Moll Flanders

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I sent my gentleman a short letter, therefore, that I had obeyed
his orders in all things but that of going back to the Bath,
which I could not think of for many reasons; that however
parting from him was a wound to me that I could never recover,
yet that I was fully satisfied his reflections were just, and would
be very far from desiring to obstruct his reformation or repentance.

Then I represented my own circumstances to him in the most
moving terms that I was able. I told him that those unhappy
distresses which first moved him to a generous and an honest
friendship for me, would, I hope, move him to a little concern
for me now, though the criminal part of our correspondence,
which I believed neither of us intended to fall into at the time,
was broken off; that I desired to repent as sincerely as he had
done, but entreated him to put me in some condition that I
might not be exposed to the temptations which the devil never
fails to excite us to from the frightful prospect of poverty and
distress; and if he had the least apprehensions of my being
troublesome to him, I begged he would put me in a posture
to go back to my mother in Virginia, from when he knew I
came, and that would put an end to all his fears on that account.
I concluded, that if he would send me #50 more to facilitate
my going away, I would send him back a general release, and
would promise never to disturb him more with any importunities;
unless it was to hear of the well-doing of the child, whom, if
I found my mother living and my circumstances able, I would
send for to come over to me, and take him also effectually off
his hands.

This was indeed all a cheat thus far, viz. that I had no intention
to go to Virginia, a the account of my former affairs there may
convince anybody of; but the business was to get this last #50
of him, if possible, knowing well enough it would be the last
penny I was ever to expect.

However, the argument I used, namely, of giving him a general
release, and never troubling him any more, prevailed effectually
with him, and he sent me a bill for the money by a person who
brought with him a general release for me to sign, and which
I frankly signed, and received the money; and thus, though full
sore against my will, a final end was put to this affair.

And here I cannot but reflect upon the unhappy consequence
of too great freedoms between persons stated as we were,
upon the pretence of innocent intentions, love of friendship,
and the like; for the flesh has generally so great a share in those
friendships, that is great odds but inclination prevails at last
over the most solemn resolutions; and that vice breaks in at
the breaches of decency, which really innocent friendship ought
to preserve with the greatest strictness. But I leave the readers
of these things to their own just reflections, which they will be
more able to make effectual than I, who so soon forgot myself,
and am therefore but a very indifferent monitor.

I was now a single person again, as I may call myself; I was
loosed from all the obligations either of wedlock or mistress-ship
in the world, except my husband the linen-draper, whom, I having
not now heard from in almost fifteen years, nobody could
blame me for thinking myself entirely freed from; seeing also he
had at his going away told me, that if I did not hear frequently
from him, I should conclude he was dead, and I might freely
marry again to whom I pleased.

I now began to cast up my accounts. I had by many letters
and much importunity, and with the intercession of my mother
too, had a second return of some goods from my brother (as I
now call him) in Virginia, to make up the damage of the cargo
I brought away with me, and this too was upon the condition
of my sealing a general release to him, and to send it him by
his correspondent at Bristol, which, though I thought hard of,
yet I was obliged to promise to do. However, I managed so
well in this case, that I got my goods away before the release
was signed, and then I always found something or other to say
to evade the thing, and to put off the signing it at all; till at
length I pretended I must write to my brother, and have his
answer, before I could do it.

Including this recruit, and before I got the last #50, I found
my strength to amount, put all together, to about #400, so
that with that I had about #450. I had saved above #100 more,
but I met with a disaster with that, which was this--that a
goldsmith in whose hands I had trusted it, broke, so I lost #70
of my money, the man's composition not making above #30
out of his #100. I had a little plate, but not much, and was
well enough stocked with clothes and linen.

With this stock I had the world to begin again; but you are to
consider that I was not now the same woman as when I lived
at Redriff; for, first of all, I was near twenty years older, and
did not look the better for my age, nor for my rambles to
Virginia and back again; and though I omitted nothing that
might set me out to advantage, except painting, for that I never
stooped to, and had pride enough to think I did not want it, yet
there would always be some difference seen between five-and-twenty
and two-and-forty.

I cast about innumerable ways for my future state of life, and
began to consider very seriously what I should do, but nothing
offered. I took care to make the world take me for something
more than I was, and had it given out that I was a fortune, and
that my estate was in my own hands; the last of which was
very true, the first of it was as above. I had no acquaintance,
which was one of my worst misfortunes, and the consequence
of that was, I had no adviser, at least who could assist and
advise together; and above all, I had nobody to whom I could
in confidence commit the secret of my circumstances to, and
could depend upon for their secrecy and fidelity; and I found
by experience, that to be friendless in the worst condition,
next to being in want that a woman can be reduced to: I say
a woman, because 'tis evident men can be their own advisers,
and their own directors, and know how to work themselves
out of difficulties and into business better than women; but if
a woman has no friend to communicate her affairs to, and to
advise and assist her, 'tis ten to one but she is undone; nay,
and the more money she has, the more danger she is in of being
wronged and deceived; and this was my case in the affair of
the #100 which I left in the hands of the goldsmith, as above,
whose credit, it seems, was upon the ebb before, but I, that
had no knowledge of things and nobody to consult with, knew
nothing of it, and so lost my money.

In the next place, when a woman is thus left desolate and void
of counsel, she is just like a bag of money or a jewel dropped
on the highway, which is a prey to the next comer; if a man of
virtue and upright principles happens to find it, he will have it
cried, and the owner may come to hear of it again; but how
many times shall such a thing fall into hands that will make no
scruple of seizing it for their own, to once that it shall come
into good hands?

This was evidently my case, for I was now a loose, unguided
creature, and had no help, no assistance, no guide for my
conduct; I knew what I aimed at and what I wanted, but knew
nothing how to pursue the end by direct means. I wanted to
be placed in a settle state of living, and had I happened to meet
with a sober, good husband, I should have been as faithful and
true a wife to him as virtue itself could have formed. If I had
been otherwise, the vice came in always at the door of necessity,
not at the door of inclination; and I understood too well, by
the want of it, what the value of a settled life was, to do
anything to forfeit the felicity of it; nay, I should have made
the better wife for all the difficulties I had passed through, by
a great deal; nor did I in any of the time that I had been a wife
give my husbands the least uneasiness on account of my
behaviour.

But all this was nothing; I found no encouraging prospect. I
waited; I lived regularly, and with as much frugality as became
my circumstances, but nothing offered, nothing presented, and
the main stock wasted apace. What to do I knew not; the
terror of approaching poverty lay hard upon my spirits. I had
some money, but where to place it I knew not, nor would the
interest of it maintain me, at least not in London.

At length a new scene opened. There was in the house where
I lodged a north-country woman that went for a gentlewoman,
and nothing was more frequent in her discourse than her account
of the cheapness of provisions, and the easy way of living in
her country; how plentiful and how cheap everything was, what
good company they kept, and the like; till at last I told her she
almost tempted me to go and live in her country; for I that
was a widow, though I had sufficient to live on, yet had no
way of increasing it; and that I found I could not live here
under #100 a year, unless I kept no company, no servant, made
no appearance, and buried myself in privacy, as if I was obliged
to it by necessity.

I should have observed, that she was always made to believe,
as everybody else was, that I was a great fortune, or at least
that I had three or four thousand pounds, if not more, and all
in my own hands; and she was mighty sweet upon me when
she thought me inclined in the least to go into her country.
She said she had a sister lived near Liverpool, that her brother
was a considerable gentleman there, and had a great estate
also in Ireland; that she would go down there in about two
months, and if I would give her my company thither, I should
be as welcome as herself for a month or more as I pleased,
till I should see how I liked the country; and if I thought fit to
live there, she would undertake they would take care, though
they did not entertain lodgers themselves, they would recommend
me to some agreeable family, where I should be placed to my
content.

If this woman had known my real circumstances, she would
never have laid so many snares, and taken so many weary steps
to catch a poor desolate creature that was good for little when
it was caught; and indeed I, whose case was almost desperate,
and thought I could not be much worse, was not very anxious
about what might befall me, provided they did me no personal
injury; so I suffered myself, though not without a great deal
of invitation and great professions of sincere friendship and
real kindness--I say, I suffered myself to be prevailed upon to
go with her, and accordingly I packed up my baggage, and put
myself in a posture for a journey, though I did not absolutely
know whither I was to go.

And now I found myself in great distress; what little I had
in the world was all in money, except as before, a little plate,
some linen, and my clothes; as for my household stuff, I had
little or none, for I had lived always in lodgings; but I had not
one friend in the world with whom to trust that little I had, or
to direct me how to dispose of it, and this perplexed me night
and day. I thought of the bank, and of the other companies in
London, but I had no friend to commit the management of it
to, and keep and carry about with me bank bills, tallies, orders,
and such things, I looked upon at as unsafe; that if they were
lost, my money was lost, and then I was undone; and, on the
other hand, I might be robbed and perhaps murdered in a strange
place for them. This perplexed me strangely, and what to do I
knew not.

It came in my thoughts one morning that I would go to the
bank myself, where I had often been to receive the interest of
some bills I had, which had interest payable on them, and where
I had found a clerk, to whom I applied myself, very honest and
just to me, and particularly so fair one time that when I had
mistold my money, and taken less than my due, and was coming
away, he set me to rights and gave me the rest, which he might
have put into his own pocket.

I went to him and represented my case very plainly, and asked
if he would trouble himself to be my adviser, who was a poor
friendless widow, and knew not what to do. He told me, if
I desired his opinion of anything within the reach of his business,
he would do his endeavour that I should not be wronged, but
that he would also help me to a good sober person who was
a grave man of his acquaintance, who was a clerk in such
business too, though not in their house, whose judgment was
good, and whose honesty I might depend upon. 'For,' added
he, 'I will answer for him, and for every step he takes; if he
wrongs you, madam, of one farthing, it shall lie at my door, I
will make it good; and he delights to assist people in such
cases--he does it as an act of charity.'

I was a little at a stand in this discourse; but after some pause
I told him I had rather have depended upon him, because I had
found him honest, but if that could not be, I would take his
recommendation sooner than any one's else. 'I dare say,
madam,' says he, 'that you will be as well satisfied with my
friend as with me, and he is thoroughly able to assist you,
which I am not.' It seems he had his hands full of the business
of the bank, and had engaged to meddle with no other business
that that of his office, which I heard afterwards, but did not
understand then. He added, that his friend should take nothing
of me for his advice or assistance, and this indeed encouraged
me very much.

He appointed the same evening, after the bank was shut and
business over, for me to meet him and his friend. And indeed
as soon as I saw his friend, and he began but to talk of the
affair, I was fully satisfied that I had a very honest man to deal
with; his countenance spoke it, and his character, as I heard
afterwards, was everywhere so good, that I had no room for
any more doubts upon me.

After the first meeting, in which I only said what I had said
before, we parted, and he appointed me to come the next day
to him, telling me I might in the meantime satisfy myself of
him by inquiry, which, however, I knew not how well to do,
having no acquaintance myself.

Accordingly I met him the next day, when I entered more
freely with him into my case. I told him my circumstances at
large: that I was a widow come over from American, perfectly
desolate and friendless; that I had a little money, and but a
little, and was almost distracted for fear of losing it, having no
friend in the world to trust with the management of it; that I
was going into the north of England to live cheap, that my
stock might not waste; that I would willingly lodge my money
in the bank, but that I durst not carry the bills about me, and
the like, as above; and how to correspond about it, or with
whom, I knew not.

He told me I might lodge the money in the bank as an account,
and its being entered into the books would entitle me to the
money at any time, and if I was in the north I might draw bills
on the cashier and receive it when I would; but that then it
would be esteemed as running cash, and the bank would give
no interest for it; that I might buy stock with it, and so it would
lie in store for me, but that then if I wanted to dispose if it, I
must come up to town on purpose to transfer it, and even it
would be with some difficulty I should receive the half-yearly
dividend, unless I was here in person, or had some friend I
could trust with having the stock in him name to do it for me,
and that would have the same difficulty in it as before; and
with that he looked hard at me and smiled a little. At last, says
he, 'Why do you not get a head steward, madam, that may take
you and your money together into keeping, and then you would
have the trouble taken off your hands?' 'Ay, sir, and the money
too, it may be,' said I; 'for truly I find the hazard that way is as
much as 'tis t'other way'; but I remember I said secretly to myself,
'I wish you would ask me the question fairly, I would consider
very seriously on it before I said No.'

He went on a good way with me, and I thought once or twice
he was in earnest, but to my real affliction, I found at last he
had a wife; but when he owned he had a wife he shook his head,
and said with some concern, that indeed he had a wife, and no
wife. I began to think he had been in the condition of my late
lover, and that his wife had been distempered or lunatic, or
some such thing. However, we had not much more discourse
at that time, but he told me he was in too much hurry of
business then, but that if I would come home to his house after
their business was over, he would by that time consider what
might be done for me, to put my affairs in a posture of security.
I told him I would come, and desired to know where he lived.
He gave me a direction in writing, and when he gave it me he
read it to me, and said, 'There 'tis, madam, if you dare trust
yourself with me.' 'Yes, sir,' said I, 'I believe I may venture
to trust you with myself, for you have a wife, you say, and I
don't want a husband; besides, I dare trust you with my money,
which is all I have in the world, and if that were gone, I may
trust myself anywhere.'

He said some things in jest that were very handsome and
mannerly, and would have pleased me very well if they had
been in earnest; but that passed over, I took the directions,
and appointed to attend him at his house at seven o'clock the
same evening.

When I came he made several proposals for my placing my
money in the bank, in order to my having interest for it; but
still some difficult or other came in the way, which he objected
as not safe; and I found such a sincere disinterested honesty
in him, that I began to muse with myself, that I had certainly
found the honest man I wanted, and that I could never put
myself into better hands; so I told him with a great deal of
frankness that I had never met with a man or woman yet that
I could trust, or in whom I could think myself safe, but that I
saw he was so disinterestedly concerned for my safety, that I
said I would freely trust him with the management of that little
I had, if he would accept to be steward for a poor widow that
could give him no salary.

He smiled and, standing up, with great respect saluted me.
He told me he could not but take it very kindly that I had so
good an opinion of him; that he would not deceive me, that
he would do anything in his power to serve me, and expect
no salary; but that he could not by any means accept of a trust,
that it might bring him to be suspected of self-interest, and that
if I should die he might have disputes with my executors, which
he should be very loth to encumber himself with.

I told him if those were all his objections I would soon remove
them, and convince him that there was not the least room for
any difficulty; for that, first, as for suspecting him, if ever I
should do it, now is the time to suspect him, and not put the
trust into his hands, and whenever I did suspect him, he could
but throw it up then and refuse to go any further. Then, as to
executors, I assured him I had no heirs, nor any relations in
England, and I should alter my condition before I died, and
then his trust and trouble should cease together, which,
however, I had no prospect of yet; but I told him if I died as
I was, it should be all his own, and he would deserve it by
being so faithful to me as I was satisfied he would be.

He changed his countenance at this discourse, and asked me
how I came to have so much good-will for him; and, looking
very much pleased, said he might very lawfully wish he was
a single man for my sake. I smiled, and told him as he was
not, my offer could have no design upon him in it, and to wish,
ashe did, was not to be allowed, 'twas criminal to his wife.

He told me I was wrong. 'For,' says he, 'madam, as I said
before, I have a wife and no wife, and 'twould be no sin to me
to wish her hanged, if that were all.' 'I know nothing of your
circumstances that way, sir,' said I; 'but it cannot be innocent
to wish your wife dead.' 'I tell you,' says he again, 'she is a
wife and no wife; you don't know what I am, or what she is.'

'That's true,' said I; 'sir, I do not know what you are, but I
believe you to be an honest man, and that's the cause of all
my confidence in you.'

'Well, well,' says he, 'and so I am, I hope, too. but I am
something else too, madam; for,' says he, 'to be plain with you,
I am a cuckold, and she is a whore.' He spoke it in a kind of
jest, but it was with such an awkward smile, that I perceived
it was what struck very close to him, and he looked dismally
when he said it.

'That alters the case indeed, sir,' said I, 'as to that part you
were speaking of; but a cuckold, you know, may be an honest
man; it does not alter that case at all. Besides, I think,' said
I, 'since your wife is so dishonest to you, you are too honest
to her to own her for your wife; but that,' said I, 'is what I
have nothing to do with.'

'Nay,' says he, 'I do not think to clear my hands of her; for,
to be plain with you, madam,' added he, 'I am no contended
cuckold neither: on the other hand, I assure you it provokes
me the highest degree, but I can't help myself; she that will
be a whore, will be a whore.'

I waived the discourse and began to talk of my business; but
I found he could not have done with it, so I let him alone, and
he went on to tell me all the circumstances of his case, too
long to relate here; particularly, that having been out of England
some time before he came to the post he was in, she had had
two children in the meantime by an officer of the army; and
that when he came to England and, upon her submission, took
her again, and maintained her very well, yet she ran away from
him with a linen-draper's apprentice, robbed him of what she
could come at, and continued to live from him still. 'So that,
madam,' says he, 'she is a whore not by necessity, which is
the common bait of your sex, but by inclination, and for the
sake of the vice.'

Well, I pitied him, and wished him well rid of her, and still
would have talked of my business, but it would not do. At
last he looks steadily at me. 'Look you, madam,' says he,
'you came to ask advice of me, and I will serve you as faithfully
as if you were my own sister; but I must turn the tables, since
you oblige me to do it, and are so friendly to me, and I think
I must ask advice of you. Tell me, what must a poor abused
fellow do with a whore? What can I do to do myself justice
upon her?'

'Alas! sir,' says I, ''tis a case too nice for me to advise in, but
it seems she has run away from you, so you are rid of her
fairly; what can you desire more?' 'Ay, she is gone indeed,'
said he, 'but I am not clear of her for all that.'

'That's true,' says I; 'she may indeed run you into debt, but
the law has furnished you with methods to prevent that also;
you may cry her down, as they call it.'

'No, no,' says he, 'that is not the case neither; I have taken
care of all that; 'tis not that part that I speak of, but I would
be rid of her so that I might marry again.'

'Well, sir,' says I, 'then you must divorce her. If you can
prove what you say, you may certainly get that done, and then,
I suppose, you are free.'

'That's very tedious and expensive,' says he.

'Why,' says I, 'if you can get any woman you like to take your
word, I suppose your wife would not dispute the liberty with
you that she takes herself.'

'Ay,' says he, 'but 'twould be hard to bring an honest woman
to do that; and for the other sort,' says he, 'I have had enough
of her to meddle with any more whores.'

It occurred to me presently, 'I would have taken your word
with all my heart, if you had but asked me the question';
but that was to myself. To him I replied, 'Why, you shut the
door against any honest woman accepting you, for you condemn
all that should venture upon you at once, and conclude, that
really a woman that takes you now can't be honest.'

'Why,' says he, 'I wish you would satisfy me that an honest
woman would take me; I'd venture it'; and then turns short
upon me, 'Will you take me, madam?'

'That's not a fair question,' says I, 'after what you have said;
however, lest you should think I wait only for a recantation
of it, I shall answer you plainly, No, not I; my business is of
another kind with you, and I did not expect you would have
turned my serious application to you, in my own distracted
case, into a comedy.'

'Why, madam,' says he, 'my case is as distracted as yours can
be, and I stand in as much need of advice as you do, for I think
if I have not relief somewhere, I shall be made myself, and I
know not what course to take, I protest to you.'

'Why, sir,' says I, ''tis easy to give advice in your case, much
easier than it is in mine.' 'Speak then,' says he, 'I beg of you,
for now you encourage me.'

'Why,' says I, 'if your case is so plain as you say it is, you may
be legally divorced, and then you may find honest women
enough to ask the question of fairly; the sex is not so scarce
that you can want a wife.'

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