again, I thought I should have died with the weight of it. My governess
acted a true mother to me; she pitied me, she cried with me, and for
me, but she could not help me; and to add to the terror of it, ’twas
the discourse all over the house that I should die for it. I could hear
them talk it among themselves very often, and see them shake their
heads and say they were sorry for it, and the like, as is usual in the
place. But still nobody came to tell me their thoughts, till at last
one of the keepers came to me privately, and said with a sigh, “Well,
Mrs. Flanders, you will be tried on Friday” (.);
“what do you intend to do?” I turned as white as a clout, and said,
“God knows what I shall do; for my part, I know not what to do.” “Why,”
says he, “I won’t flatter you, I would have you prepare for death, for
I doubt you will be cast; and as they say you are an old offender, I
doubt you will find but little mercy. They say,” added he, “your case
is very plain, and that the witnesses swear so home against you, there
will be no standing it.”
This was a stab into the very vitals of one under such a burthen as I
was oppressed with before, and I could not speak to him a word, good or
bad, for a great while; but at last I burst out into tears, and said to
him, “Lord! Mr. ——, what must I do?” “Do!” says he, “send for the
ordinary; send for a minister and talk with him; for, indeed, Mrs.
Flanders, unless you have very good friends, you are no woman for this
world.”
This was plain dealing indeed, but it was very harsh to me, at least I
thought it so. He left me in the greatest confusion imaginable, and all
that night I lay awake. And now I began to say my prayers, which I had
scarce done before since my last husband’s death, or from a little
while after. And truly I may well call it saying my prayers, for I was
in such a confusion, and had such horror upon my mind, that though I
cried, and repeated several times the ordinary expression of “Lord,
have mercy upon me!” I never brought myself to any sense of my being a
miserable sinner, as indeed I was, and of confessing my sins to God,
and begging pardon for the sake of Jesus Christ. I was overwhelmed with
the sense of my condition, being tried for my life, and being sure to
be condemned, and then I was as sure to be executed, and on this
account I cried out all night, “Lord, what will become of me? Lord!
what shall I do? Lord! I shall be hanged! Lord, have mercy upon me!”
and the like.
My poor afflicted governess was now as much concerned as I, and a great
deal more truly penitent, though she had no prospect of being brought
to trial and sentence. Not but that she deserved it as much as I, and
so she said herself; but she had not done anything herself for many
years, other than receiving what I and others stole, and encouraging us
to steal it. But she cried, and took on like a distracted body,
wringing her hands, and crying out that she was undone, that she
believed there was a curse from heaven upon her, that she should be
damned, that she had been the destruction of all her friends, that she
had brought such a one, and such a one, and such a one to the gallows;
and there she reckoned up ten or eleven people, some of which I have
given account of, that came to untimely ends; and that now she was the
occasion of my ruin, for she had persuaded me to go on, when I would
have left off. I interrupted her there. “No, mother, no,” said I,
“don’t speak of that, for you would have had me left off when I got the
mercer’s money again, and when I came home from Harwich, and I would
not hearken to you; therefore you have not been to blame; it is I only
have ruined myself, I have brought myself to this misery”; and thus we
spent many hours together.
Well, there was no remedy; the prosecution went on, and on the Thursday
I was carried down to the sessions-house, where I was arraigned, as
they called it, and the next day I was appointed to be tried. At the
arraignment I pleaded “Not guilty,” and well I might, for I was
indicted for felony and burglary; that is, for feloniously stealing two
pieces of brocaded silk, value £46, the goods of Anthony Johnson, and
for breaking open his doors; whereas I knew very well they could not
pretend to prove I had broken up the doors, or so much as lifted up a
latch.
On the Friday I was brought to my trial. I had exhausted my spirits
with crying for two or three days before, so that I slept better the
Thursday night than I expected, and had more courage for my trial than
indeed I thought possible for me to have.
When the trial began, the indictment was read, I would have spoke, but
they told me the witnesses must be heard first, and then I should have
time to be heard. The witnesses were the two wenches, a couple of
hard-mouthed jades indeed, for though the thing was truth in the main,
yet they aggravated it to the utmost extremity, and swore I had the
goods wholly in my possession, that I had hid them among my clothes,
that I was going off with them, that I had one foot over the threshold
when they discovered themselves, and then I put t’ other over, so that
I was quite out of the house in the street with the goods before they
took hold of me, and then they seized me, and brought me back again,
and they took the goods upon me. The fact in general was all true, but
I believe, and insisted upon it, that they stopped me before I had set
my foot clear of the threshold of the house. But that did not argue
much, for certain it was that I had taken the goods, and I was bringing
them away, if I had not been taken.
But I pleaded that I had stole nothing, they had lost nothing, that the
door was open, and I went in, seeing the goods lie there, and with
design to buy. If, seeing nobody in the house, I had taken any of them
up in my hand it could not be concluded that I intended to steal them,
for that I never carried them farther than the door to look on them
with the better light.
The Court would not allow that by any means, and made a kind of a jest
of my intending to buy the goods, that being no shop for the selling of
anything, and as to carrying them to the door to look at them, the
maids made their impudent mocks upon that, and spent their wit upon it
very much; told the Court I had looked at them sufficiently, and
approved them very well, for I had packed them up under my clothes, and
was a-going with them.
In short, I was found guilty of felony, but acquitted of the burglary,
which was but small comfort to me, the first bringing me to a sentence
of death, and the last would have done no more. The next day I was
carried down to receive the dreadful sentence, and when they came to
ask me what I had to say why sentence should not pass, I stood mute a
while, but somebody that stood behind me prompted me aloud to speak to
the judges, for that they could represent things favourably for me.
This encouraged me to speak, and I told them I had nothing to say to
stop the sentence, but that I had much to say to bespeak the mercy of
the Court; that I hoped they would allow something in such a case for
the circumstances of it; that I had broken no doors, had carried
nothing off; that nobody had lost anything; that the person whose goods
they were was pleased to say he desired mercy might be shown (which
indeed he very honestly did); that, at the worst, it was the first
offence, and that I had never been before any court of justice before;
and, in a word, I spoke with more courage that I thought I could have
done, and in such a moving tone, and though with tears, yet not so many
tears as to obstruct my speech, that I could see it moved others to
tears that heard me.
The judges sat grave and mute, gave me an easy hearing, and time to say
all that I would, but, saying neither Yes nor No to it, pronounced the
sentence of death upon me, a sentence that was to me like death itself,
which, after it was read, confounded me. I had no more spirit left in
me, I had no tongue to speak, or eyes to look up either to God or man.
My poor governess was utterly disconsolate, and she that was my
comforter before, wanted comfort now herself; and sometimes mourning,
sometimes raging, was as much out of herself, as to all outward
appearance, as any mad woman in Bedlam. Nor was she only disconsolate
as to me, but she was struck with horror at the sense of her own wicked
life, and began to look back upon it with a taste quite different from
mine, for she was penitent to the highest degree for her sins, as well
as sorrowful for the misfortune. She sent for a minister, too, a
serious, pious, good man, and applied herself with such earnestness, by
his assistance, to the work of a sincere repentance, that I believe,
and so did the minister too, that she was a true penitent; and, which
is still more, she was not only so for the occasion, and at that
juncture, but she continued so, as I was informed, to the day of her
death.
It is rather to be thought of than expressed what was now my condition.
I had nothing before me but present death; and as I had no friends to
assist me, or to stir for me, I expected nothing but to find my name in
the dead warrant, which was to come down for the execution, the Friday
afterwards, of five more and myself.
In the meantime my poor distressed governess sent me a minister, who at
her request first, and at my own afterwards, came to visit me. He
exhorted me seriously to repent of all my sins, and to dally no longer
with my soul; not flattering myself with hopes of life, which, he said,
he was informed there was no room to expect, but unfeignedly to look up
to God with my whole soul, and to cry for pardon in the name of Jesus
Christ. He backed his discourses with proper quotations of Scripture,
encouraging the greatest sinner to repent, and turn from their evil
way, and when he had done, he kneeled down and prayed with me.
It was now that, for the first time, I felt any real signs of
repentance. I now began to look back upon my past life with abhorrence,
and having a kind of view into the other side of time, and things of
life, as I believe they do with everybody at such a time, began to look
with a different aspect, and quite another shape, than they did before.
The greatest and best things, the views of felicity, the joy, the
griefs of life, were quite other things; and I had nothing in my
thoughts but what was so infinitely superior to what I had known in
life, that it appeared to me to be the greatest stupidity in nature to
lay any weight upon anything, though the most valuable in this world.
The word eternity represented itself with all its incomprehensible
additions, and I had such extended notions of it, that I know not how
to express them. Among the rest, how vile, how gross, how absurd did
every pleasant thing look!—I mean, that we had counted pleasant
before—especially when I reflected that these sordid trifles were the
things for which we forfeited eternal felicity.
With these reflections came, of mere course, severe reproaches of my
own mind for my wretched behaviour in my past life; that I had
forfeited all hope of any happiness in the eternity that I was just
going to enter into, and on the contrary was entitled to all that was
miserable, or had been conceived of misery; and all this with the
frightful addition of its being also eternal.
I am not capable of reading lectures of instruction to anybody, but I
relate this in the very manner in which things then appeared to me, as
far as I am able, but infinitely short of the lively impressions which
they made on my soul at that time; indeed, those impressions are not to
be explained by words, or if they are, I am not mistress of words
enough to express them. It must be the work of every sober reader to
make just reflections on them, as their own circumstances may direct;
and, without question, this is what every one at some time or other may
feel something of; I mean, a clearer sight into things to come than
they had here, and a dark view of their own concern in them.
But I go back to my own case. The minister pressed me to tell him, as
far as I thought convenient, in what state I found myself as to the
sight I had of things beyond life. He told me he did not come as
ordinary of the place, whose business it is to extort confessions from
prisoners, for private ends, or for the further detecting of other
offenders; that his business was to move me to such freedom of
discourse as might serve to disburthen my own mind, and furnish him to
administer comfort to me as far as was in his power; and assured me,
that whatever I said to him should remain with him, and be as much a
secret as if it was known only to God and myself; and that he desired
to know nothing of me, but as above to qualify him to apply proper
advice and assistance to me, and to pray to God for me.
This honest, friendly way of treating me unlocked all the sluices of my
passions. He broke into my very soul by it; and I unravelled all the
wickedness of my life to him. In a word, I gave him an abridgment of
this whole history; I gave him a picture of my conduct for fifty years
in miniature.
I hid nothing from him, and he in return exhorted me to sincere
repentance, explained to me what he meant by repentance, and then drew
out such a scheme of infinite mercy, proclaimed from heaven to sinners
of the greatest magnitude, that he left me nothing to say, that looked
like despair, or doubting of being accepted; and in this condition he
left me the first night.
He visited me again the next morning, and went on with his method of
explaining the terms of divine mercy, which according to him consisted
of nothing more, or more difficult, than that of being sincerely
desirous of it, and willing to accept it; only a sincere regret for,
and hatred of, those things I had done, which rendered me so just an
object of divine vengeance. I am not able to repeat the excellent
discourses of this extraordinary man; ’tis all that I am able to do, to
say that he revived my heart, and brought me into such a condition that
I never knew anything of in my life before. I was covered with shame
and tears for things past, and yet had at the same time a secret
surprising joy at the prospect of being a true penitent, and obtaining
the comfort of a penitent—I mean, the hope of being forgiven; and so
swift did thoughts circulate, and so high did the impressions they had
made upon me run, that I thought I could freely have gone out that
minute to execution, without any uneasiness at all, casting my soul
entirely into the arms of infinite mercy as a penitent.
The good gentleman was so moved also in my behalf with a view of the
influence which he saw these things had on me, that he blessed God he
had come to visit me, and resolved not to leave me till the last
moment; that is, not to leave visiting me.
It was no less than twelve days after our receiving sentence before any
were ordered for execution, and then upon a Wednesday the dead warrant,
as they call it, came down, and I found my name was among them. A
terrible blow this was to my new resolutions; indeed my heart sank
within me, and I swooned away twice, one after another, but spoke not a
word. The good minister was sorely afflicted for me, and did what he
could to comfort me with the same arguments, and the same moving
eloquence that he did before, and left me not that evening so long as
the prisonkeepers would suffer him to stay in the prison, unless he
would be locked up with me all night, which he was not willing to be.
I wondered much that I did not see him all the next day, it being the
day before the time appointed for execution; and I was greatly
discouraged, and dejected in my mind, and indeed almost sank for want
of the comfort which he had so often, and with such success, yielded me
on his former visits. I waited with great impatience, and under the
greatest oppressions of spirits imaginable, till about four o’clock he
came to my apartment; for I had obtained the favour, by the help of
money, nothing being to be done in that place without it, not to be
kept in the condemned hole, as they call it, among the rest of the
prisoners who were to die, but to have a little dirty chamber to
myself.
My heart leaped within me for joy when I heard his voice at the door,
even before I saw him; but let any one judge what kind of motion I
found in my soul, when after having made a short excuse for his not
coming, he showed me that his time had been employed on my account;
that he had obtained a favourable report from the Recorder to the
Secretary of State in my particular case, and, in short, that he had
brought me a reprieve.
He used all the caution that he was able in letting me know a thing
which it would have been a double cruelty to have concealed; and yet it
was too much for me; for as grief had overset me before, so did joy
overset me now, and I fell into a much more dangerous swooning than I
did at first, and it was not without a great difficulty that I was
recovered at all.
The good man having made a very Christian exhortation to me, not to let
the joy of my reprieve put the remembrance of my past sorrow out of my
mind, and having told me that he must leave me, to go and enter the
reprieve in the books, and show it to the sheriffs, stood up just
before his going away, and in a very earnest manner prayed to God for
me, that my repentance might be made unfeigned and sincere; and that my
coming back, as it were, into life again, might not be a returning to
the follies of life which I had made such solemn resolutions to
forsake, and to repent of them. I joined heartily in the petition, and
must needs say I had deeper impressions upon my mind all that night, of
the mercy of God in sparing my life, and a greater detestation of my
past sins, from a sense of the goodness which I had tasted in this
case, than I had in all my sorrow before.
This may be thought inconsistent in itself, and wide from the business
of this book; particularly, I reflect that many of those who may be
pleased and diverted with the relation of the wild and wicked part of
my story may not relish this, which is really the best part of my life,
the most advantageous to myself, and the most instructive to others.
Such, however, will, I hope, allow me the liberty to make my story
complete. It would be a severe satire on such to say they do not relish
the repentance as much as they do the crime; and that they had rather
the history were a complete tragedy, as it was very likely to have
been.
But I go on with my relation. The next morning there was a sad scene
indeed in the prison. The first thing I was saluted with in the morning
was the tolling of the great bell at St. Sepulchre’s, as they call it,
which ushered in the day. As soon as it began to toll, a dismal
groaning and crying was heard from the condemned hole, where there lay
six poor souls who were to be executed that day, some from one crime,
some for another, and two of them for murder.
This was followed by a confused clamour in the house, among the several
sorts of prisoners, expressing their awkward sorrows for the poor
creatures that were to die, but in a manner extremely differing one
from another. Some cried for them; some huzzaed, and wished them a good
journey; some damned and cursed those that had brought them to it—that
is, meaning the evidence, or prosecutors—many pitying them, and some
few, but very few, praying for them.
There was hardly room for so much composure of mind as was required for
me to bless the merciful Providence that had, as it were, snatched me
out of the jaws of this destruction. I remained, as it were, dumb and
silent, overcome with the sense of it, and not able to express what I
had in my heart; for the passions on such occasions as these are
certainly so agitated as not to be able presently to regulate their own
motions.
All the while the poor condemned creatures were preparing to their
death, and the ordinary, as they call him, was busy with them,
disposing them to submit to their sentence—I say, all this while I was
seized with a fit of trembling, as much as I could have been if I had
been in the same condition, as to be sure the day before I expected to
be; I was so violently agitated by this surprising fit, that I shook as
if it had been in the cold fit of an ague, so that I could not speak or
look but like one distracted. As soon as they were all put into carts
and gone, which, however, I had not courage enough to see—I say, as
soon as they were gone, I fell into a fit of crying involuntarily, and
without design, but as a mere distemper, and yet so violent, and it
held me so long, that I knew not what course to take, nor could I stop,
or put a check to it, no, not with all the strength and courage I had.
This fit of crying held me near two hours, and, as I believe, held me
till they were all out of the world, and then a most humble, penitent,
serious kind of joy succeeded; a real transport it was, or passion of
joy and thankfulness, but still unable to give vent to it by words, and
in this I continued most part of the day.
In the evening the good minister visited me again, and then fell to his
usual good discourses. He congratulated my having a space yet allowed
me for repentance, whereas the state of those six poor creatures was
determined, and they were now past the offers of salvation; he
earnestly pressed me to retain the same sentiments of the things of
life that I had when I had a view of eternity; and at the end of all
told me I should not conclude that all was over, that a reprieve was
not a pardon, that he could not yet answer for the effects of it;
however, I had this mercy, that I had more time given me, and that it
was my business to improve that time.
This discourse, though very seasonable, left a kind of sadness on my
heart, as if I might expect the affair would have a tragical issue
still, which, however, he had no certainty of; and I did not indeed, at
that time, question him about it, he having said that he would do his
utmost to bring it to a good end, and that he hoped he might, but he
would not have me be secure; and the consequence proved that he had
reason for what he said.
It was about a fortnight after this that I had some just apprehensions
that I should be included in the next dead warrant at the ensuing
sessions; and it was not without great difficulty, and at last a humble
petition for transportation, that I avoided it, so ill was I beholding
to fame, and so prevailing was the fatal report of being an old
offender; though in that they did not do me strict justice, for I was
not in the sense of the law an old offender, whatever I was in the eye
of the judge, for I had never been before them in a judicial way
before; so the judges could not charge me with being an old offender,
but the Recorder was pleased to represent my case as he thought fit.
I had now a certainty of life indeed, but with the hard conditions of
being ordered for transportation, which indeed was hard condition in
itself, but not when comparatively considered; and therefore I shall
make no comments upon the sentence, nor upon the choice I was put to.
We shall all choose anything rather than death, especially when ’tis
attended with an uncomfortable prospect beyond it, which was my case.
The good minister, whose interest, though a stranger to me, had
obtained me the reprieve, mourned sincerely for this part. He was in
hopes, he said, that I should have ended my days under the influence of
good instruction, that I should not have been turned loose again among
such a wretched crew as they generally are, who are thus sent abroad,
where, as he said, I must have more than ordinary secret assistance
from the grace of God, if I did not turn as wicked again as ever.
I have not for a good while mentioned my governess, who had during
most, if not all, of this part been dangerously sick, and being in as
near a view of death by her disease as I was by my sentence, was a
great penitent—I say, I have not mentioned her, nor indeed did I see
her in all this time; but being now recovering, and just able to come
abroad, she came to see me.
I told her my condition, and what a different flux and reflux of tears
and hopes I had been agitated with; I told her what I had escaped, and
upon what terms; and she was present when the minister expressed his
fears of my relapsing into wickedness upon my falling into the wretched
companies that are generally transported. Indeed I had a melancholy
reflection upon it in my own mind, for I knew what a dreadful gang was
always sent away together, and I said to my governess that the good
minister’s fears were not without cause. “Well, well,” says she, “but I
hope you will not be tempted with such a horrid example as that.” And
as soon as the minister was gone, she told me she would not have me
discouraged, for perhaps ways and means might be found out to dispose
of me in a particular way, by myself, of which she would talk further
to me afterward.
I looked earnestly at her, and I thought she looked more cheerful than
she usually had done, and I entertained immediately a thousand notions
of being delivered, but could not for my life image the methods, or
think of one that was in the least feasible; but I was too much
concerned in it to let her go from me without explaining herself,
which, though she was very loth to do, yet my importunity prevailed,
and, while I was still pressing, she answered me in a few words, thus:
“Why, you have money, have you not? Did you ever know one in your life
that was transported and had a hundred pounds in his pocket, I’ll
warrant you, child?” says she.
I understood her presently, but told her I would leave all that to her,
but I saw no room to hope for anything but a strict execution of the
order, and as it was a severity that was esteemed a mercy, there was no
doubt but it would be strictly observed. She said no more but this: “We
will try what can be done,” and so we parted for that night.
I lay in the prison near fifteen weeks after this order for
transportation was signed. What the reason of it was, I know not, but
at the end of this time I was put on board of a ship in the Thames, and
with me a gang of thirteen as hardened vile creatures as ever Newgate
produced in my time; and it would really well take up a history longer
than mine to describe the degrees of impudence and audacious villainy
that those thirteen were arrived to, and the manner of their behaviour
in the voyage; of which I have a very diverting account by me, which
the captain of the ship who carried them over gave me the minutes of,
and which he caused his mate to write down at large.
It may perhaps be thought trifling to enter here into a relation of all
the little incidents which attended me in this interval of my
circumstances; I mean, between the final order of my transportation and
the time of my going on board the ship; and I am too near the end of my
story to allow room for it; but something relating to me and my
Lancashire husband I must not omit.
He had, as I have observed already, been carried from the master’s side
of the ordinary prison into the press-yard, with three of his comrades,
for they found another to add to them after some time; here, for what
reason I knew not, they were kept in custody without being brought to
trial almost three months. It seems they found means to bribe or buy
off some of those who were expected to come in against them, and they
wanted evidence for some time to convict them. After some puzzle on
this account, at first they made a shift to get proof enough against
two of them to carry them off; but the other two, of which my
Lancashire husband was one, lay still in suspense. They had, I think,
one positive evidence against each of them, but the law strictly
obliging them to have two witnesses, they could make nothing of it. Yet
it seems they were resolved not to part with the men neither, not
doubting but a further evidence would at last come in; and in order to
this, I think publication was made, that such prisoners being taken,
any one that had been robbed by them might come to the prison and see
them.
I took this opportunity to satisfy my curiosity, pretending that I had
been robbed in the Dunstable coach, and that I would go to see the two
highwaymen. But when I came into the press-yard, I so disguised myself,
and muffled my face up so, that he could see little of me, and
consequently knew nothing of who I was; and when I came back, I said
publicly that I knew them very well.
Immediately it was rumoured all over the prison that Moll Flanders
would turn evidence against one of the highwaymen, and that I was to
come off by it from the sentence of transportation.
They heard of it, and immediately my husband desired to see this Mrs.
Flanders that knew him so well, and was to be an evidence against him;
and accordingly I had leave given to go to him. I dressed myself up as
well as the best clothes that I suffered myself ever to appear in there
would allow me, and went to the press-yard, but had for some time a
hood over my face. He said little to me at first, but asked me if I
knew him. I told him, Yes, very well; but as I concealed my face, so I
counterfeited my voice, that he had not the least guess at who I was.
He asked me where I had seen him. I told him between Dunstable and
Brickhill; but turning to the keeper that stood by, I asked if I might
not be admitted to talk with him alone. He said Yes, yes, as much as I
pleased, and so very civilly withdrew.
As soon as he was gone, I had shut the door, I threw off my hood, and
bursting out into tears, “My dear,” says I, “do you not know me?” He
turned pale, and stood speechless, like one thunderstruck, and, not
able to conquer the surprise, said no more but this, “Let me sit down”;
and sitting down by a table, he laid his elbow upon the table, and
leaning his head on his hand, fixed his eyes on the ground as one
stupid. I cried so vehemently, on the other hand, that it was a good
while ere I could speak any more; but after I had given some vent to my
passion by tears, I repeated the same words, “My dear, do you not know
me?” At which he answered, Yes, and said no more a good while.
After some time continuing in the surprise, as above, he cast up his
eyes towards me and said, “How could you be so cruel?” I did not
readily understand what he meant; and I answered, “How can you call me
cruel? What have I been cruel to you in?” “To come to me,” says he, “in
such a place as this, is it not to insult me? I have not robbed you, at
least not on the highway.”
I perceived by this that he knew nothing of the miserable circumstances
I was in, and thought that, having got some intelligence of his being
there, I had come to upbraid him with his leaving me. But I had too
much to say to him to be affronted, and told him in few words, that I
was far from coming to insult him, but at best I came to condole
mutually; that he would be easily satisfied that I had no such view,
when I should tell him that my condition was worse than his, and that
many ways. He looked a little concerned at the general expression of my
condition being worse than his, but, with a kind smile, looked a little
wildly, and said, “How can that be? When you see me fettered, and in
Newgate, and two of my companions executed already, how can your your
condition be worse than mine?”
“Come, my dear,” says I, “we have a long piece of work to do, if I
should be to relate, or you to hear, my unfortunate history; but if you
are disposed to hear it, you will soon conclude with me that my
condition is worse than yours.” “How is that possible,” says he again,
“when I expect to be cast for my life the very next sessions?” “Yes,”
says I, “’tis very possible, when I shall tell you that I have been
cast for my life three sessions ago, and am under sentence of death; is
not my case worse than yours?”
Then indeed, he stood silent again, like one struck dumb, and after a
while he starts up. “Unhappy couple!” says he. “How can this be
possible?” I took him by the hand. “Come, my dear,” said I, “sit down,
and let us compare our sorrows. I am a prisoner in this very house, and
in much worse circumstances than you, and you will be satisfied I do
not come to insult you, when I tell you the particulars.” And with this
we sat down together, and I told him so much of my story as I thought
was convenient, bringing it at last to my being reduced to great
poverty, and representing myself as fallen into some company that led
me to relieve my distresses by way that I had been utterly unacquainted
with, and that they making an attempt at a tradesman’s house, I was
seized upon for having been but just at the door, the maid-servant
pulling me in; that I neither had broke any lock nor taken anything
away, and that notwithstanding that, I was brought in guilty and
sentenced to die; but that the judges, having been made sensible of the
hardship of my circumstances, had obtained leave to remit the sentence
upon my consenting to be transported.
I told him I fared the worse for being taken in the prison for one Moll
Flanders, who was a famous successful thief, that all of them had heard
of, but none of them had ever seen; but that, as he knew well, was none
of my name. But I placed all to the account of my ill fortune, and that
under this name I was dealt with as an old offender, though this was
the first thing they had ever known of me. I gave him a long particular
of things that had befallen me since I saw him, but I told him if I had
seen him since he might think I had, and then gave him an account how I
had seen him at Brickhill; how furiously he was pursued, and how, by
giving an account that I knew him, and that he was a very honest
gentleman, one Mr. ——, the hue-and-cry was stopped, and the high
constable went back again.
He listened most attentively to all my story, and smiled at most of the
particulars, being all of them petty matters, and infinitely below what
he had been at the head of; but when I came to the story of Brickhill,
he was surprised. “And was it you, my dear,” said he, “that gave the
check to the mob that was at our heels there, at Brickhill?” “Yes,”
said I, “it was I indeed.” And then I told him the particulars which I
had observed him there. “Why, then,” said he, “it was you that saved my
life at that time, and I am glad I owe my life to you, for I will pay
the debt to you now, and I’ll deliver you from the present condition
you are in, or I will die in the attempt.”
I told him, by no means; it was a risk too great, not worth his running
the hazard of, and for a life not worth his saving. ’Twas no matter for
that, he said, it was a life worth all the world to him; a life that
had given him a new life; “for,” says he, “I was never in real danger
of being taken, but that time, till the last minute when I was taken.”
Indeed, he told me his danger then lay in his believing he had not been
pursued that way; for they had gone off from Hockey quite another way,
and had come over the enclosed country into Brickhill, not by the road,
and were sure they had not been seen by anybody.
Here he gave me a long history of his life, which indeed would make a
very strange history, and be infinitely diverting. He told me he took
to the road about twelve years before he married me; that the woman
which called him brother was not really his sister, or any kin to him,
but one that belonged to their gang, and who, keeping correspondence
with him, lived always in town, having good store of acquaintance; that
she gave them a perfect intelligence of persons going out of town, and
that they had made several good booties by her correspondence; that she
thought she had fixed a fortune for him when she brought me to him, but
happened to be disappointed, which he really could not blame her for;
that if it had been his good luck that I had had the estate, which she
was informed I had, he had resolved to leave off the road and live a
retired, sober life but never to appear in public till some general
pardon had been passed, or till he could, for money, have got his name
into some particular pardon, that so he might have been perfectly easy;
but that, as it had proved otherwise, he was obliged to put off his
equipage and take up the old trade again.
He gave me a long account of some of his adventures, and particularly
one when he robbed the West Chester coaches near Lichfield, when he got
a very great booty; and after that, how he robbed five graziers, in the
west, going to Burford Fair in Wiltshire to buy sheep. He told me he
got so much money on those two occasions, that if he had known where to
have found me, he would certainly have embraced my proposal of going
with me to Virginia, or to have settled in a plantation on some other
parts of the English colonies in America.
He told me he wrote two or three letters to me, directed according to
my order, but heard nothing from me. This I indeed knew to be true, but
the letters coming to my hand in the time of my latter husband, I could
do nothing in it, and therefore chose to give no answer, that so he
might rather believe they had miscarried.
Being thus disappointed, he said, he carried on the old trade ever
since, though when he had gotten so much money, he said, he did not run
such desperate risks as he did before. Then he gave me some account of
several hard and desperate encounters which he had with gentlemen on
the road, who parted too hardly with their money, and showed me some
wounds he had received; and he had one or two very terrible wounds
indeed, as particularly one by a pistol bullet, which broke his arm,
and another with a sword, which ran him quite through the body, but
that missing his vitals, he was cured again; one of his comrades having
kept with him so faithfully, and so friendly, as that he assisted him
in riding near eighty miles before his arm was set, and then got a
surgeon in a considerable city, remote from that place where it was
done, pretending they were gentlemen travelling towards Carlisle and
that they had been attacked on the road by highwaymen, and that one of
them had shot him into the arm and broke the bone.
This, he said, his friend managed so well, that they were not suspected
at all, but lay still till he was perfectly cured. He gave me so many
distinct accounts of his adventures, that it is with great reluctance
that I decline the relating them; but I consider that this is my own
story, not his.
I then inquired into the circumstances of his present case at that
time, and what it was he expected when he came to be tried. He told me
that they had no evidence against him, or but very little; for that of
three robberies, which they were all charged with, it was his good
fortune that he was but in one of them, and that there was but one
witness to be had for that fact, which was not sufficient, but that it
was expected some others would come in against him; that he thought
indeed, when he first saw me, that I had been one that came of that
errand; but that if somebody came in against him, he hoped he should be
cleared; that he had had some intimation, that if he would submit to
transport himself, he might be admitted to it without a trial, but that
he could not think of it with any temper, and thought he could much
easier submit to be hanged.
I blamed him for that, and told him I blamed him on two accounts;
first, because if he was transported, there might be a hundred ways for
him that was a gentleman, and a bold enterprising man, to find his way
back again, and perhaps some ways and means to come back before he
went. He smiled at that part, and said he should like the last the best
of the two, for he had a kind of horror upon his mind at his being sent
over to the plantations, as Romans sent condemned slaves to work in the
mines; that he thought the passage into another state, let it be what
it would, much more tolerable at the gallows, and that this was the
general notion of all the gentlemen who were driven by the exigence of
their fortunes to take the road; that at the place of execution there
was at least an end of all the miseries of the present state, and as
for what was to follow, a man was, in his opinion, as likely to repent
sincerely in the last fortnight of his life, under the pressures and
agonies of a jail and the condemned hole, as he would ever be in the
woods and wilderness of America; that servitude and hard labour were
things gentlemen could never stoop to; that it was but the way to force
them to be their own executioners afterwards, which was much worse; and
that therefore he could not have any patience when he did but think of
being transported.
I used the utmost of my endeavour to persuade him, and joined that
known woman’s rhetoric to it—I mean, that of tears. I told him the
infamy of a public execution was certainly a greater pressure upon the
spirits of a gentleman than any of the mortifications that he could
meet with abroad could be; that he had at least in the other a chance
for his life, whereas here he had none at all; that it was the easiest
thing in the world for him to manage the captain of a ship, who were,
generally speaking, men of good-humour and some gallantry; and a small
matter of conduct, especially if there was any money to be had, would
make way for him to buy himself off when he came to Virginia.
He looked wistfully at me, and I thought I guessed at what he meant,
that is to say, that he had no money; but I was mistaken, his meaning
was another way. “You hinted just now, my dear,” said he, “that there
might be a way of coming back before I went, by which I understood you
that it might be possible to buy it off here. I had rather give £200 to
prevent going, than £100 to be set at liberty when I came there.” “That
is, my dear,” said I, “because you do not know the place so well as I
do.” “That may be,” said he; “and yet I believe, as well as you know
it, you would do the same, unless it is because, as you told me, you
have a mother there.”
I told him, as to my mother, it was next to impossible but that she
must be dead many years before; and as for any other relations that I
might have there, I knew them not now; that since the misfortunes I had
been under had reduced me to the condition I had been in for some
years, I had not kept up any correspondence with them; and that he
would easily believe, I should find but a cold reception from them if I
should be put to make my first visit in the condition of a transported
felon; that therefore, if I went thither, I resolved not to see them;
but that I had many views in going there, if it should be my fate,
which took off all the uneasy part of it; and if he found himself
obliged to go also, I should easily instruct him how to manage himself,
so as never to go a servant at all, especially since I found he was not
destitute of money, which was the only friend in such a condition.
He smiled, and said he did not tell me he had money. I took him up
short, and told him I hoped he did not understand by my speaking, that
I should expect any supply from him if he had money; that, on the other
hand, though I had not a great deal, yet I did not want, and while I
had any I would rather add to him than weaken him in that article,
seeing, whatever he had, I knew in the case of transportation he would
have occasion of it all.
He expressed himself in a most tender manner upon that head. He told me
what money he had was not a great deal, but that he would never hide
any of it from me if I wanted it, and that he assured me he did not
speak with any such apprehensions; that he was only intent upon what I
had hinted to him before he went; that here he knew what to do with
himself, but that there he should be the most ignorant, helpless wretch
alive.
I told him he frighted and terrified himself with that which had no
terror in it; that if he had money, as I was glad to hear he had, he
might not only avoid the servitude supposed to be the consequence of
transportation, but begin the world upon a new foundation, and that
such a one as he could not fail of success in, with the common
application usual in such cases; that he could not but call to mind
that it was what I had recommended to him many years before and had
proposed it for our mutual subsistence and restoring our fortunes in
the world; and I would tell him now, that to convince him both of the
certainty of it and of my being fully acquainted with the method, and
also fully satisfied in the probability of success, he should first see
me deliver myself from the necessity of going over at all, and then
that I would go with him freely, and of my own choice, and perhaps
carry enough with me to satisfy him that I did not offer it for want of
being able to live without assistance from him, but that I thought our
mutual misfortunes had been such as were sufficient to reconcile us
both to quitting this part of the world, and living where nobody could
upbraid us with what was past, or we be in any dread of a prison, and
without agonies of a condemned hole to drive us to it; this where we
should look back on all our past disasters with infinite satisfaction,
when we should consider that our enemies should entirely forget us, and
that we should live as new people in a new world, nobody having
anything to say to us, or we to them.
I pressed this home to him with so many arguments, and answered all his
own passionate objections so effectually that he embraced me, and told
me I treated him with such sincerity and affection as overcame him;
that he would take my advice, and would strive to submit to his fate in
hope of having the comfort of my assistance, and of so faithful a
counsellor and such a companion in his misery. But still he put me in
mind of what I had mentioned before, namely, that there might be some
way to get off before he went, and that it might be possible to avoid
going at all, which he said would be much better. I told him he should
see, and be fully satisfied, that I would do my utmost in that part
too, and if it did not succeed, yet that I would make good the rest.
We parted after this long conference with such testimonies of kindness
and affection as I thought were equal, if not superior, to that at our
parting at Dunstable; and now I saw more plainly than before, the
reason why he declined coming at that time any farther with me toward
London than Dunstable, and why, when we parted there, he told me it was
not convenient for him to come part of the way to London to bring me
going, as he would otherwise have done. I have observed that the
account of his life would have made a much more pleasing history than
this of mine; and, indeed, nothing in it was more strange than this
part, viz. that he carried on that desperate trade full five-and-twenty
years and had never been taken, the success he had met with had been so
very uncommon, and such that sometimes he had lived handsomely, and
retired in place for a year or two at a time, keeping himself and a
man-servant to wait on him, and had often sat in the coffee-houses and
heard the very people whom he had robbed give accounts of their being
robbed, and of the place and circumstances, so that he could easily
remember that it was the same.
In this manner, it seems, he lived near Liverpool at the time he
unluckily married me for a fortune. Had I been the fortune he expected,
I verily believe, as he said, that he would have taken up and lived
honestly all his days.
He had with the rest of his misfortunes the good luck not to be
actually upon the spot when the robbery was done which he was committed
for, and so none of the persons robbed could swear to him, or had
anything to charge upon him. But it seems as he was taken with the
gang, one hard-mouthed countryman swore home to him, and they were like
to have others come in according to the publication they had made; so
that they expected more evidence against him, and for that reason he
was kept in hold.
However, the offer which was made to him of admitting him to
transportation was made, as I understood, upon the intercession of some
great person who pressed him hard to accept of it before a trial; and
indeed, as he knew there were several that might come in against him, I
thought his friend was in the right, and I lay at him night and day to
delay it no longer.
At last, with much difficulty, he gave his consent; and as he was not
therefore admitted to transportation in court, and on his petition, as
I was, so he found himself under a difficulty to avoid embarking
himself as I had said he might have done; his great friend, who was his
intercessor for the favour of that grant, having given security for him
that he should transport himself, and not return within the term.
This hardship broke all my measures, for the steps I took afterwards
for my own deliverance were hereby rendered wholly ineffectual, unless
I would abandon him, and leave him to go to America by himself; than
which he protested he would much rather venture, although he were
certain to go directly to the gallows.
I must now return to my case. The time of my being transported
according to my sentence was near at hand; my governess, who continued
my fast friend, had tried to obtain a pardon, but it could not be done
unless with an expense too heavy for my purse, considering that to be
left naked and empty, unless I had resolved to return to my old trade
again, had been worse than my transportation, because there I knew I
could live, here I could not. The good minister stood very hard on
another account to prevent my being transported also; but he was
answered, that indeed my life had been given me at his first
solicitations, and therefore he ought to ask no more. He was sensibly
grieved at my going, because, as he said, he feared I should lose the
good impressions which a prospect of death had at first made on me, and
which were since increased by his instructions; and the pious gentleman
was exceedingly concerned about me on that account.
On the other hand, I really was not so solicitous about it as I was
before, but I industriously concealed my reasons for it from the
minister, and to the last he did not know but that I went with the
utmost reluctance and affliction.
It was in the month of February that I was, with seven other convicts,
as they called us, delivered to a merchant that traded to Virginia, on
board a ship, riding, as they called it, in Deptford Reach. The officer
of the prison delivered us on board, and the master of the vessel gave
a discharge for us.
We were for that night clapped under hatches, and kept so close that I
thought I should have been suffocated for want of air; and the next
morning the ship weighed, and fell down the river to a place they call
Bugby’s Hole, which was done, as they told us, by the agreement of the
merchant, that all opportunity of escape should be taken from us.
However, when the ship came thither and cast anchor, we were allowed
more liberty, and particularly were permitted to come up on the deck,
but not up on the quarter-deck, that being kept particularly for the
captain and for passengers.
When by the noise of the men over my head, and the motion of the ship,
I perceived that they were under sail, I was at first greatly
surprised, fearing we should go away directly, and that our friends
would not be admitted to see us any more; but I was easy soon after,
when I found they had come to an anchor again, and soon after that we
had notice given by some of the men where we were, that the next
morning we should have the liberty to come up on deck, and to have our
friends come and see us if we had any.
All that night I lay upon the hard boards of the deck, as the
passengers did, but we had afterwards the liberty of little cabins for
such of us as had any bedding to lay in them, and room to stow any box
or trunk for clothes and linen, if we had it (which might well be put
in), for some of them had neither shirt nor shift or a rag of linen or
woollen, but what was on their backs, or a farthing of money to help
themselves; and yet I did not find but they fared well enough in the
ship, especially the women, who got money from the seamen for washing
their clothes, sufficient to purchase any common things that they
wanted.
When the next morning we had the liberty to come up on the deck, I
asked one of the officers of the ship, whether I might not have the
liberty to send a letter on shore, to let my friends know where the
ship lay, and to get some necessary things sent to me. This was, it
seems, the boatswain, a very civil, courteous sort of man, who told me
I should have that, or any other liberty that I desired, that he could
allow me with safety. I told him I desired no other; and he answered
that the ship’s boat would go up to London the next tide, and he would
order my letter to be carried.
Accordingly, when the boat went off, the boatswain came to me and told
me the boat was going off, and that he went in it himself, and asked me
if my letter was ready he would take care of it. I had prepared myself,
you may be sure, pen, ink, and paper beforehand, and I had gotten a
letter ready directed to my governess, and enclosed another for my
fellow-prisoner, which, however, I did not let her know was my husband,
not to the last. In that to my governess, I let her know where the ship
lay, and pressed her earnestly to send me what things I knew she had
got ready for me for my voyage.
When I gave the boatswain the letter, I gave him a shilling with it,
which I told him was for the charge of a messenger or porter, which I
entreated him to send with the letter as soon as he came on shore, that
if possible I might have an answer brought back by the same hand, that
I might know what was become of my things; “for sir,” says I, “if the
ship should go away before I have them on board, I am undone.”
I took care, when I gave him the shilling, to let him see that I had a
little better furniture about me than the ordinary prisoners, for he
saw that I had a purse, and in it a pretty deal of money; and I found
that the very sight of it immediately furnished me with very different
treatment from what I should otherwise have met with in the ship; for
though he was very courteous indeed before, in a kind of natural
compassion to me, as a woman in distress, yet he was more than
ordinarily so afterwards, and procured me to be better treated in the
ship than, I say, I might otherwise have been; as shall appear in its
place.
He very honestly had my letter delivered to my governess’s own hands,
and brought me back an answer from her in writing; and when he gave me
the answer, gave me the shilling again. “There,” says he, “there’s your
shilling again too, for I delivered the letter myself.” I could not
tell what to say, I was so surprised at the thing; but after some
pause, I said, “Sir, you are too kind; it had been but reasonable that
you had paid yourself coach-hire, then.”
“No, no,” says he, “I am overpaid. What is the gentlewoman? Your
sister.”
“No, sir,” says I, “she is no relation to me, but she is a dear friend,
and all the friends I have in the world.” “Well,” says he, “there are
few such friends in the world. Why, she cried after you like a child.”
“Ay,” says I again, “she would give a hundred pounds, I believe, to
deliver me from this dreadful condition I am in.”
“Would she so?” says he. “For half the money I believe I could put you
in a way how to deliver yourself.” But this he spoke softly, that
nobody could hear.
“Alas! sir,” said I, “but then that must be such a deliverance as, if I
should be taken again, would cost me my life.” “Nay,” said he, “if you
were once out of the ship, you must look to yourself afterwards; that I
can say nothing to.” So we dropped the discourse for that time.
In the meantime, my governess, faithful to the last moment, conveyed my
letter to the prison to my husband, and got an answer to it, and the
next day came down herself to the ship, bringing me, in the first
place, a sea-bed as they call it, and all its furniture, such as was
convenient, but not to let the people think it was extraordinary. She
brought with her a sea-chest—that is, a chest, such as are made for
seamen, with all the conveniences in it, and filled with everything
almost that I could want; and in one of the corners of the chest, where
there was a private drawer, was my bank of money—this is to say, so
much of it as I had resolved to carry with me; for I ordered a part of
my stock to be left behind me, to be sent afterwards in such goods as I
should want when I came to settle; for money in that country is not of
much use where all things are brought for tobacco, much more is it a
great loss to carry it from hence.
But my case was particular; it was by no means proper to me to go
thither without money or goods, and for a poor convict, that was to be
sold as soon as I came on shore, to carry with me a cargo of goods
would be to have notice taken of it, and perhaps to have them seized by
the public; so I took part of my stock with me thus, and left the other
part with my governess.
My governess brought me a great many other things, but it was not
proper for me to look too well provided in the ship, at least till I
knew what kind of a captain we should have. When she came into the
ship, I thought she would have died indeed; her heart sank at the sight
of me, and at the thoughts of parting with me in that condition, and
she cried so intolerably, I could not for a long time have any talk
with her.
I took that time to read my fellow-prisoner’s letter, which, however,
greatly perplexed me. He told me he was determined to go, but found it
would be impossible for him to be discharged time enough for going in
the same ship, and which was more than all, he began to question
whether they would give him leave to go in what ship he pleased, though
he did voluntarily transport himself; but that they would see him put
on board such a ship as they should direct, and that he would be
charged upon the captain as other convict prisoners were; so that he
began to be in despair of seeing me till he came to Virginia, which
made him almost desperate; seeing that, on the other hand, if I should
not be there, if any accident of the sea or of mortality should take me
away, he should be the most undone creature there in the world.
This was very perplexing, and I knew not what course to take. I told my
governess the story of the boatswain, and she was mighty eager with me
treat with him; but I had no mind to it, till I heard whether my
husband, or fellow-prisoner, so she called him, could be at liberty to
go with me or no. At last I was forced to let her into the whole
matter, except only that of his being my husband. I told her I had made
a positive bargain or agreement with him to go, if he could get the
liberty of going in the same ship, and that I found he had money.
Then I read a long lecture to her of what I proposed to do when we came
there, how we could plant, settle, and, in short, grow rich without any
more adventures; and, as a great secret, I told her that we were to
marry as soon as he came on board.
She soon agreed cheerfully to my going when she heard this, and she
made it her business from that time to get him out of the prison in
time, so that he might go in the same ship with me, which at last was
brought to pass, though with great difficulty, and not without all the
forms of a transported prisoner-convict, which he really was not yet,
for he had not been tried, and which was a great mortification to him.
As our fate was now determined, and we were both on board, actually
bound to Virginia, in the despicable quality of transported convicts
destined to be sold for slaves, I for five years, and he under bonds
and security not to return to England any more, as long as he lived, he
was very much dejected and cast down; the mortification of being
brought on board, as he was, like a prisoner, piqued him very much,
since it was first told him he should transport himself, and so that he
might go as a gentleman at liberty. It is true he was not ordered to be
sold when he came there, as we were, and for that reason he was obliged
to pay for his passage to the captain, which we were not; as to the
rest, he was as much at a loss as a child what to do with himself, or
with what he had, but by directions.
Our first business was to compare our stock. He was very honest to me,
and told me his stock was pretty good when he came into the prison, but
the living there as he did in a figure like a gentleman, and, which was
ten times as much, the making of friends, and soliciting his case, had
been very expensive; and, in a word, all his stock that he had left was
£108, which he had about him all in gold.
I gave him an account of my stock as faithfully, that is to say, of
what I had taken to carry with me, for I was resolved, whatever should
happen, to keep what I had left with my governess in reserve; that in
case I should die, what I had with me was enough to give him, and that
which was left in my governess’s hands would be her own, which she had
well deserved of me indeed.
My stock which I had with me was £246 some odd shillings; so that we
had £354 between us, but a worse gotten estate was scarce ever put
together to begin the world with.
Our greatest misfortune as to our stock was that it was all in money,
which every one knows is an unprofitable cargo to be carried to the
plantations. I believe his was really all he had left in the world, as
he told me it was; but I, who had between £700 and £800 in bank when
this disaster befell me, and who had one of the faithfullest friends in
the world to manage it for me, considering she was a woman of manner of
religious principles, had still £300 left in her hand, which I reserved
as above; besides, some very valuable things, as particularly two gold
watches, some small pieces of plate, and some rings—all stolen goods.
The plate, rings, and watches were put in my chest with the money, and
with this fortune, and in the sixty-first year of my age, I launched
out into a new world, as I may call it, in the condition (as to what
appeared) only of a poor, naked convict, ordered to be transported in
respite from the gallows. My clothes were poor and mean, but not ragged
or dirty, and none knew in the whole ship that I had anything of value
about me.
However, as I had a great many very good clothes and linen in
abundance, which I had ordered to be packed up in two great boxes, I
had them shipped on board, not as my goods, but as consigned to my real
name in Virginia; and had the bills of loading signed by a captain in
my pocket; and in these boxes was my plate and watches, and everything
of value except my money, which I kept by itself in a private drawer in
my chest, which could not be found, or opened, if found, without
splitting the chest to pieces.
In this condition I lay for three weeks in the ship, not knowing
whether I should have my husband with me or no, and therefore not
resolving how or in what manner to receive the honest boatswain’s
proposal, which indeed he thought a little strange at first.
At the end of this time, behold my husband came on board. He looked
with a dejected, angry countenance, his great heart was swelled with
rage and disdain; to be dragged along with three keepers of Newgate,
and put on board like a convict, when he had not so much as been
brought to a trial. He made loud complaints of it by his friends, for
it seems he had some interest; but his friends got some check in their
application, and were told he had had favour enough, and that they had
received such an account of him, since the last grant of his
transportation, that he ought to think himself very well treated that
he was not prosecuted anew. This answer quieted him at once, for he
knew too much what might have happened, and what he had room to expect;
and now he saw the goodness of the advice to him, which prevailed with
him to accept of the offer of a voluntary transportation. And after
this his chagrin at these hell-hounds, as he called them, was a little
over, he looked a little composed, began to be cheerful, and as I was
telling him how glad I was to have him once more out of their hands, he
took me in his arms, and acknowledged with great tenderness that I had
given him the best advice possible. “My dear,” says he, “thou has twice
saved my life; from henceforward it shall be all employed for you, and
I’ll always take your advice.”
The ship began now to fill; several passengers came on board, who were
embarked on no criminal account, and these had accommodations assigned
them in the great cabin, and other parts of the ship, whereas we, as
convicts, were thrust down below, I know not where. But when my husband
came on board, I spoke to the boatswain, who had so early given me
hints of his friendship in carrying my letter. I told him he had
befriended me in many things, and I had not made any suitable return to
him, and with that I put a guinea into his hand. I told him that my
husband was now come on board; that though we were both under the
present misfortune, yet we had been persons of a different character
from the wretched crew that we came with, and desired to know of him,
whether the captain might not be moved to admit us to some conveniences
in the ship, for which we would make him what satisfaction he pleased,
and that we would gratify him for his pains in procuring this for us.
He took the guinea, as I could see, with great satisfaction, and
assured me of his assistance.
Then he told us he did not doubt but that the captain, who was one of
the best-humoured gentlemen in the world, would be easily brought to
accommodate us as well as we could desire, and, to make me easy, told
me he would go up the next tide on purpose to speak to the captain
about it. The next morning, happening to sleep a little longer than
ordinary, when I got up, and began to look abroad, I saw the boatswain
among the men in his ordinary business. I was a little melancholy at
seeing him there, and going forward to speak to him, he saw me, and
came towards me, but not giving him time to speak first, I said,
smiling, “I doubt, sir, you have forgot us, for I see you are very
busy.” He returned presently, “Come along with me, and you shall see.”
So he took me into the great cabin, and there sat a good sort of a
gentlemanly man for a seaman, writing, and with a great many papers
before him.
“Here,” says the boatswain to him that was a-writing, “is the
gentlewoman that the captain spoke to you of”; and turning to me, he
said, “I have been so far from forgetting your business, that I have
been up at the captain’s house, and have represented faithfully to the
captain what you said, relating to you being furnished with better
conveniences for yourself and your husband; and the captain has sent
this gentleman, who is mate of the ship, down with me, on purpose to
show you everything, and to accommodate you fully to your content, and
bid me assure you that you shall not be treated like what you were at
first expected to be, but with the same respect as other passengers are
treated.”
The mate then spoke to me, and, not giving me time to thank the
boatswain for his kindness, confirmed what the boatswain had said, and
added that it was the captain’s delight to show himself kind and
charitable, especially to those that were under any misfortunes, and
with that he showed me several cabins built up, some in the great
cabin, and some partitioned off, out of the steerage, but opening into
the great cabin on purpose for the accommodation of passengers, and
gave me leave to choose where I would. However, I chose a cabin which
opened into the steerage, in which was very good conveniences to set
our chest and boxes, and a table to eat on.
The mate then told me that the boatswain had given so good a character
of me and my husband, as to our civil behaviour, that he had orders to
tell me we should eat with him, if we thought fit, during the whole
voyage, on the common terms of passengers; that we might lay in some
fresh provisions, if we pleased; or if not, he should lay in his usual
store, and we should have share with him. This was very reviving news
to me, after so many hardships and afflictions as I had gone through of
late. I thanked him, and told him the captain should make his own terms
with us, and asked him leave to go and tell my husband of it, who was
not very well, and was not yet out of his cabin. Accordingly I went,
and my husband, whose spirits were still so much sunk with the
indignity (as he understood it) offered him, that he was scarce yet
himself, was so revived with the account that I gave him of the
reception we were like to have in the ship, that he was quite another
man, and new vigour and courage appeared in his very countenance. So
true is it, that the greatest of spirits, when overwhelmed by their
afflictions, are subject to the greatest dejections, and are the most
apt to despair and give themselves up.
After some little pause to recover himself, my husband came up with me,
and gave the mate thanks for the kindness, which he had expressed to
us, and sent suitable acknowledgment by him to the captain, offering to
pay him by advance, whatever he demanded for our passage, and for the
conveniences he had helped us to. The mate told him that the captain
would be on board in the afternoon, and that he would leave all that
till he came. Accordingly, in the afternoon the captain came, and we
found him the same courteous, obliging man that the boatswain had
represented him to be; and he was so well pleased with my husband’s
conversation, that, in short, he would not let us keep the cabin we had
chosen, but gave us one that, as I said before, opened into the great
cabin.
Nor were his conditions exorbitant, or the man craving and eager to
make a prey of us, but for fifteen guineas we had our whole passage and
provisions and cabin, ate at the captain’s table, and were very
handsomely entertained.
The captain lay himself in the other part of the great cabin, having
let his round house, as they call it, to a rich planter who went over
with his wife and three children, who ate by themselves. He had some
other ordinary passengers, who quartered in the steerage, and as for
our old fraternity, they were kept under the hatches while the ship lay
there, and came very little on the deck.
I could not refrain acquainting my governess with what had happened; it
was but just that she, who was so really concerned for me, should have
part in my good fortune. Besides, I wanted her assistance to supply me
with several necessaries, which before I was shy of letting anybody see
me have, that it might not be public; but now I had a cabin and room to
set things in, I ordered abundance of good things for our comfort in
the voyage, as brandy, sugar, lemons, etc., to make punch, and treat
our benefactor, the captain; and abundance of things for eating and
drinking in the voyage; also a larger bed, and bedding proportioned to
it; so that, in a word, we resolved to want for nothing in the voyage.
All this while I had provided nothing for our assistance when we should
come to the place and begin to call ourselves planters; and I was far
from being ignorant of what was needful on that occasion; particularly
all sorts of tools for the planter’s work, and for building; and all
kinds of furniture for our dwelling, which, if to be bought in the
country, must necessarily cost double the price.
So I discoursed that point with my governess, and she went and waited
upon the captain, and told him that she hoped ways might be found out
for her two unfortunate cousins, as she called us, to obtain our
freedom when we came into the country, and so entered into a discourse
with him about the means and terms also, of which I shall say more in
its place; and after thus sounding the captain, she let him know,
though we were unhappy in the circumstances that occasioned our going,
yet that we were not unfurnished to set ourselves to work in the
country, and we resolved to settle and live there as planters, if we
might be put in a way how to do it. The captain readily offered his
assistance, told her the method of entering upon such business, and how
easy, nay, how certain it was for industrious people to recover their
fortunes in such a manner. “Madam,” says he, “’tis no reproach to any
many in that country to have been sent over in worse circumstances than
I perceive your cousins are in, provided they do but apply with
diligence and good judgment to the business of that place when they
come there.”
She then inquired of him what things it was necessary we should carry
over with us, and he, like a very honest as well as knowing man, told
her thus: “Madam, your cousins in the first place must procure somebody
to buy them as servants, in conformity to the conditions of their
transportation, and then, in the name of that person, they may go about
what they will; they may either purchase some plantations already
begun, or they may purchase land of the Government of the country, and
begin where they please, and both will be done reasonably.” She bespoke
his favour in the first article, which he promised to her to take upon
himself, and indeed faithfully performed it, and as to the rest, he
promised to recommend us to such as should give us the best advice, and
not to impose upon us, which was as much as could be desired.
She then asked him if it would not be necessary to furnish us with a
stock of tools and materials for the business of planting, and he said,
“Yes, by all means.” And then she begged his assistance in it. She told
him she would furnish us with everything that was convenient whatever
it cost her. He accordingly gave her a long particular of things
necessary for a planter, which, by his account, came to about fourscore
or a hundred pounds. And, in short, she went about as dexterously to
buy them, as if she had been an old Virginia merchant; only that she
bought, by my direction, above twice as much of everything as he had
given her a list of.
These she put on board in her own name, took his bills of loading for
them, and endorsed those bills of loading to my husband, insuring the
cargo afterwards in her own name, by our order; so that we were
provided for all events, and for all disasters.
I should have told you that my husband gave her all his whole stock of
£108, which, as I have said, he had about him in gold, to lay out thus,
and I gave her a good sum besides; so that I did not break into the
stock which I had left in her hands at all, but after we had sorted out
our whole cargo, we had yet near £200 in money, which was more than
enough for our purpose.
In this condition, very cheerful, and indeed joyful at being so happily
accommodated as we were, we set sail from Bugby’s Hole to Gravesend,
where the ship lay about ten more days, and where the captain came on
board for good and all. Here the captain offered us a civility, which
indeed we had no reason to expect, namely, to let us go on shore and
refresh ourselves, upon giving our words in a solemn manner that we
would not go from him, and that we would return peaceably on board
again. This was such an evidence of his confidence in us, that it
overcame my husband, who, in a mere principle of gratitude, told him,
as he could not be in any capacity to make a suitable return for such a
favour, so he could not think of accepting of it, nor could he be easy
that the captain should run such a risk. After some mutual civilities,
I gave my husband a purse, in which was eighty guineas, and he put in
into the captain’s hand. “There, captain,” says he, “there’s part of a
pledge for our fidelity; if we deal dishonestly with you on any
account, ’tis your own.” And on this we went on shore.
Indeed, the captain had assurance enough of our resolutions to go, for
that having made such provision to settle there, it did not seem
rational that we would choose to remain here at the expense and peril
of life, for such it must have been if we had been taken again. In a
word, we went all on shore with the captain, and supped together in
Gravesend, where we were very merry, stayed all night, lay at the house
where we supped, and came all very honestly on board again with him in
the morning. Here we bought ten dozen bottles of good beer, some wine,
some fowls, and such things as we thought might be acceptable on board.
My governess was with us all this while, and went with us round into
the Downs, as did also the captain’s wife, with whom she went back. I
was never so sorrowful at parting with my own mother as I was at
parting with her, and I never saw her more. We had a fair easterly wind
sprung up the third day after we came to the Downs, and we sailed from
thence the 10th of April. Nor did we touch any more at any place, till,
being driven on the coast of Ireland by a very hard gale of wind, the
ship came to an anchor in a little bay, near the mouth of a river,
whose name I remember not, but they said the river came down from
Limerick, and that it was the largest river in Ireland.
Here, being detained by bad weather for some time, the captain, who
continued the same kind, good-humoured man as at first, took us two on
shore with him again. He did it now in kindness to my husband indeed,
who bore the sea very ill, and was very sick, especially when it blew
so hard. Here we bought in again a store of fresh provisions,
especially beef, pork, mutton, and fowls, and the captain stayed to
pickle up five or six barrels of beef to lengthen out the ship’s store.
We were here not above five days, when the weather turning mild, and a
fair wind, we set sail again, and in two-and-forty days came safe to
the coast of Virginia.
When we drew near to the shore, the captain called me to him, and told
me that he found by my discourse I had some relations in the place, and
that I had been there before, and so he supposed I understood the
custom in their disposing the convict prisoners when they arrived. I
told him I did not, and that as to what relations I had in the place,
he might be sure I would make myself known to none of them while I was
in the circumstances of a prisoner, and that as to the rest, we left
ourselves entirely to him to assist us, as he was pleased to promise us
he would do. He told me I must get somebody in the place to come and
buy us as servants, and who must answer for us to the governor of the
country, if he demanded us. I told him we should do as he should
direct; so he brought a planter to treat with him, as it were, for the
purchase of these two servants, my husband and me, and there we were
formally sold to him, and went ashore with him. The captain went with
us, and carried us to a certain house, whether it was to be called a
tavern or not I know not, but we had a bowl of punch there made of rum,
etc., and were very merry. After some time the planter gave us a
certificate of discharge, and an acknowledgment of having served him
faithfully, and we were free from him the next morning, to go wither we
would.
For this piece of service the captain demanded of us six thousand
weight of tabacco, which he said he was accountable for to his
freighter, and which we immediately bought for him, and made him a
present of twenty guineas besides, with which he was abundantly
satisfied.
It is not proper to enter here into the particulars of what part of the
colony of Virginia we settled in, for divers reasons; it may suffice to
mention that we went into the great river Potomac, the ship being bound
thither; and there we intended to have settled first, though afterwards
we altered our minds.
The first thing I did of moment after having gotten all our goods on
shore, and placed them in a storehouse, or warehouse, which, with a
lodging, we hired at the small place or village where we landed—I say,
the first thing was to inquire after my mother, and after my brother
(that fatal person whom I married as a husband, as I have related at
large). A little inquiry furnished me with information that Mrs. ——,
that is, my mother, was dead; that my brother (or husband) was alive,
which I confess I was not very glad to hear; but which was worse, I
found he was removed from the plantation where he lived formerly, and
where I lived with him, and lived with one of his sons in a plantation
just by the place where we landed, and where we had hired a warehouse.
I was a little surprised at first, but as I ventured to satisfy myself
that he could not know me, I was not only perfectly easy, but had a
great mind to see him, if it was possible to so do without his seeing
me. In order to that I found out by inquiry the plantation where he
lived, and with a woman of that place whom I got to help me, like what
we call a chairwoman, I rambled about towards the place as if I had
only a mind to see the country and look about me. At last I came so
near that I saw the dwellinghouse. I asked the woman whose plantation
that was; she said it belonged to such a man, and looking out a little
to our right hands, “there,” says she, “is the gentleman that owns the
plantation, and his father with him.” “What are their Christian names?”
said I. “I know not,” says she, “what the old gentleman’s name is, but
the son’s name is Humphrey; and I believe,” says she, “the father’s is
so too.” You may guess, if you can, what a confused mixture of joy and
fight possessed my thoughts upon this occasion, for I immediately knew
that this was nobody else but my own son, by that father she showed me,
who was my own brother. I had no mask, but I ruffled my hood so about
my face, that I depended upon it that after above twenty years’
absence, and withal not expecting anything of me in that part of the
world, he would not be able to know anything of me. But I need not have
used all that caution, for the old gentleman was grown dim-sighted by
some distemper which had fallen upon his eyes, and could but just see
well enough to walk about, and not run against a tree or into a ditch.
The woman that was with me had told me that by a mere accident, knowing
nothing of what importance it was to me. As they drew near to us, I
said, “Does he know you, Mrs. Owen?” (so they called the woman). “Yes,”
said she, “if he hears me speak, he will know me; but he can’t see well
enough to know me or anybody else”; and so she told me the story of his
sight, as I have related. This made me secure, and so I threw open my
hoods again, and let them pass by me. It was a wretched thing for a
mother thus to see her own son, a handsome, comely young gentleman in
flourishing circumstances, and durst not make herself known to him, and
durst not take any notice of him. Let any mother of children that reads
this consider it, and but think with what anguish of mind I restrained
myself; what yearnings of soul I had in me to embrace him, and weep
over him; and how I thought all my entrails turned within me, that my
very bowels moved, and I knew not what to do, as I now know not how to
express those agonies! When he went from me I stood gazing and
trembling, and looking after him as long as I could see him; then
sitting down to rest me, but turned from her, and lying on my face,
wept, and kissed the ground that he had set his foot on.
I could not conceal my disorder so much from the woman but that she
perceived it, and thought I was not well, which I was obliged to
pretend was true; upon which she pressed me to rise, the ground being
damp and dangerous, which I did accordingly, and walked away.
As I was going back again, and still talking of this gentleman and his
son, a new occasion of melancholy offered itself thus. The woman began,
as if she would tell me a story to divert me: “There goes,” says she,
“a very odd tale among the neighbours where this gentleman formerly
live.” “What was that?” said I. “Why,” says she, “that old gentleman
going to England, when he was a young man, fell in love with a young
lady there, one of the finest women that ever was seen, and married
her, and brought her over hither to his mother who was then living. He
lived here several years with her,” continued she, “and had several
children by her, of which the young gentleman that was with him now was
one; but after some time, the old gentlewoman, his mother, talking to
her of something relating to herself when she was in England, and of
her circumstances in England, which were bad enough, the
daughter-in-law began to be very much surprised and uneasy; and, in
short, examining further into things, it appeared past all
contradiction that the old gentlewoman was her own mother, and that
consequently that son was his wife’s own brother, which struck the
whole family with horror, and put them into such confusion that it had
almost ruined them all. The young woman would not live with him; the
son, her brother and husband, for a time went distracted; and at last
the young woman went away for England, and has never been heard of
since.”
It is easy to believe that I was strangely affected with this story,
but ’tis impossible to describe the nature of my disturbance. I seemed
astonished at the story, and asked her a thousand questions about the
particulars, which I found she was thoroughly acquainted with. At last
I began to inquire into the circumstances of the family, how the old
gentlewoman, I mean my mother, died, and how she left what she had; for
my mother had promised me very solemnly, that when she died she would
do something for me, and leave it so, as that, if I was living, I
should one way or other come at it, without its being in the power of
her son, my brother and husband, to prevent it. She told me she did not
know exactly how it was ordered, but she had been told that my mother
had left a sum of money, and had tied her plantation for the payment of
it, to be made good to the daughter, if ever she could be heard of,
either in England or elsewhere; and that the trust was left with this
son, who was the person that we saw with his father.
This was news too good for me to make light of, and, you may be sure,
filled my heart with a thousand thoughts, what course I should take,
how, and when, and in what manner I should make myself known, or
whether I should ever make myself know or no.
Here was a perplexity that I had not indeed skill to manage myself in,
neither knew I what course to take. It lay heavy upon my mind night and
day. I could neither sleep nor converse, so that my husband perceived
it, and wondered what ailed me, strove to divert me, but it was all to
no purpose. He pressed me to tell him what it was troubled me, but I
put it off, till at last, importuning me continually, I was forced to
form a story, which yet had a plain truth to lay it upon too. I told
him I was troubled because I found we must shift our quarters and alter
our scheme of settling, for that I found I should be known if I stayed
in that part of the country; for that my mother being dead, several of
my relations were come into that part where we then was, and that I
must either discover myself to them, which in our present circumstances
was not proper on many accounts, or remove; and which to do I knew not,
and that this it was that made me so melancholy and so thoughtful.
He joined with me in this, that it was by no means proper for me to
make myself known to anybody in the circumstances in which we then
were; and therefore he told me he would be willing to remove to any
other part of the country, or even to any other country if I thought
fit. But now I had another difficulty, which was, that if I removed to
any other colony, I put myself out of the way of ever making a due
search after those effects which my mother had left. Again I could
never so much as think of breaking the secret of my former marriage to
my new husband; it was not a story, as I thought, that would bear
telling, nor could I tell what might be the consequences of it; and it
was impossible to search into the bottom of the thing without making it
public all over the country, as well who I was, as what I now was also.
In this perplexity I continued a great while, and this made my spouse
very uneasy; for he found me perplexed, and yet thought I was not open
with him, and did not let him into every part of my grievance; and he
would often say, he wondered what he had done that I would not trust
him with whatever it was, especially if it was grievous and afflicting.
The truth is, he ought to have been trusted with everything, for no man
in the world could deserve better of a wife; but this was a thing I
knew not how to open to him, and yet having nobody to disclose any part
of it to, the burthen was too heavy for my mind; for let them say what
they please of our sex not being able to keep a secret, my life is a
plain conviction to me of the contrary; but be it our sex, or the man’s
sex, a secret of moment should always have a confidant, a bosom friend,
to whom we may communicate the joy of it, or the grief of it, be it
which it will, or it will be a double weight upon the spirits, and
perhaps become even insupportable in itself; and this I appeal to all
human testimony for the truth of.
And this is the cause why many times men as well as women, and men of
the greatest and best qualities other ways, yet have found themselves
weak in this part, and have not been able to bear the weight of a
secret joy or of a secret sorrow, but have been obliged to disclose it,
even for the mere giving vent to themselves, and to unbend the mind
oppressed with the load and weights which attended it. Nor was this any
token of folly or thoughtlessness at all, but a natural consequence of
the thing; and such people, had they struggled longer with the
oppression, would certainly have told it in their sleep, and disclosed
the secret, let it have been of what fatal nature soever, without
regard to the person to whom it might be exposed. This necessity of
nature is a thing which works sometimes with such vehemence in the
minds of those who are guilty of any atrocious villainy, such as secret
murder in particular, that they have been obliged to discover it,
though the consequence would necessarily be their own destruction. Now,
though it may be true that the divine justice ought to have the glory
of all those discoveries and confessions, yet ’tis as certain that
Providence, which ordinarily works by the hands of nature, makes use
here of the same natural causes to produce those extraordinary effects.
I could give several remarkable instances of this in my long
conversation with crime and with criminals. I knew one fellow that,
while I was in prison in Newgate, was one of those they called then
night-fliers. I know not what other word they may have understood it by
since, but he was one who by connivance was admitted to go abroad every
evening, when he played his pranks, and furnished those honest people
they call thief-catchers with business to find out the next day, and
restore for a reward what they had stolen the evening before. This
fellow was as sure to tell in his sleep all that he had done, and every
step he had taken, what he had stolen, and where, as sure as if he had
engaged to tell it waking, and that there was no harm or danger in it,
and therefore he was obliged, after he had been out, to lock himself
up, or be locked up by some of the keepers that had him in fee, that
nobody should hear him; but, on the other hand, if he had told all the
particulars, and given a full account of his rambles and success, to
any comrade, any brother thief, or to his employers, as I may justly
call them, then all was well with him, and he slept as quietly as other
people.
As the publishing this account of my life is for the sake of the just
moral of very part of it, and for instruction, caution, warning, and
improvement to every reader, so this will not pass, I hope, for an
unnecessary digression concerning some people being obliged to disclose
the greatest secrets either of their own or other people’s affairs.
Under the certain oppression of this weight upon my mind, I laboured in
the case I have been naming; and the only relief I found for it was to
let my husband into so much of it as I thought would convince him of
the necessity there was for us to think of settling in some other part
of the world; and the next consideration before us was, which part of
the English settlements we should go to. My husband was a perfect
stranger to the country, and had not yet so much as a geographical
knowledge of the situation of the several places; and I, that, till I
wrote this, did not know what the word geographical signified, had only
a general knowledge from long conversation with people that came from
or went to several places; but this I knew, that Maryland,
Pennsylvania, East and West Jersey, New York, and New England lay all
north of Virginia, and that they were consequently all colder climates,
to which for that very reason, I had an aversion. For that as I
naturally loved warm weather, so now I grew into years I had a stronger
inclination to shun a cold climate. I therefore considered of going to
Carolina, which is the only southern colony of the English on the
continent of America, and hither I proposed to go; and the rather
because I might with great ease come from thence at any time, when it
might be proper to inquire after my mother’s effects, and to make
myself known enough to demand them.
With this resolution I proposed to my husband our going away from where
we was, and carrying all our effects with us to Carolina, where we
resolved to settle; for my husband readily agreed to the first part,
viz. that was not at all proper to stay where we was, since I had
assured him we should be known there, and the rest I effectually
concealed from him.
But now I found a new difficulty upon me. The main affair grew heavy
upon my mind still, and I could not think of going out of the country
without somehow or other making inquiry into the grand affair of what
my mother had done for me; nor could I with any patience bear the
thought of going away, and not make myself known to my old husband
(brother), or to my child, his son; only I would fain have had this
done without my new husband having any knowledge of it, or they having
any knowledge of him, or that I had such a thing as a husband.
I cast about innumerable ways in my thoughts how this might be done. I
would gladly have sent my husband away to Carolina with all our goods,
and have come after myself, but this was impracticable; he would never
stir without me, being himself perfectly unacquainted with the country,
and with the methods of settling there or anywhere else. Then I thought
we would both go first with part of our goods, and that when we were
settled I should come back to Virginia and fetch the remainder; but
even then I knew he would never part with me, and be left there to go
on alone. The case was plain; he was bred a gentleman, and by
consequence was not only unacquainted, but indolent, and when we did
settle, would much rather go out into the woods with his gun, which
they call there hunting, and which is the ordinary work of the Indians,
and which they do as servants; I say, he would rather do that than
attend the natural business of his plantation.
These were therefore difficulties insurmountable, and such as I knew
not what to do in. I had such strong impressions on my mind about
discovering myself to my brother, formerly my husband, that I could not
withstand them; and the rather, because it ran constantly in my
thoughts, that if I did not do it while he lived, I might in vain
endeavour to convince my son afterward that I was really the same
person, and that I was his mother, and so might both lose the
assistance and comfort of the relation, and the benefit of whatever it
was my mother had left me; and yet, on the other hand, I could never
think it proper to discover myself to them in the circumstances I was
in, as well relating to the having a husband with me as to my being
brought over by a legal transportation as a criminal; on both which
accounts it was absolutely necessary to me to remove from the place
where I was, and come again to him, as from another place and in
another figure.
Upon those considerations, I went on with telling my husband the
absolute necessity there was of our not settling in Potomac River, at
least that we should be presently made public there; whereas if we went
to any other place in the world, we should come in with as much
reputation as any family that came to plant; that, as it was always
agreeable to the inhabitants to have families come among them to plant,
who brought substance with them, either to purchase plantations or
begin new ones, so we should be sure of a kind, agreeable reception,
and that without any possibility of a discovery of our circumstances.
I told him in general, too, that as I had several relations in the
place where we were, and that I durst not now let myself be known to
them, because they would soon come into a knowledge of the occasion and
reason of my coming over, which would be to expose myself to the last
degree, so I had reason to believe that my mother, who died here, had
left me something, and perhaps considerable, which it might be very
well worth my while to inquire after; but that this too could not be
done without exposing us publicly, unless we went from hence; and then,
wherever we settled, I might come, as it were, to visit and to see my
brother and nephews, make myself known to them, claim and inquire after
what was my due, be received with respect, and at the same time have
justice done me with cheerfulness and good will; whereas, if I did it
now, I could expect nothing but with trouble, such as exacting it by
force, receiving it with curses and reluctance, and with all kinds of
affronts, which he would not perhaps bear to see; that in case of being
obliged to legal proofs of being really her daughter, I might be at
loss, be obliged to have recourse to England, and it may be to fail at
last, and so lose it, whatever it might be. With these arguments, and
having thus acquainted my husband with the whole secret so far as was
needful of him, we resolved to go and seek a settlement in some other
colony, and at first thoughts, Carolina was the place we pitched upon.
In order to this we began to make inquiry for vessels going to
Carolina, and in a very little while got information, that on the other
side the bay, as they call it, namely, in Maryland, there was a ship
which came from Carolina, laden with rice and other goods, and was
going back again thither, and from thence to Jamaica, with provisions.
On this news we hired a sloop to take in our goods, and taking, as it
were, a final farewell of Potomac River, we went with all our cargo
over to Maryland.
This was a long and unpleasant voyage, and my spouse said it was worse
to him than all the voyage from England, because the weather was but
indifferent, the water rough, and the vessel small and inconvenient. In
the next place, we were full a hundred miles up Potomac River, in a
part which they call Westmoreland County, and as that river is by far
the greatest in Virginia, and I have heard say it is the greatest river
in the world that falls into another river, and not directly into the
sea, so we had base weather in it, and were frequently in great danger;
for though we were in the middle, we could not see land on either side
for many leagues together. Then we had the great river or bay of
Chesapeake to cross, which is where the river Potomac falls into it,
near thirty miles broad, and we entered more great vast waters whose
names I know not, so that our voyage was full two hundred miles, in a
poor, sorry sloop, with all our treasure, and if any accident had
happened to us, we might at last have been very miserable; supposing we
had lost our goods and saved our lives only, and had then been left
naked and destitute, and in a wild, strange place not having one friend
or acquaintance in all that part of the world. The very thought of it
gives me some horror, even since the danger is past.
Well, we came to the place in five days’ sailing; I think they call it
Philip’s Point; and behold, when we came thither, the ship bound to
Carolina was loaded and gone away but three days before. This was a
disappointment; but, however, I, that was to be discouraged with
nothing, told my husband that since we could not get passage to
Carolina, and that the country we was in was very fertile and good, we
would, if he liked of it, see if we could find out anything for our
tune where we was, and that if he liked things we would settle here.
We immediately went on shore, but found no conveniences just at that
place, either for our being on shore or preserving our goods on shore,
but was directed by a very honest Quaker, whom we found there, to go to
a place about sixty miles east; that is to say, nearer the mouth of the
bay, where he said he lived, and where we should be accommodated,
either to plant, or to wait for any other place to plant in that might
be more convenient; and he invited us with so much kindness and simple
honesty, that we agreed to go, and the Quaker himself went with us.
Here we bought us two servants, viz. an English woman-servant just come
on shore from a ship of Liverpool, and a Negro man-servant, things
absolutely necessary for all people that pretended to settle in that
country. This honest Quaker was very helpful to us, and when we came to
the place that he proposed to us, found us out a convenient storehouse
for our goods, and lodging for ourselves and our servants; and about
two months or thereabouts afterwards, by his direction, we took up a
large piece of land from the governor of that country, in order to form
our plantation, and so we laid the thoughts of going to Carolina wholly
aside, having been very well received here, and accommodated with a
convenient lodging till we could prepare things, and have land enough
cleared, and timber and materials provided for building us a house, all
which we managed by the direction of the Quaker; so that in one year’s
time we had nearly fifty acres of land cleared, part of it enclosed,
and some of it planted with tabacco, though not much; besides, we had
garden ground and corn sufficient to help supply our servants with
roots and herbs and bread.
And now I persuaded my husband to let me go over the bay again, and
inquire after my friends. He was the willinger to consent to it now,
because he had business upon his hands sufficient to employ him,
besides his gun to divert him, which they call hunting there, and which
he greatly delighted in; and indeed we used to look at one another,
sometimes with a great deal of pleasure, reflecting how much better
that was, not than Newgate only, but than the most prosperous of our
circumstances in the wicked trade that we had been both carrying on.
Our affair was in a very good posture; we purchased of the proprietors
of the colony as much land for £35, paid in ready money, as would make
a sufficient plantation to employ between fifty and sixty servants, and
which, being well improved, would be sufficient to us as long as we
could either of us live; and as for children, I was past the prospect
of anything of that kind.
But out good fortune did not end here. I went, as I have said, over the
bay, to the place where my brother, once a husband, lived; but I did
not go to the same village where I was before, but went up another
great river, on the east side of the river Potomac, called Rappahannock
River, and by this means came on the back of his plantation, which was
large, and by the help of a navigable creek, or little river, that ran
into the Rappahannock, I came very near it.
I was now fully resolved to go up point-blank to my brother (husband),
and to tell him who I was; but not knowing what temper I might find him
in, or how much out of temper rather, I might make him by such a rash
visit, I resolved to write a letter to him first, to let him know who I
was, and that I was come not to give him any trouble upon the old
relation, which I hoped was entirely forgot, but that I applied to him
as a sister to a brother, desiring his assistance in the case of that
provision which our mother, at her decease, had left for my support,
and which I did not doubt but he would do me justice in, especially
considering that I was come thus far to look after it.
I said some very tender, kind things in the letter about his son, which
I told him he knew to be my own child, and that as I was guilty of
nothing in marrying him, any more than he was in marrying me, neither
of us having then known our being at all related to one another, so I
hoped he would allow me the most passionate desire of once seeing my
one and only child, and of showing something of the infirmities of a
mother in preserving a violent affect for him, who had never been able
to retain any thought of me one way or other.
I did believe that, having received this letter, he would immediately
give it to his son to read, I having understood his eyes being so dim,
that he could not see to read it; but it fell out better than so, for
as his sight was dim, so he had allowed his son to open all letters
that came to his hand for him, and the old gentleman being from home,
or out of the way when my messenger came, my letter came directly to my
son’s hand, and he opened and read it.
He called the messenger in, after some little stay, and asked him where
the person was who gave him the letter. The messenger told him the
place, which was about seven miles off, so he bid him stay, and
ordering a horse to be got ready, and two servants, away he came to me
with the messenger. Let any one judge the consternation I was in when
my messenger came back, and told me the old gentleman was not at home,
but his son was come along with him, and was just coming up to me. I
was perfectly confounded, for I knew not whether it was peace or war,
nor could I tell how to behave; however, I had but a very few moments
to think, for my son was at the heels of the messenger, and coming up
into my lodgings, asked the fellow at the door something. I suppose it
was, for I did not hear it so as to understand it, which was the
gentlewoman that sent him; for the messenger said, “There she is, sir”;
at which he comes directly up to me, kisses me, took me in his arms,
and embraced me with so much passion that he could not speak, but I
could feel his breast heave and throb like a child, that cries, but
sobs, and cannot cry it out.
I can neither express nor describe the joy that touched my very soul
when I found, for it was easy to discover that part, that he came not
as a stranger, but as a son to a mother, and indeed as a son who had
never before known what a mother of his own was; in short, we cried
over one another a considerable while, when at last he broke out first.
“My dear mother,” says he, “are you still alive? I never expected to
have seen your face.” As for me, I could say nothing a great while.
After we had both recovered ourselves a little, and were able to talk,
he told me how things stood. As to what I had written to his father, he
told me he had not showed my letter to his father, or told him anything
about it; that what his grandmother left me was in his hands, and that
he would do me justice to my full satisfaction; that as to his father,
he was old and infirm both in body and mind; that he was very fretful
and passionate, almost blind, and capable of nothing; and he questioned
whether he would know how to act in an affair which was of so nice a
nature as this; and that therefore he had come himself, as well to
satisfy himself in seeing me, which he could not restrain himself from,
as also to put it into my power to make a judgment, after I had seen
how things were, whether I would discover myself to his father or no.
This was really so prudently and wisely managed, that I found my son
was a man of sense, and needed no direction from me. I told him I did
not wonder that his father was as he had described him, for that his
head was a little touched before I went away; and principally his
disturbance was because I could not be persuaded to conceal our
relation and to live with him as my husband, after I knew that he was
my brother; that as he knew better than I what his father’s present
condition was, I should readily join with him in such measure as he
would direct; that I was indifferent as to seeing his father, since I
had seen him first, and he could not have told me better news than to
tell me that what his grandmother had left me was entrusted in his
hands, who, I doubted not, now he knew who I was, would, as he said, do
me justice. I inquired then how long my mother had been dead, and where
she died, and told so many particulars of the family, that I left him
no room to doubt the truth of my being really and truly his mother.
My son then inquired where I was, and how I had disposed myself. I told
him I was on the Maryland side of the bay, at the plantation of a
particular friend who came from England in the same ship with me; that
as for that side of the bay where he was, I had no habitation. He told
me I should go home with him, and live with him, if I pleased, as long
as I lived; that as to his father, he knew nobody, and would never so
much as guess at me. I considered of that a little, and told him, that
though it was really no concern to me to live at a distance from him,
yet I could not say it would be the most comfortable thing in the world
to me to live in the house with him, and to have that unhappy object
always before me, which had been such a blow to my peace before; that
though I should be glad to have his company (my son), or to be as near
him as possible while I stayed, yet I could not think of being in the
house where I should be also under constant restraint for fear of
betraying myself in my discourse, nor should I be able to refrain some
expressions in my conversing with him as my son, that might discover
the whole affair, which would by no means be convenient.
He acknowledged that I was right in all this. “But then, dear mother,”
says he, “you shall be as near me as you can.” So he took me with him
on horseback to a plantation next to his own, and where I was as well
entertained as I could have been in his own. Having left me there he
went away home, telling me we would talk of the main business the next
day; and having first called me his aunt, and given a charge to the
people, who it seems were his tenants, to treat me with all possible
respect. About two hours after he was gone, he sent me a maid-servant
and a Negro boy to wait on me, and provisions ready dressed for my
supper; and thus I was as if I had been in a new world, and began
secretly now to wish that I had not brought my Lancashire husband from
England at all.
However, that wish was not hearty neither, for I loved my Lancashire
husband entirely, as indeed I had ever done from the beginning; and he
merited from me as much as it was possible for a man to do; but that by
the way.
The next morning my son came to visit me again almost as soon as I was
up. After a little discourse, he first of all pulled out a deerskin
bag, and gave it me, with five-and-fifty Spanish pistoles in it, and
told me that was to supply my expenses from England, for though it was
not his business to inquire, yet he ought to think I did not bring a
great deal of money out with me, it not being usual to bring much money
into that country. Then he pulled out his grandmother’s will, and read
it over to me, whereby it appeared that she had left a small
plantation, as he called it, on York River, that is, where my mother
lived, to me, with the stock of servants and cattle upon it, and given
it in trust to this son of mine for my use, whenever he should hear of
my being alive, and to my heirs, if I had any children, and in default
of heirs, to whomsoever I should by will dispose of it; but gave the
income of it, till I should be heard of, or found, to my said son; and
if I should not be living, then it was to him, and his heirs.
This plantation, though remote from him, he said he did not let out,
but managed it by a head-clerk (steward), as he did another that was
his father’s, that lay hard by it, and went over himself three or four
times a year to look after it. I asked him what he thought the
plantation might be worth. He said, if I would let it out, he would
give me about £60 a year for it; but if I would live on it, then it
would be worth much more, and, he believed, would bring me in about
£150 a year. But seeing I was likely either to settle on the other side
of the bay, or might perhaps have a mind to go back to England again,
if I would let him be my steward he would manage it for me, as he had
done for himself, and that he believed he should be able to send me as
much tobacco to England from it as would yield me about £100 a year,
sometimes more.
This was all strange news to me, and things I had not been used to; and
really my heart began to look up more seriously than I think it ever
did before, and to look with great thankfulness to the hand of
Providence, which had done such wonders for me, who had been myself the
greatest wonder of wickedness perhaps that had been suffered to live in
the world. And I must again observe, that not on this occasion only,
but even on all other occasions of thankfulness, my past wicked and
abominable life never looked so monstrous to me, and I never so
completely abhorred it, and reproached myself with it, as when I had a
sense upon me of Providence doing good to me, while I had been making
those vile returns on my part.
But I leave the reader to improve these thoughts, as no doubt they will
see cause, and I go on to the fact. My son’s tender carriage and kind
offers fetched tears from me, almost all the while he talked with me.
Indeed, I could scarce discourse with him but in the intervals of my
passion; however, at length I began, and expressing myself with wonder
at my being so happy to have the trust of what I had left, put into the
hands of my own child, I told him, that as to the inheritance of it, I
had no child but him in the world, and was now past having any if I
should marry, and therefore would desire him to get a writing drawn,
which I was ready to execute, by which I would, after me, give it
wholly to him and to his heirs. And in the meantime, smiling, I asked
him what made him continue a bachelor so long. His answer was kind and
ready, that Virginia did not yield any great plenty of wives, and that
since I talked of going back to England, I should send him a wife from
London.
This was the substance of our first day’s conversation, the pleasantest
day that ever passed over my head in my life, and which gave me the
truest satisfaction. He came every day after this, and spent a great
part of his time with me, and carried me about to several of his
friends’ houses, where I was entertained with great respect. Also I
dined several times at his own house, when he took care always to see
his half-dead father so out of the way that I never saw him, or he me.
I made him one present, and it was all I had of value, and that was one
of the gold watches, of which I mentioned above, that I had two in my
chest, and this I happened to have with me, and I gave it him at his
third visit. I told him I had nothing of any value to bestow but that,
and I desired he would now and then kiss it for my sake. I did not
indeed tell him that I had stole it from a gentlewoman’s side, at a
meeting-house in London. That’s by the way.
He stood a little while hesitating, as if doubtful whether to take it
or no; but I pressed it on him, and made him accept it, and it was not
much less worth than his leather pouch full of Spanish gold; no, though
it were to be reckoned as if at London, whereas it was worth twice as
much there, where I gave it him. At length he took it, kissed it, told
me the watch should be a debt upon him that he would be paying as long
as I lived.
A few days after he brought the writings of gift, and the scrivener
with them, and I signed them very freely, and delivered them to him
with a hundred kisses; for sure nothing ever passed between a mother
and a tender, dutiful child with more affection. The next day he brings
me an obligation under his hand and seal, whereby he engaged himself to
manage and improve the plantation for my account, and with his utmost
skill, and to remit the produce to my order wherever I should be; and
withal, to be obliged himself to make up the produce £100 a year to me.
When he had done so, he told me that as I came to demand it before the
crop was off, I had a right to produce of the current year, and so he
paid me £100 in Spanish pieces of eight, and desired me to give him a
receipt for it as in full for that year, ending at Christmas following;
this being about the latter end of August.
I stayed here about five weeks, and indeed had much ado to get away
then. Nay, he would have come over the bay with me, but I would by no
means allow him to it. However, he would send me over in a sloop of his
own, which was built like a yacht, and served him as well for pleasure
as business. This I accepted of, and so, after the utmost expressions
both of duty and affection, he let me come away, and I arrived safe in
two days at my friend’s the Quaker’s.
I brought over with me for the use of our plantation, three horses,
with harness and saddles, some hogs, two cows, and a thousand other
things, the gift of the kindest and tenderest child that ever woman
had. I related to my husband all the particulars of this voyage, except
that I called my son my cousin; and first I told him that I had lost my
watch, which he seemed to take as a misfortune; but then I told him how
kind my cousin had been, that my mother had left me such a plantation,
and that he had preserved it for me, in hopes some time or other he
should hear from me; then I told him that I had left it to his
management, that he would render me a faithful account of its produce;
and then I pulled him out the £100 in silver, as the first year’s
produce; and then pulling out the deerskin purse with the pistoles,
“And here, my dear,” says I, “is the gold watch.” My husband—so is
Heaven’s goodness sure to work the same effects in all sensible minds
where mercies touch the heart—lifted up both hands, and with an ecstacy
of joy, “What is God a-doing,” says he, “for such an ungrateful dog as
I am!” Then I let him know what I had brought over in the sloop,
besides all this; I mean the horses, hogs, and cows, and other stores
for our plantation; all which added to his surprise, and filled his
heart with thankfulness; and from this time forward I believe he was as
sincere a penitent, and as thoroughly a reformed man, as ever God’s
goodness brought back from a profligate, a highwayman, and a robber. I
could fill a larger history than this with the evidence of this truth,
and but that I doubt that part of the story will not be equally
diverting as the wicked part, I have had thoughts of making a volume of
it by itself.
As for myself, as this is to be my own story, not my husband’s, I
return to that part which related to myself. We went on with our
plantation, and managed it with the help and diversion of such friends
as we got there by our obliging behaviour, and especially the honest
Quaker, who proved a faithful, generous, and steady friend to us; and
we had very good success, for having a flourishing stock to begin with,
as I have said, and this being now increased by the addition of £150
sterling in money, we enlarged our number of servants, built us a very
good house, and cured every year a great deal of land. The second year
I wrote to my old governess, giving her part with us of the joy of our
success, and order her how to lay out the money I had left with her,
which was £250 as above, and to send it to us in goods, which she
performed with her usual kindness and fidelity, and this arrived safe
to us.
Here we had a supply of all sorts of clothes, as well for my husband as
for myself; and I took especial care to buy for him all those things
that I knew he delighted to have; as two good long wigs, two
silver-hilted swords, three or four fine fowling-pieces, a fine saddle
with holsters and pistols very handsome, with a scarlet cloak; and, in
a word, everything I could think of to oblige him, and to make him
appear, as he really was, a very fine gentleman. I ordered a good
quantity of such household stuff as we yet wanted, with linen of all
sorts for us both. As for myself, I wanted very little of clothes or
linen, being very well furnished before. The rest of my cargo consisted
in iron-work of all sorts, harness for horses, tools, clothes for
servants, and woollen cloth, stuffs, serges, stockings, shoes, hats,
and the like, such as servants wear; and whole pieces also to make up
for servants, all by direction of the Quaker; and all this cargo
arrived safe, and in good condition, with three woman-servants, lusty
wenches, which my old governess had picked for me, suitable enough to
the place, and to the work we had for them to do; one of which happened
to come double, having been got with child by one of the seamen in the
ship, as she owned afterwards, before the ship got so far as Gravesend;
so she brought us a stout boy, about seven months after her landing.
My husband, you may suppose, was a little surprised at the arriving of
all this cargo from England; and talking with me after he saw the
account of this particular, “My dear,” says he, “what is the meaning of
all this? I fear you will run us too deep in debt: when shall we be
able to make return for it all?” I smiled, and told him that it was all
paid for; and then I told him, that what our circumstances might expose
us to, I had not taken my whole stock with me, that I had reserved so
much in my friend’s hands, which now we were come over safe, and was
settled in a way to live, I had sent for, as he might see.
He was amazed, and stood a while telling upon his fingers, but said
nothing. At last he began thus: “Hold, let’s see,” says he, telling
upon his fingers still, and first on his thumb; “there’s £246 in money
at first, then two gold watches, diamond rings, and plate,” says he,
upon the forefinger. Then upon the next finger, “Here’s a plantation on
York River, £100 a year, then £150 in money, then a sloop load of
horses, cows, hogs, and stores”; and so on to the thumb again. “And
now,” says he, “a cargo cost £250 in England, and worth here twice the
money.” “Well,” says I, “what do you make of all that?” “Make of it?”
says he; “why, who says I was deceived when I married a wife in
Lancashire? I think I have married a fortune, and a very good fortune
too,” says he.
In a word, we were now in very considerable circumstances, and every
year increasing; for our new plantation grew upon our hands insensibly,
and in eight years which we lived upon it, we brought it to such pitch,
that the produce was at least £300 sterling a year; I mean, worth so
much in England.
After I had been a year at home again, I went over the bay to see my
son, and to receive another year’s income of my plantation; and I was
surprised to hear, just at my landing there, that my old husband was
dead, and had not been buried above a fortnight. This, I confess, was
not disagreeable news, because now I could appear as I was, in a
married condition; so I told my son before I came from him, that I
believed I should marry a gentleman who had a plantation near mine; and
though I was legally free to marry, as to any obligation that was on me
before, yet that I was shy of it, lest the blot should some time or
other be revived, and it might make a husband uneasy. My son, the same
kind, dutiful, and obliging creature as ever, treated me now at his own
house, paid me my hundred pounds, and sent me home again loaded with
presents.
Some time after this, I let my son know I was married, and invited him
over to see us, and my husband wrote a very obliging letter to him
also, inviting him to come and see him; and he came accordingly some
months after, and happened to be there just when my cargo from England
came in, which I let him believe belonged all to my husband’s estate,
not to me.
It must be observed that when the old wretch my brother (husband) was
dead, I then freely gave my husband an account of all that affair, and
of this cousin, as I had called him before, being my own son by that
mistaken unhappy match. He was perfectly easy in the account, and told
me he should have been as easy if the old man, as we called him, had
been alive. “For,” said he, “it was no fault of yours, nor of his; it
was a mistake impossible to be prevented.” He only reproached him with
desiring me to conceal it, and to live with him as a wife, after I knew
that he was my brother; that, he said, was a vile part. Thus all these
difficulties were made easy, and we lived together with the greatest
kindness and comfort imaginable.
We are grown old; I am come back to England, being almost seventy years
of age, husband sixty-eight, having performed much more than the
limited terms of my transportation; and now, notwithstanding all the
fatigues and all the miseries we have both gone through, we are both of
us in good heart and health. My husband remained there some time after
me to settle our affairs, and at first I had intended to go back to
him, but at his desire I altered that resolution, and he is come over
to England also, where we resolve to spend the remainder of our years
in sincere penitence for the wicked lives we have lived.