, he paying my attorney’s bill and charges, and gave us
a good supper into the bargain.
When I came to receive the money, I brought my governess with me,
dressed like an old duchess, and a gentleman very well dressed, who we
pretended courted me, but I called him cousin, and the lawyer was only
to hint privately to him that his gentleman courted the widow.
He treated us handsomely indeed, and paid the money cheerfully enough;
so that it cost him £200 in all, or rather more. At our last meeting,
when all was agreed, the case of the journeyman came up, and the mercer
begged very hard for him; told me he was a man that had kept a shop of
his own, and been in good business, had a wife, and several children,
and was very poor; that he had nothing to make satisfaction with, but
he should come to beg my pardon on his knees, if I desired it, as
openly as I pleased. I had no spleen at the saucy rogue, nor were his
submissions anything to me, since there was nothing to be got by him,
so I thought it was as good to throw that in generously as not; so I
told him I did not desire the ruin of any man, and therefore at his
request I would forgive the wretch; it was below me to seek any
revenge.
When we were at supper he brought the poor fellow in to make
acknowledgment, which he would have done with as much mean humility as
his offence was with insulting haughtiness and pride, in which he was
an instance of a complete baseness of spirit, impious, cruel, and
relentless when uppermost and in prosperity, abject and low-spirited
when down in affliction. However, I abated his cringes, told him I
forgave him, and desired he might withdraw, as if I did not care for
the sight of him, though I had forgiven him.
I was now in good circumstances indeed, if I could have known my time
for leaving off, and my governess often said I was the richest of the
trade in England; and so I believe I was, for I had £700 by me in
money, besides clothes, rings, some plate, and two gold watches, and
all of them stolen, for I had innumerable jobs besides these I have
mentioned. Oh! had I even now had the grace of repentance, I had still
leisure to have looked back upon my follies, and have made some
reparation; but the satisfaction I was to make for the public mischiefs
I had done was yet left behind; and I could not forbear going abroad
again, as I called it now, than any more I could when my extremity
really drove me out for bread.
It was not long after the affair with the mercer was made up, that I
went out in an equipage quite different from any I had ever appeared in
before. I dressed myself like a beggar woman, in the coarsest and most
despicable rags I could get, and I walked about peering and peeping
into every door and window I came near; and indeed I was in such a
plight now that I knew as ill how to behave in as ever I did in any. I
naturally abhorred dirt and rags; I had been bred up tight and cleanly,
and could be no other, whatever condition I was in; so that this was
the most uneasy disguise to me that ever I put on. I said presently to
myself that this would not do, for this was a dress that everybody was
shy and afraid of; and I thought everybody looked at me, as if they
were afraid I should come near them, lest I should take something from
them, or afraid to come near me, lest they should get something from
me. I wandered about all the evening the first time I went out, and
made nothing of it, but came home again wet, draggled, and tired.
However, I went out again the next night, and then I met with a little
adventure, which had like to have cost me dear. As I was standing near
a tavern door, there comes a gentleman on horseback, and lights at the
door, and wanting to go into the tavern, he calls one of the drawers to
hold his horse. He stayed pretty long in the tavern, and the drawer
heard his master call, and thought he would be angry with him. Seeing
me stand by him, he called to me, “Here, woman,” says he, “hold this
horse a while, till I go in; if the gentleman comes, he’ll give you
something.” “Yes,” says I, and takes the horse, and walks off with him
very soberly, and carried him to my governess.
This had been a booty to those that had understood it; but never was
poor thief more at a loss to know what to do with anything that was
stolen; for when I came home, my governess was quite confounded, and
what to do with the creature, we neither of us knew. To send him to a
stable was doing nothing, for it was certain that public notice would
be given in the _Gazette_, and the horse described, so that we durst
not go to fetch it again.
All the remedy we had for this unlucky adventure was to go and set up
the horse at an inn, and send a note by a porter to the tavern, that
the gentleman’s horse that was lost such a time was left at such an
inn, and that he might be had there; that the poor woman that held him,
having led him about the street, not being able to lead him back again,
had left him there. We might have waited till the owner had published
and offered a reward, but we did not care to venture the receiving the
reward.
So this was a robbery and no robbery, for little was lost by it, and
nothing was got by it, and I was quite sick of going out in a beggar’s
dress; it did not answer at all, and besides, I thought it was ominous
and threatening.
While I was in this disguise, I fell in with a parcel of folks of a
worse kind than any I ever sorted with, and I saw a little into their
ways too. These were coiners of money, and they made some very good
offers to me, as to profit; but the part they would have had me have
embarked in was the most dangerous part. I mean that of the very
working the die, as they call it, which, had I been taken, had been
certain death, and that at a stake—I say, to be burnt to death at a
stake; so that though I was to appearance but a beggar, and they
promised mountains of gold and silver to me to engage, yet it would not
do. It is true, if I had been really a beggar, or had been desperate as
when I began, I might perhaps have closed with it; for what care they
to die that can’t tell how to live? But at present this was not my
condition, at least I was for no such terrible risks as those; besides,
the very thoughts of being burnt at a stake struck terror into my very
soul, chilled my blood, and gave me the vapours to such a degree, as I
could not think of it without trembling.
This put an end to my disguise too, for as I did not like the proposal,
so I did not tell them so, but seemed to relish it, and promised to
meet again. But I durst see them no more; for if I had seen them, and
not complied, though I had declined it with the greatest assurance of
secrecy in the world, they would have gone near to have murdered me, to
make sure work, and make themselves easy, as they call it. What kind of
easiness that is, they may best judge that understand how easy men are
that can murder people to prevent danger.
This and horse-stealing were things quite out of my way, and I might
easily resolve I would have no more to say to them; my business seemed
to lie another way, and though it had hazard enough in it too, yet it
was more suitable to me, and what had more of art in it, and more room
to escape, and more chances for a-coming off if a surprise should
happen.
I had several proposals made also to me about that time, to come into a
gang of house-breakers; but that was a thing I had no mind to venture
at neither, any more than I had at the coining trade. I offered to go
along with two men and a woman, that made it their business to get into
houses by stratagem, and with them I was willing enough to venture. But
there were three of them already, and they did not care to part, nor I
to have too many in a gang, so I did not close with them, but declined
them, and they paid dear for their next attempt.
But at length I met with a woman that had often told me what adventures
she had made, and with success, at the waterside, and I closed with
her, and we drove on our business pretty well. One day we came among
some Dutch people at St. Catherine’s, where we went on pretence to buy
goods that were privately got on shore. I was two or three times in a
house where we saw a good quantity of prohibited goods, and my
companion once brought away three pieces of Dutch black silk that
turned to good account, and I had my share of it; but in all the
journeys I made by myself, I could not get an opportunity to do
anything, so I laid it aside, for I had been so often, that they began
to suspect something, and were so shy, that I saw nothing was to be
done.
This baulked me a little, and I resolved to push at something or other,
for I was not used to come back so often without purchase; so the next
day I dressed myself up fine, and took a walk to the other end of the
town. I passed through the Exchange in the Strand, but had no notion of
finding anything to do there, when on a sudden I saw a great cluttering
in the place, and all the people, shopkeepers as well as others,
standing up and staring; and what should it be but some great duchess
come into the Exchange, and they said the queen was coming. I set
myself close up to a shop-side with my back to the counter, as if to
let the crowd pass by, when keeping my eye upon a parcel of lace which
the shopkeeper was showing to some ladies that stood by me, the
shopkeeper and her maid were so taken up with looking to see who was
coming, and what shop they would go to, that I found means to slip a
paper of lace into my pocket and come clear off with it; so the
lady-milliner paid dear enough for her gaping after the queen.
I went off from the shop, as if driven along by the throng, and
mingling myself with the crowd, went out at the other door of the
Exchange, and so got away before they missed their lace; and because I
would not be followed, I called a coach and shut myself up in it. I had
scarce shut the coach doors up, but I saw the milliner’s maid and five
or six more come running out into the street, and crying out as if they
were frightened. They did not cry “Stop thief!” because nobody ran
away, but I could hear the word “robbed,” and “lace,” two or three
times, and saw the wench wringing her hands, and run staring to and
again, like one scared. The coachman that had taken me up was getting
up into the box, but was not quite up, so that the horse had not begun
to move; so that I was terrible uneasy, and I took the packet of lace
and laid it ready to have dropped it out at the flap of the coach,
which opens before, just behind the coachman; but to my great
satisfaction, in less than a minute the coach began to move, that is to
say, as soon as the coachman had got up and spoken to his horses; so he
drove away without any interruption, and I brought off my purchase,
which was worth near £20.
The next day I dressed up again, but in quite different clothes, and
walked the same way again, but nothing offered till I came into St.
James’s Park, where I saw abundance of fine ladies in the Park, walking
in the Mall, and among the rest there was a little miss, a young lady
of about twelve or thirteen years old, and she had a sister, as I
suppose it was, with her, that might be about nine years old. I
observed the biggest had a fine gold watch on, and a good necklace of
pearl, and they had a footman in livery with them; but as it is not
usual for the footman to go behind the ladies in the Mall, so I
observed the footman stopped at their going into the Mall, and the
biggest of the sisters spoke to him, which I perceived was to bid him
be just there when they came back.
When I heard her dismiss the footman, I stepped up to him and asked
him, what little lady that was? and held a little chat with him about
what a pretty child it was with her, and how genteel and well-carriaged
the lady, the eldest, would be: how womanish, and how grave; and the
fool of a fellow told me presently who she was; that she was Sir Thomas
——’s eldest daughter, of Essex, and that she was a great fortune; that
her mother was not come to town yet; but she was with Sir William ——’s
lady, of Suffolk, at her lodging in Suffolk Street, and a great deal
more; that they had a maid and a woman to wait on them, besides Sir
Thomas’s coach, the coachman, and himself; and that young lady was
governess to the whole family, as well here as at home too; and, in
short, told me abundance of things enough for my business.
I was very well dressed, and had my gold watch as well as she; so I
left the footman, and I puts myself in a rank with this young lady,
having stayed till she had taken one double turn in the Mall, and was
going forward again; by and by I saluted her by her name, with the
title of Lady Betty. I asked her when she heard from her father; when
my lady her mother would be in town, and how she did.
I talked so familiarly to her of her whole family that she could not
suspect but that I knew them all intimately. I asked her why she would
come abroad without Mrs. Chime with her (that was the name of her
woman) to take of Mrs. Judith, that was her sister. Then I entered into
a long chat with her about her sister, what a fine little lady she was,
and asked her if she had learned French, and a thousand such little
things to entertain her, when on a sudden we saw the guards come, and
the crowd ran to see the king go by to the Parliament House.
The ladies ran all to the side of the Mall, and I helped my lady to
stand upon the edge of the boards on the side of the Mall, that she
might be high enough to see; and took the little one and lifted her
quite up; during which, I took care to convey the gold watch so clean
away from the Lady Betty, that she never felt it, nor missed it, till
all the crowd was gone, and she was gotten into the middle of the Mall
among the other ladies.
I took my leave of her in the very crowd, and said to her, as if in
haste, “Dear Lady Betty, take care of your little sister.” And so the
crowd did as it were thrust me away from her, and that I was obliged
unwillingly to take my leave.
The hurry in such cases is immediately over, and the place clear as
soon as the king is gone by; but as there is always a great running and
clutter just as the king passes, so having dropped the two little
ladies, and done my business with them without any miscarriage, I kept
hurrying on among the crowd, as if I ran to see the king, and so I got
before the crowd and kept so till I came to the end of the Mall, when
the king going on towards the Horse Guards, I went forward to the
passage, which went then through against the lower end of the
Haymarket, and there I bestowed a coach upon myself, and made off, and
I confess I have not yet been so good as my word, viz. to go and visit
my Lady Betty.
I was once of the mind to venture staying with Lady Betty till she
missed the watch, and so have made a great outcry about it with her,
and have got her into the coach, and put myself in the coach with her,
and have gone home with her; for she appeared so fond of me, and so
perfectly deceived by my so readily talking to her of all her relations
and family, that I thought it was very easy to push the thing farther,
and to have got at least the necklace of pearl; but when I considered
that though the child would not perhaps have suspected me, other people
might, and that if I was searched I should be discovered, I thought it
was best to go off with what I had got, and be satisfied.
I came accidentally afterwards to hear, that when the young lady missed
her watch, she made a great outcry in the Park, and sent her footman up
and down to see if he could find me out, she having described me so
perfectly that he knew presently that it was the same person that had
stood and talked so long with him, and asked him so many questions
about them; but I gone far enough out of their reach before she could
come at her footman to tell him the story.
I made another adventure after this, of a nature different from all I
had been concerned in yet, and this was at a gaming-house near Covent
Garden.
I saw several people go in and out; and I stood in the passage a good
while with another woman with me, and seeing a gentleman go up that
seemed to be of more than ordinary fashion, I said to him, “Sir, pray
don’t they give women leave to go up?” “Yes, madam,” says he, “and to
play too, if they please.” “I mean so, sir,” said I. And with that he
said he would introduce me if I had a mind; so I followed him to the
door, and he looking in, “There, madam,” says he, “are the gamesters,
if you have a mind to venture.” I looked in and said to my comrade
aloud, “Here’s nothing but men; I won’t venture among them.” At which
one of the gentlemen cried out, “You need not be afraid, madam, here’s
none but fair gamesters; you are very welcome to come and set what you
please.” So I went a little nearer and looked on, and some of them
brought me a chair, and I sat down and saw the box and dice go round
apace; then I said to my comrade, “The gentlemen play too high for us;
come, let us go.”
The people were all very civil, and one gentleman in particular
encouraged me, and said, “Come, madam, if you please to venture, if you
dare trust me, I’ll answer for it you shall have nothing put upon you
here.” “No, sir,” said I, smiling, “I hope the gentlemen would not
cheat a woman.” But still I declined venturing, though I pulled out a
purse with money in it, that they might see I did not want money.
After I had sat a while, one gentleman said to me, jeering, “Come,
madam, I see you are afraid to venture for yourself; I always had good
luck with the ladies, you shall set for me, if you won’t set for
yourself.” I told him, “Sir, I should be very loth to lose your money,”
though I added, “I am pretty lucky too; but the gentlemen play so high,
that I dare not indeed venture my own.”
“Well, well,” says he, “there’s ten guineas, madam; set them for me.”
So I took his money and set, himself looking on. I ran out nine of the
guineas by one and two at a time, and then the box coming to the next
man to me, my gentleman gave me ten guineas more, and made me set five
of them at once, and the gentleman who had the box threw out, so there
was five guineas of his money again. He was encouraged at this, and
made me take the box, which was a bold venture. However, I held the box
so long that I had gained him his whole money, and had a good handful
of guineas in my lap, and which was the better luck, when I threw out,
I threw but at one or two of those that had set me, and so went off
easy.
When I was come this length, I offered the gentleman all the gold, for
it was his own; and so would have had him play for himself, pretending
I did not understand the game well enough. He laughed, and said if I
had but good luck, it was no matter whether I understood the game or
no; but I should not leave off. However, he took out the fifteen
guineas that he had put in at first, and bade me play with the rest. I
would have told them to see how much I had got, but he said, “No, no,
don’t tell them, I believe you are very honest, and ’tis bad luck to
tell them”; so I played on.
I understood the game well enough, though I pretended I did not, and
played cautiously. It was to keep a good stock in my lap, out of which
I every now and then conveyed some into my pocket, but in such a
manner, and at such convenient times, as I was sure he could not see
it.
I played a great while, and had very good luck for him; but the last
time I held the box, they set me high, and I threw boldly at all; I
held the box till I gained near fourscore guineas, but lost above half
of it back in the last throw; so I got up, for I was afraid I should
lose it all back again, and said to him, “Pray come, sir, now, and take
it and play for yourself; I think I have done pretty well for you.” He
would have had me play on, but it grew late, and I desired to be
excused. When I gave it up to him, I told him I hoped he would give me
leave to tell it now, that I might see what I had gained, and how lucky
I had been for him; when I told them, there were threescore and three
guineas. “Ay,” says I, “if it had not been for that unlucky throw, I
had got you a hundred guineas.” So I gave him all the money, but he
would not take it till I had put my hand into it, and taken some for
myself, and bid me please myself. I refused it, and was positive I
would not take it myself; if he had a mind to anything of that kind, it
should be all his own doings.
The rest of the gentlemen seeing us striving cried, “Give it her all”;
but I absolutely refused that. Then one of them said, “D—n ye, Jack,
halve it with her; don’t you know you should be always upon even terms
with the ladies.” So, in short, he divided it with me, and I brought
away thirty guineas, besides about forty-three which I had stole
privately, which I was sorry for afterward, because he was so generous.
Thus I brought home seventy-three guineas, and let my old governess see
what good luck I had at play. However, it was her advice that I should
not venture again, and I took her counsel, for I never went there any
more; for I knew as well as she, if the itch of play came in, I might
soon lose that, and all the rest of what I had got.
Fortune had smiled upon me to that degree, and I had thriven so much,
and my governess too, for she always had a share with me, that really
the old gentlewoman began to talk of leaving off while we were well,
and being satisfied with what we had got; but, I know not what fate
guided me, I was as backward to it now as she was when I proposed it to
her before, and so in an ill hour we gave over the thoughts of it for
the present, and, in a word, I grew more hardened and audacious than
ever, and the success I had made my name as famous as any thief of my
sort ever had been at Newgate, and in the Old Bailey.
I had sometime taken the liberty to play the same game over again,
which is not according to practice, which however succeeded not amiss;
but generally I took up new figures, and contrived to appear in new
shapes every time I went abroad.
It was not a rumbling time of the year, and the gentlemen being most of
them gone out of town, Tunbridge, and Epsom, and such places were full
of people. But the city was thin, and I thought our trade felt it a
little, as well as other; so that at the latter end of the year I
joined myself with a gang who usually go every year to Stourbridge
Fair, and from thence to Bury Fair, in Suffolk. We promised ourselves
great things there, but when I came to see how things were, I was weary
of it presently; for except mere picking of pockets, there was little
worth meddling with; neither, if a booty had been made, was it so easy
carrying it off, nor was there such a variety of occasion for business
in our way, as in London; all that I made of the whole journey was a
gold watch at Bury Fair, and a small parcel of linen at Cambridge,
which gave me an occasion to take leave of the place. It was on old
bite, and I thought might do with a country shopkeeper, though in
London it would not.
I bought at a linen-draper’s shop, not in the fair, but in the town of
Cambridge, as much fine holland and other things as came to about seven
pounds; when I had done, I bade them be sent to such an inn, where I
had purposely taken up my being the same morning, as if I was to lodge
there that night.
I ordered the draper to send them home to me, about such an hour, to
the inn where I lay, and I would pay him his money. At the time
appointed the draper sends the goods, and I placed one of our gang at
the chamber door, and when the innkeeper’s maid brought the messenger
to the door, who was a young fellow, an apprentice, almost a man, she
tells him her mistress was asleep, but if he would leave the things and
call in about an hour, I should be awake, and he might have the money.
He left the parcel very readily, and goes his way, and in about half an
hour my maid and I walked off, and that very evening I hired a horse,
and a man to ride before me, and went to Newmarket, and from thence got
my passage in a coach that was not quite full to St. Edmund’s Bury,
where, as I told you, I could make but little of my trade, only at a
little country opera-house made a shift to carry off a gold watch from
a lady’s side, who was not only intolerably merry, but, as I thought, a
little fuddled, which made my work much easier.
I made off with this little booty to Ipswich, and from thence to
Harwich, where I went into an inn, as if I had newly arrived from
Holland, not doubting but I should make some purchase among the
foreigners that came on shore there; but I found them generally empty
of things of value, except what was in their portmanteaux and Dutch
hampers, which were generally guarded by footmen; however, I fairly got
one of their portmanteaux one evening out of the chamber where the
gentleman lay, the footman being fast asleep on the bed, and I suppose
very drunk.
The room in which I lodged lay next to the Dutchman’s, and having
dragged the heavy thing with much ado out of the chamber into mine, I
went out into the street, to see if I could find any possibility of
carrying it off. I walked about a great while, but could see no
probability either of getting out the thing, or of conveying away the
goods that were in it if I had opened it, the town being so small, and
I a perfect stranger in it; so I was returning with a resolution to
carry it back again, and leave it where I found it. Just in that very
moment I heard a man make a noise to some people to make haste, for the
boat was going to put off, and the tide would be spent. I called to the
fellow, “What boat is it, friend,” says I, “that you belong to?” “The
Ipswich wherry, madam,” says he. “When do you go off?” says I. “This
moment, madam,” says he; “do you want to go thither?” “Yes,” said I,
“if you can stay till I fetch my things.” “Where are your things,
madam?” says he. “At such an inn,” said I. “Well, I’ll go with you,
madam,” says he, very civilly, “and bring them for you.” “Come away,
then,” says I, and takes him with me.
The people of the inn were in a great hurry, the packet-boat from
Holland being just come in, and two coaches just come also with
passengers from London, for another packet-boat that was going off for
Holland, which coaches were to go back next day with the passengers
that were just landed. In this hurry it was not much minded that I came
to the bar and paid my reckoning, telling my landlady I had gotten my
passage by sea in a wherry.
These wherries are large vessels, with good accommodation for carrying
passengers from Harwich to London; and though they are called wherries,
which is a word used in the Thames for a small boat rowed with one or
two men, yet these are vessels able to carry twenty passengers, and ten
or fifteen tons of goods, and fitted to bear the sea. All this I had
found out by inquiring the night before into the several ways of going
to London.
My landlady was very courteous, took my money for my reckoning, but was
called away, all the house being in a hurry. So I left her, took the
fellow up to my chamber, gave him the trunk, or portmanteau, for it was
like a trunk, and wrapped it about with an old apron, and he went
directly to his boat with it, and I after him, nobody asking us the
least question about it; as for the drunken Dutch footman he was still
asleep, and his master with other foreign gentlemen at supper, and very
merry below, so I went clean off with it to Ipswich; and going in the
night, the people of the house knew nothing but that I was gone to
London by the Harwich wherry, as I had told my landlady.
I was plagued at Ipswich with the custom-house officers, who stopped my
trunk, as I called it, and would open and search it. I was willing, I
told them, they should search it, but husband had the key, and he was
not yet come from Harwich; this I said, that if upon searching it they
should find all the things be such as properly belonged to a man rather
than a woman, it should not seem strange to them. However, they being
positive to open the trunk I consented to have it be broken open, that
is to say, to have the lock taken off, which was not difficult.
They found nothing for their turn, for the trunk had been searched
before, but they discovered several things very much to my
satisfaction, as particularly a parcel of money in French pistoles, and
some Dutch ducatoons or rix-dollars, and the rest was chiefly two
periwigs, wearing-linen, and razors, wash-balls, perfumes, and other
useful things necessary for a gentleman, which all passed for my
husband’s, and so I was quit to them.
It was now very early in the morning, and not light, and I knew not
well what course to take; for I made no doubt but I should be pursued
in the morning, and perhaps be taken with the things about me; so I
resolved upon taking new measures. I went publicly to an inn in the
town with my trunk, as I called it, and having taken the substance out,
I did not think the lumber of it worth my concern; however, I gave it
the landlady of the house with a charge to take great care of it, and
lay it up safe till I should come again, and away I walked in to the
street.
When I was got into the town a great way from the inn, I met with an
ancient woman who had just opened her door, and I fell into chat with
her, and asked her a great many wild questions of things all remote to
my purpose and design; but in my discourse I found by her how the town
was situated, that I was in a street that went out towards Hadley, but
that such a street went towards the water-side, such a street towards
Colchester, and so the London road lay there.
I had soon my ends of this old woman, for I only wanted to know which
was the London road, and away I walked as fast as I could; not that I
intended to go on foot, either to London or to Colchester, but I wanted
to get quietly away from Ipswich.
I walked about two or three miles, and then I met a plain countryman,
who was busy about some husbandry work, I did not know what, and I
asked him a great many questions first, not much to the purpose, but at
last told him I was going for London, and the coach was full, and I
could not get a passage, and asked him if he could tell me where to
hire a horse that would carry double, and an honest man to ride before
me to Colchester, that so I might get a place there in the coaches. The
honest clown looked earnestly at me, and said nothing for above half a
minute, when, scratching his poll, “A horse, say you and to Colchester,
to carry double? why yes, mistress, alack-a-day, you may have horses
enough for money.” “Well, friend,” says I, “that I take for granted; I
don’t expect it without money.” “Why, but, mistress,” says he, “how
much are you willing to give?” “Nay,” says I again, “friend, I don’t
know what your rates are in the country here, for I am a stranger; but
if you can get one for me, get it as cheap as you can, and I’ll give
you somewhat for your pains.”
“Why, that’s honestly said too,” says the countryman. “Not so honest,
neither,” said I to myself, “if thou knewest all.” “Why, mistress,”
says he, “I have a horse that will carry double, and I don’t much care
if I go myself with you,” and the like. “Will you?” says I; “well, I
believe you are an honest man; if you will, I shall be glad of it; I’ll
pay you in reason.” “Why, look ye, mistress,” says he, “I won’t be out
of reason with you, then; if I carry you to Colchester, it will be
worth five shillings for myself and my horse, for I shall hardly come
back to-night.”
In short, I hired the honest man and his horse; but when we came to a
town upon the road (I do not remember the name of it, but it stands
upon a river), I pretended myself very ill, and I could go no farther
that night but if he would stay there with me, because I was a
stranger, I would pay him for himself and his horse with all my heart.
This I did because I knew the Dutch gentlemen and their servants would
be upon the road that day, either in the stagecoaches or riding post,
and I did not know but the drunken fellow, or somebody else that might
have seen me at Harwich, might see me again, and so I thought that in
one day’s stop they would be all gone by.
We lay all that night there, and the next morning it was not very early
when I set out, so that it was near ten o’clock by the time I got to
Colchester. It was no little pleasure that I saw the town where I had
so many pleasant days, and I made many inquiries after the good old
friends I had once had there, but could make little out; they were all
dead or removed. The young ladies had been all married or gone to
London; the old gentleman and the old lady that had been my early
benefactress all dead; and which troubled me most, the young gentleman
my first lover, and afterwards my brother-in-law, was dead; but two
sons, men grown, were left of him, but they too were transplanted to
London.
I dismissed my old man here, and stayed incognito for three or four
days in Colchester, and then took a passage in a waggon, because I
would not venture being seen in the Harwich coaches. But I needed not
have used so much caution, for there was nobody in Harwich but the
woman of the house could have known me; nor was it rational to think
that she, considering the hurry she was in, and that she never saw me
but once, and that by candlelight, should have ever discovered me.
I was now returned to London, and though by the accident of the last
adventure I got something considerable, yet I was not fond of any more
country rambles, nor should I have ventured abroad again if I had
carried the trade on to the end of my days. I gave my governess a
history of my travels; she liked the Harwich journey well enough, and
in discoursing of these things between ourselves she observed, that a
thief being a creature that watches the advantages of other people’s
mistakes, ’tis impossible but that to one that is vigilant and
industrious many opportunities must happen, and therefore she thought
that one so exquisitely keen in the trade as I was, would scarce fail
of something extraordinary wherever I went.
On the other hand, every branch of my story, if duly considered, may be
useful to honest people, and afford a due caution to people of some
sort or other to guard against the like surprises, and to have their
eyes about them when they have to do with strangers of any kind, for
’tis very seldom that some snare or other is not in their way. The
moral, indeed, of all my history is left to be gathered by the senses
and judgment of the reader; I am not qualified to preach to them. Let
the experience of one creature completely wicked, and completely
miserable, be a storehouse of useful warning to those that read.
I am drawing now towards a new variety of the scenes of life. Upon my
return, being hardened by a long race of crime, and success
unparalleled, at least in the reach of my own knowledge, I had, as I
have said, no thoughts of laying down a trade which, if I was to judge
by the example of others, must, however, end at last in misery and
sorrow.
It was on the Christmas day following, in the evening, that, to finish
a long train of wickedness, I went abroad to see what might offer in my
way; when going by a working silversmith’s in Foster Lane, I saw a
tempting bait indeed, and not be resisted by one of my occupation, for
the shop had nobody in it, as I could see, and a great deal of loose
plate lay in the window, and at the seat of the man, who usually, as I
suppose, worked at one side of the shop.
I went boldly in, and was just going to lay my hand upon a piece of
plate, and might have done it, and carried it clear off, for any care
that the men who belonged to the shop had taken of it; but an officious
fellow in a house, not a shop, on the other side of the way, seeing me
go in, and observing that there was nobody in the shop, comes running
over the street, and into the shop, and without asking me what I was,
or who, seizes upon me, an cries out for the people of the house.
I had not, as I said above, touched anything in the shop, and seeing a
glimpse of somebody running over to the shop, I had so much presence of
mind as to knock very hard with my foot on the floor of the house, and
was just calling out too, when the fellow laid hands on me.
However, as I had always most courage when I was in most danger, so
when the fellow laid hands on me, I stood very high upon it, that I
came in to buy half a dozen of silver spoons; and to my good fortune,
it was a silversmith’s that sold plate, as well as worked plate for
other shops. The fellow laughed at that part, and put such a value upon
the service that he had done his neighbour, that he would have it be
that I came not to buy, but to steal; and raising a great crowd. I said
to the master of the shop, who by this time was fetched home from some
neighbouring place, that it was in vain to make noise, and enter into
talk there of the case; the fellow had insisted that I came to steal,
and he must prove it, and I desired we might go before a magistrate
without any more words; for I began to see I should be too hard for the
man that had seized me.
The master and mistress of the shop were really not so violent as the
man from t’other side of the way; and the man said, “Mistress, you
might come into the shop with a good design for aught I know, but it
seemed a dangerous thing for you to come into such a shop as mine is,
when you see nobody there; and I cannot do justice to my neighbour, who
was so kind to me, as not to acknowledge he had reason on his side;
though, upon the whole, I do not find you attempted to take anything,
and I really know not what to do in it.” I pressed him to go before a
magistrate with me, and if anything could be proved on me that was like
a design of robbery, I should willingly submit, but if not, I expected
reparation.
Just while we were in this debate, and a crowd of people gathered about
the door, came by Sir T. B., an alderman of the city, and justice of
the peace, and the goldsmith hearing of it, goes out, and entreated his
worship to come in and decide the case.
Give the goldsmith his due, he told his story with a great deal of
justice and moderation, and the fellow that had come over, and seized
upon me, told his with as much heat and foolish passion, which did me
good still, rather than harm. It came then to my turn to speak, and I
told his worship that I was a stranger in London, being newly come out
of the north; that I lodged in such a place, that I was passing this
street, and went into the goldsmith’s shop to buy half a dozen of
spoons. By great luck I had an old silver spoon in my pocket, which I
pulled out, and told him I had carried that spoon to match it with half
a dozen of new ones, that it might match some I had in the country.
That seeing nobody I the shop, I knocked with my foot very hard to make
the people hear, and had also called aloud with my voice; ’tis true,
there was loose plate in the shop, but that nobody could say I had
touched any of it, or gone near it; that a fellow came running into the
shop out of the street, and laid hands on me in a furious manner, in
the very moments while I was calling for the people of the house; that
if he had really had a mind to have done his neighbour any service, he
should have stood at a distance, and silently watched to see whether I
had touched anything or no, and then have clapped in upon me, and taken
me in the fact. “That is very true,” says Mr. Alderman, and turning to
the fellow that stopped me, he asked him if it was true that I knocked
with my foot? He said, yes, I had knocked, but that might be because of
his coming. “Nay,” says the alderman, taking him short, “now you
contradict yourself, for just now you said she was in the shop with her
back to you, and did not see you till you came upon her.” Now it was
true that my back was partly to the street, but yet as my business was
of a kind that required me to have my eyes every way, so I really had a
glance of him running over, as I said before, though he did not
perceive it.
After a full hearing, the alderman gave it as his opinion that his
neighbour was under a mistake, and that I was innocent, and the
goldsmith acquiesced in it too, and his wife, and so I was dismissed;
but as I was going to depart, Mr. Alderman said, “But hold, madam, if
you were designing to buy spoons, I hope you will not let my friend
here lose his customer by the mistake.” I readily answered, “No, sir,
I’ll buy the spoons still, if he can match my odd spoon, which I
brought for a pattern”; and the goldsmith showed me some of the very
same fashion. So he weighed the spoons, and they came to
five-and-thirty shillings, so I pulls out my purse to pay him, in which
I had near twenty guineas, for I never went without such a sum about
me, whatever might happen, and I found it of use at other times as well
as now.
When Mr. Alderman saw my money, he said, “Well, madam, now I am
satisfied you were wronged, and it was for this reason that I moved you
should buy the spoons, and stayed till you had bought them, for if you
had not had money to pay for them, I should have suspected that you did
not come into the shop with an intent to buy, for indeed the sort of
people who come upon these designs that you have been charged with, are
seldom troubled with much gold in their pockets, as I see you are.”
I smiled, and told his worship, that then I owed something of his
favour to my money, but I hoped he saw reason also in the justice he
had done me before. He said, yes, he had, but this had confirmed his
opinion, and he was fully satisfied now of my having been injured. So I
came off with flying colours, though from an affair in which I was at
the very brink of destruction.
It was but three days after this, that not at all made cautious by my
former danger, as I used to be, and still pursuing the art which I had
so long been employed in, I ventured into a house where I saw the doors
open, and furnished myself, as I thought verily without being perceived,
with two pieces of flowered silks, such as they call brocaded silk,
very rich. It was not a mercer’s shop, nor a warehouse of a mercer, but
looked like a private dwelling-house, and was, it seems, inhabited by a
man that sold goods for the weavers to the mercers, like a broker or
factor.
That I may make short of this black part of this story, I was attacked
by two wenches that came open-mouthed at me just as I was going out at
the door, and one of them pulled me back into the room, while the other
shut the door upon me. I would have given them good words, but there
was no room for it, two fiery dragons could not have been more furious
than they were; they tore my clothes, bullied and roared as if they
would have murdered me; the mistress of the house came next, and then
the master, and all outrageous, for a while especially.
I gave the master very good words, told him the door was open, and
things were a temptation to me, that I was poor and distressed, and
poverty was when many could not resist, and begged him with tears to
have pity on me. The mistress of the house was moved with compassion,
and inclined to have let me go, and had almost persuaded her husband to
it also, but the saucy wenches were run, even before they were sent,
and had fetched a constable, and then the master said he could not go
back, I must go before a justice, and answered his wife that he might
come into trouble himself if he should let me go.
The sight of the constable, indeed, struck me with terror, and I
thought I should have sunk into the ground. I fell into faintings, and
indeed the people themselves thought I would have died, when the woman
argued again for me, and entreated her husband, seeing they had lost
nothing, to let me go. I offered him to pay for the two pieces,
whatever the value was, though I had not got them, and argued that as
he had his goods, and had really lost nothing, it would be cruel to
pursue me to death, and have my blood for the bare attempt of taking
them. I put the constable in mind that I had broke no doors, nor
carried anything away; and when I came to the justice, and pleaded
there that I had neither broken anything to get in, nor carried
anything out, the justice was inclined to have released me; but the
first saucy jade that stopped me, affirming that I was going out with
the goods, but that she stopped me and pulled me back as I was upon the
threshold, the justice upon that point committed me, and I was carried
to Newgate. That horrid place! my very blood chills at the mention of
its name; the place where so many of my comrades had been locked up,
and from whence they went to the fatal tree; the place where my mother
suffered so deeply, where I was brought into the world, and from whence
I expected no redemption but by an infamous death: to conclude, the
place that had so long expected me, and which with so much art and
success I had so long avoided.
I was not fixed indeed; ’tis impossible to describe the terror of my
mind, when I was first brought in, and when I looked around upon all
the horrors of that dismal place. I looked on myself as lost, and that
I had nothing to think of but of going out of the world, and that with
the utmost infamy: the hellish noise, the roaring, swearing, and
clamour, the stench and nastiness, and all the dreadful crowd of
afflicting things that I saw there, joined together to make the place
seem an emblem of hell itself, and a kind of an entrance into it.
Now I reproached myself with the many hints I had had, as I have
mentioned above, from my own reason, from the sense of my good
circumstances, and of the many dangers I had escaped, to leave off
while I was well, and how I had withstood them all, and hardened my
thoughts against all fear. It seemed to me that I was hurried on by an
inevitable and unseen fate to this day of misery, and that now I was to
expiate all my offences at the gallows; that I was now to give
satisfaction to justice with my blood, and that I was come to the last
hour of my life and of my wickedness together. These things poured
themselves in upon my thoughts in a confused manner, and left me
overwhelmed with melancholy and despair.
Then I repented heartily of all my life past, but that repentance
yielded me no satisfaction, no peace, no, not in the least, because, as
I said to myself, it was repenting after the power of further sinning
was taken away. I seemed not to mourn that I had committed such crimes,
and for the fact as it was an offence against God and my neighbour, but
I mourned that I was to be punished for it. I was a penitent, as I
thought, not that I had sinned, but that I was to suffer, and this took
away all the comfort, and even the hope of my repentance in my own
thoughts.
I got no sleep for several nights or days after I came into that
wretched place, and glad I would have been for some time to have died
there, though I did not consider dying as it ought to be considered
neither; indeed, nothing could be filled with more horror to my
imagination than the very place, nothing was more odious to me than the
company that was there. Oh! if I had but been sent to any place in the
world, and not to Newgate, I should have thought myself happy.
In the next place, how did the hardened wretches that were there before
me triumph over me! What! Mrs. Flanders come to Newgate at last? What!
Mrs. Mary, Mrs. Molly, and after that plain Moll Flanders? They thought
the devil had helped me, they said, that I had reigned so long; they
expected me there many years ago, and was I come at last? Then they
flouted me with my dejections, welcomed me to the place, wished me joy,
bid me have a good heart, not to be cast down, things might not be so
bad as I feared, and the like; then called for brandy, and drank to me,
but put it all up to my score, for they told me I was but just come to
the college, as they called it, and sure I had money in my pocket,
though they had none.
I asked one of this crew how long she had been there. She said four
months. I asked her how the place looked to her when she first came
into it. “Just as it did now to you,” says she, “dreadful and
frightful”; that she thought she was in hell; “and I believe so still,”
adds she, “but it is natural to me now, I don’t disturb myself about
it.” “I suppose,” says I, “you are in no danger of what is to follow?”
“Nay,” says she, “for you are mistaken there, I assure you, for I am
under sentence, only I pleaded my belly, but I am no more with child
than the judge that tried me, and I expect to be called down next
sessions.” This “calling down” is calling down to their former
judgment, when a woman has been respited for her belly, but proves not
to be with child, or if she has been with child, and has been brought
to bed. “Well,” says I, “are you thus easy?” “Ay,” says she, “I can’t
help myself; what signifies being sad? If I am hanged, there’s an end
of me,” says she; and away she turns dancing, and sings as she goes the
following piece of Newgate wit—
“If I swing by the string,
I shall hear the bell ring,
And then there’s an end of poor Jenny.”
I mention this because it would be worth the observation of any
prisoner, who shall hereafter fall into the same misfortune, and come
to that dreadful place of Newgate, how time, necessity, and conversing
with the wretches that are there familiarizes the place to them; how at
last they become reconciled to that which at first was the greatest
dread upon their spirits in the world, and are as impudently cheerful
and merry in their misery as they were when out of it.
I cannot say, as some do, this devil is not so black as he is painted;
for indeed no colours can represent the place to the life, not any soul
conceive aright of it but those who have been sufferers there. But how
hell should become by degree so natural, and not only tolerable, but
even agreeable, is a thing unintelligible but by those who have
experienced it, as I have.
The same night that I was sent to Newgate, I sent the news of it to my
old governess, who was surprised at it, you may be sure, and spent the
night almost as ill out of Newgate, as I did in it.
The next morning she came to see me; she did what she could to comfort
me, but she saw that was to no purpose; however, as she said, to sink
under the weight was but to increase the weight; she immediately
applied herself to all the proper methods to prevent the effects of it,
which we feared, and first she found out the two fiery jades that had
surprised me. She tampered with them, offered them money, and, in a
word, tried all imaginable ways to prevent a prosecution; she offered
one of the wenches £100 to go away from her mistress, and not to appear
against me, but she was so resolute, that though she was but a servant
maid at £3 a year wages or thereabouts, she refused it, and would have
refused it, as my governess said she believed, if she had offered her
£500. Then she attacked the other maid; she was not so hard-hearted in
appearance as the other, and sometimes seemed inclined to be merciful;
but the first wench kept her up, and changed her mind, and would not so
much as let my governess talk with her, but threatened to have her up
for tampering with the evidence.
Then she applied to the master, that is to say, the man whose goods had
been stolen, and particularly to his wife, who, as I told you, was
inclined at first to have some compassion for me; she found the woman
the same still, but the man alleged he was bound by the justice that
committed me, to prosecute, and that he should forfeit his
recognisance.
My governess offered to find friends that should get his recognisances
off of the file, as they call it, and that he should not suffer; but it
was not possible to convince him that could be done, or that he could
be safe any way in the world but by appearing against me; so I was to
have three witnesses of fact against me, the master and his two maids;
that is to say, I was as certain to be cast for my life as I was
certain that I was alive, and I had nothing to do but to think of
dying, and prepare for it. I had but a sad foundation to build upon, as
I said before, for all my repentance appeared to me to be only the
effect of my fear of death, not a sincere regret for the wicked life
that I had lived, and which had brought this misery upon me, for the
offending my Creator, who was now suddenly to be my judge.
I lived many days here under the utmost horror of soul; I had death, as
it were, in view, and thought of nothing night and day, but of gibbets
and halters, evil spirits and devils; it is not to be expressed by
words how I was harassed, between the dreadful apprehensions of death
and the terror of my conscience reproaching me with my past horrible
life.
The ordinary of Newgate came to me, and talked a little in his way, but
all his divinity ran upon confessing my crime, as he called it (though
he knew not what I was in for), making a full discovery, and the like,
without which he told me God would never forgive me; and he said so
little to the purpose, that I had no manner of consolation from him;
and then to observe the poor creature preaching confession and
repentance to me in the morning, and find him drunk with brandy and
spirits by noon, this had something in it so shocking, that I began to
nauseate the man more than his work, and his work too by degrees, for
the sake of the man; so that I desired him to trouble me no more.
I know not how it was, but by the indefatigable application of my
diligent governess I had no bill preferred against me the first
sessions, I mean to the grand jury, at Guildhall; so I had another
month or five weeks before me, and without doubt this ought to have
been accepted by me, as so much time given me for reflection upon what
was past, and preparation for what was to come; or, in a word, I ought
to have esteemed it as a space given me for repentance, and have
employed it as such, but it was not in me. I was sorry (as before) for
being in Newgate, but had very few signs of repentance about me.
On the contrary, like the waters in the cavities and hollows of
mountains, which petrify and turn into stone whatever they are suffered
to drop on, so the continual conversing with such a crew of hell-hounds
as I was, had the same common operation upon me as upon other people. I
degenerated into stone; I turned first stupid and senseless, then
brutish and thoughtless, and at last raving mad as any of them were;
and, in short, I became as naturally pleased and easy with the place,
as if indeed I had been born there.
It is scarce possible to imagine that our natures should be capable of
so much degeneracy, as to make that pleasant and agreeable that in
itself is the most complete misery. Here was a circumstance that I
think it is scarce possible to mention a worse: I was as exquisitely
miserable as, speaking of common cases, it was possible for any one to
be that had life and health, and money to help them, as I had.
I had weight of guilt upon me enough to sink any creature who had the
least power of reflection left, and had any sense upon them of the
happiness of this life, of the misery of another; then I had at first
remorse indeed, but no repentance; I had now neither remorse nor
repentance. I had a crime charged on me, the punishment of which was
death by our law; the proof so evident, that there was no room for me
so much as to plead not guilty. I had the name of an old offender, so
that I had nothing to expect but death in a few weeks’ time, neither
had I myself any thoughts of escaping; and yet a certain strange
lethargy of soul possessed me. I had no trouble, no apprehensions, no
sorrow about me, the first surprise was gone; I was, I may well say, I
know not how; my senses, my reason, nay, my conscience, were all
asleep; my course of life for forty years had been a horrid
complication of wickedness, whoredom, adultery, incest, lying, theft;
and, in a word, everything but murder and treason had been my practice
from the age of eighteen, or thereabouts, to three-score; and now I was
engulfed in the misery of punishment, and had an infamous death just at
the door, and yet I had no sense of my condition, no thought of heaven
or hell at least, that went any farther than a bare flying touch, like
the stitch or pain that gives a hint and goes off. I neither had a
heart to ask God’s mercy, nor indeed to think of it. And in this, I
think, I have given a brief description of the completest misery on
earth.
All my terrifying thoughts were past, the horrors of the place were
become familiar, and I felt no more uneasiness at the noise and
clamours of the prison, than they did who made that noise; in a word, I
was become a mere Newgate-bird, as wicked and as outrageous as any of
them; nay, I scarce retained the habit and custom of good breeding and
manners, which all along till now ran through my conversation; so
thorough a degeneracy had possessed me, that I was no more the same
thing that I had been, than if I had never been otherwise than what I
was now.
In the middle of this hardened part of my life I had another sudden
surprise, which called me back a little to that thing called sorrow,
which indeed I began to be past the sense of before. They told me one
night that there was brought into the prison late the night before
three highwaymen, who had committed robbery somewhere on the road to
Windsor, Hounslow Heath, I think it was, and were pursued to Uxbridge
by the country, and were taken there after a gallant resistance, in
which I know not how many of the country people were wounded, and some
killed.
It is not to be wondered that we prisoners were all desirous enough to
see these brave, topping gentlemen, that were talked up to be such as
their fellows had not been known, and especially because it was said
they would in the morning be removed into the press-yard, having given
money to the head master of the prison, to be allowed the liberty of
that better part of the prison. So we that were women placed ourselves
in the way, that we would be sure to see them; but nothing could
express the amazement and surprise I was in, when the very first man
that came out I knew to be my Lancashire husband, the same who lived so
well at Dunstable, and the same who I afterwards saw at Brickhill, when
I was married to my last husband, as has been related.
I was struck dumb at the sight, and knew neither what to say nor what
to do; he did not know me, and that was all the present relief I had. I
quitted my company, and retired as much as that dreadful place suffers
anybody to retire, and I cried vehemently for a great while. “Dreadful
creature that I am,” said I, “how many poor people have I made
miserable? How many desperate wretches have I sent to the devil?” He
had told me at Chester he was ruined by that match, and that his
fortunes were made desperate on my account; for that thinking I had
been a fortune, he was run into debt more than he was able to pay, and
that he knew not what course to take; that he would go into the army
and carry a musket, or buy a horse and take a tour, as he called it;
and though I never told him that I was a fortune, and so did not
actually deceive him myself, yet I did encourage the having it thought
that I was so, and by that means I was the occasion originally of his
mischief.
The surprise of the thing only struck deeper into my thoughts, and gave
me stronger reflections than all that had befallen me before. I grieved
day and night for him, and the more for that they told me he was the
captain of the gang, and that he had committed so many robberies, that
Hind, or Whitney, or the Golden Farmer were fools to him; that he would
surely be hanged if there were no more men left in the country he was
born in; and that there would abundance of people come in against him.
I was overwhelmed with grief for him; my own case gave me no
disturbance compared to this, and I loaded myself with reproaches on
his account. I bewailed his misfortunes, and the ruin he was now come
to, at such a rate, that I relished nothing now as I did before, and
the first reflections I made upon the horrid, detestable life I had
lived began to return upon me, and as these things returned, my
abhorrence of the place I was in, and of the way of living in it,
returned also; in a word, I was perfectly changed, and become another
body.
While I was under these influences of sorrow for him, came notice to me
that the next sessions approaching there would be a bill preferred to
the grand jury against me, and that I should be certainly tried for my
life at the Old Bailey. My temper was touched before, the hardened,
wretched boldness of spirit which I had acquired abated, and conscious
in the prison, guilt began to flow in upon my mind. In short, I began
to think, and to think is one real advance from hell to heaven. All
that hellish, hardened state and temper of soul, which I have said so
much of before, is but a deprivation of thought; he that is restored to
his power of thinking, is restored to himself.
As soon as I began, I say, to think, the first thing that occurred to
me broke out thus: “Lord! what will become of me? I shall certainly
die! I shall be cast, to be sure, and there is nothing beyond that but
death! I have no friends; what shall I do? I shall be certainly cast!
Lord, have mercy upon me! What will become of me?” This was a sad
thought, you will say, to be the first, after so long a time, that had
started into my soul of that kind, and yet even this was nothing but
fright at what was to come; there was not a word of sincere repentance
in it all. However, I was indeed dreadfully dejected, and disconsolate
to the last degree; and as I had no friend in the world to communicate
my distressed thoughts to, it lay so heavy upon me, that it threw me
into fits and swoonings several times a day. I sent for my old
governess, and she, give her her due, acted the part of a true friend.
She left no stone unturned to prevent the grand jury finding the bill.
She sought out one or two of the jurymen, talked with them, and
endeavoured to possess them with favourable dispositions, on account
that nothing was taken away, and no house broken, etc.; but all would
not do, they were over-ruled by the rest; the two wenches swore home to
the fact, and the jury found the bill against me for robbery and
house-breaking, that is, for felony and burglary.