Moll Flanders

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However, with all this, and all that I had secured before, I
found, upon casting things up, my case was very much altered,
any my fortune much lessened; for, including the hollands and
a parcel of fine muslins, which I carried off before, and some
plate, and other things, I found I could hardly muster up #500;
and my condition was very odd, for though I had no child (I
had had one by my gentleman draper, but it was buried), yet I
was a widow bewitched; I had a husband and no husband, and
I could not pretend to marry again, though I knew well enough
my husband would never see England any more, if he lived fifty
years. Thus, I say, I was limited from marriage, what offer
mightsoever be made me; and I had not one friend to advise
with in the condition I was in, lease not one I durst trust the
secret of my circumstances to, for if the commissioners were
to have been informed where I was, I should have been fetched
up and examined upon oath, and all I have saved be taken aware
from me.

Upon these apprehensions, the first thing I did was to go quite
out of my knowledge, and go by another name. This I did
effectually, for I went into the Mint too, took lodgings in a
very private place, dressed up in the habit of a widow, and
called myself Mrs. Flanders.

Here, however, I concealed myself, and though my new
acquaintances knew nothing of me, yet I soon got a great
deal of company about me; and whether it be that women are
scarce among the sorts of people that generally are to be found
there, or that some consolations in the miseries of the place
are more requisite than on other occasions, I soon found an
agreeable woman was exceedingly valuable among the sons
of affliction there, and that those that wanted money to pay
half a crown on the pound to their creditors, and that run in debt
at the sign of the Bull for their dinners, would yet find money
for a supper, if they liked the woman.

However, I kept myself safe yet, though I began, like my Lord
Rochester's mistress, that loved his company, but would not
admit him farther, to have the scandal of a whore, without the
joy; and upon this score, tired with the place, and indeed
with the company too, I began to think of removing.

It was indeed a subject of strange reflection to me to see men
who were overwhelmed in perplexed circumstances, who
were reduced some degrees below being ruined, whose families
were objects of their own terror and other people's charity,
yet while a penny lasted, nay, even beyond it, endeavouring to
drown themselves, labouring to forget former things, which
not it was the proper time to remember, making more work for
repentance, and sinning on, as a remedy for sin past.

But it is none of my talent to preach; these men were too
wicked, even for me. There was something horrid and absurd
in their way of sinning, for it was all a force even upon
themselves; they did not only act against conscience, but
against nature; they put a rape upon their temper to drown the
reflections, which their circumstances continually gave them;
and nothing was more easy than to see how sighs would
interrupt their songs, and paleness and anguish sit upon their
brows, in spite of the forced smiles they put on; nay, sometimes
it would break out at their very mouths when they had parted
with their money for a lewd treat or a wicked embrace. I have
heard them, turning about, fetch a deep sigh, and cry, 'What a
dog am I! Well, Betty, my dear, I'll drink thy health, though';
meaning the honest wife, that perhaps had not a half-crown
for herself and three or four children. The next morning they
are at their penitentials again; and perhaps the poor weeping
wife comes over to him, either brings him some account of
what his creditors are doing, and how she and the children are
turned out of doors, or some other dreadful news; and this
adds to his self-reproaches; but when he has thought and pored
on it till he is almost mad, having no principles to support him,
nothing within him or above him to comfort him, but finding
it all darkness on every side, he flies to the same relief again,
viz. to drink it away, debauch it away, and falling into
company of men in just the same condition with himself, he
repeats the crime, and thus he goes every day one step
onward of his way to destruction.

I was not wicked enough for such fellows as these yet. On
the contrary, I began to consider here very seriously what I
had to do; how things stood with me, and what course I ought
to take. I knew I had no friends, no, not one friend or relation
in the world; and that little I had left apparently wasted, which
when it was gone, I saw nothing but misery and starving was
before me. Upon these considerations, I say, and filled with
horror at the place I was in, and the dreadful objects which I
had always before me, I resolved to be gone.

I had made an acquaintance with a very sober, good sort of a
woman, who was a widow too, like me, but in better circumstances.
Her husband had been a captain of a merchant ship, and having
had the misfortune to be cast away coming home on a voyage
from the West Indies, which would have been very profitable
if he had come safe, was so reduced by the loss, that though
he had saved his life then, it broke his heart, and killed him
afterwards; and his widow, being pursued by the creditors, was
forced to take shelter in the Mint. She soon made things up
with the help of friends, and was at liberty again; and finding
that I rather was there to be concealed, than by any particular
prosecutions and finding also that I agreed with her, or rather
she with me, in a just abhorrence of the place and of the
company, she invited to go home with her till I could put
myself in some posture of settling in the world to my mind;
withal telling me, that it was ten to one but some good captain
of a ship might take a fancy to me, and court me, in that part
of the town where she lived.

I accepted her offer, and was with her half a year, and should
have been longer, but in that interval what she proposed to me
happened to herself, and she married very much to her advantage.
But whose fortune soever was upon the increase, mine seemed
to be upon the wane, and I found nothing present, except two
or three boatswains, or such fellows, but as for the commanders,
they were generally of two sorts: 1. Such as, having good
business, that is to say, a good ship, resolved not to marry
but with advantage, that is, with a good fortune; 2. Such as,
being out of employ, wanted a wife to help them to a ship; I
mean (1) a wife who, having some money, could enable them
to hold, as they call it, a good part of a ship themselves, so to
encourage owners to come in; or (2) a wife who, if she had not
money, had friends who were concerned in shipping, and so
could help to put the young man into a good ship, which to
them is as good as a portion; and neither of these was my case,
so I looked like one that was to lie on hand.

This knowledge I soon learned by experience, viz. that the
state of things was altered as to matrimony, and that I was not
to expect at London what I had found in the country: that
marriages were here the consequences of politic schemes for
forming interests, and carrying on business, and that Love had
no share, or but very little, in the matter.

That as my sister-in-law at Colchester had said, beauty, wit,
manners, sense, good humour, good behaviour, education,
virtue, piety, or any other qualification, whether of body or
mind, had no power to recommend; that money only made a
woman agreeable; that men chose mistresses indeed by the
gust of their affection, and it was requisite to a whore to be
handsome, well-shaped, have a good mien and a graceful
behaviour; but that for a wife, no deformity would shock the
fancy, no ill qualities the judgment; the money was the thing;
the portion was neither crooked nor monstrous, but the money
was always agreeable, whatever the wife was.

On the other hand, as the market ran very unhappily on the
men's side, I found the women had lost the privilege of saying
No; that it was a favour now for a woman to have the Question
asked, and if any young lady had so much arrogance as to
counterfeit a negative, she never had the opportunity given
her of denying twice, much less of recovering that false step,
and accepting what she had but seemed to decline. The men
had such choice everywhere, that the case of the women was
very unhappy; for they seemed to ply at every door, and if the
man was by great chance refused at one house, he was sure to
be received at the next.

Besides this, I observed that the men made no scruple to set
themselves out, and to go a-fortunehunting, as they call it,
when they had really no fortune themselves to demand it, or
merit to deserve it; and that they carried it so high, that a woman
was scarce allowed to inquire after the character or estate of
the person that pretended to her. This I had an example of, in
a young lady in the next house to me, and with whom I had
contracted an intimacy; she was courted by a young captain,
and though she had near #2000 to her fortune, she did but
inquire of some of his neighbours about his character, his
morals, or substance, and he took occasion at the next visit to
let her know, truly, that he took it very ill, and that he should
not give her the trouble of his visits any more. I heard of it,
and I had begun my acquaintance with her, I went to see her
upon it. She entered into a close conversation with me about
it, and unbosomed herself very freely. I perceived presently
that though she thought herself very ill used, yet she had no
power to resent it, and was exceedingly piqued that she had
lost him, and particularly that another of less fortune had
gained him.

I fortified her mind against such a meanness, as I called it; I
told her, that as low as I was in the world, I would have
despised a man that should think I ought to take him upon his
own recommendation only, without having the liberty to
inform myself of his fortune and of his character; also I told
her, that as she had a good fortune, she had no need to stoop
to the disaster of the time; that it was enough that the men
could insult us that had but little money to recommend us, but
if she suffered such an affront to pass upon her without resenting
it, she would be rendered low-prized upon all occasions, and
would be the contempt of all the women in that part of the town;
that a woman can never want an opportunity to be revenged
of a man that has used her ill, and that there were ways enough
to humble such a fellow as that, or else certainly women were
the most unhappy creatures in the world.

I found she was very well pleased with the discourse, and she
told me seriously that she would be very glad to make him
sensible of her just resentment, and either to bring him on again,
or have the satisfaction of her revenge being as public as possible.

I told her, that if she would take my advice, I would tell her
how she should obtain her wishes in both those things, and
that I would engage I would bring the man to her door again,
and make him beg to be let in. She smiled at that, and soon
let me see, that if he came to her door, her resentment was
not so great as to give her leave to let him stand long there.

However, she listened very willingly to my offer of advice;
so I told her that the first thing she ought to do was a piece
of justice to herself, namely, that whereas she had been told
by several people that he had reported among the ladies that
he had left her, and pretended to give the advantage of the
negative to himself, she should take care to have it well spread
among the women--which she could not fail of an opportunity
to do in a neighbourhood so addicted to family news as that
she live in was--that she had inquired into his circumstances,
and found he was not the man as to estate he pretended to be.
'Let them be told, madam,' said I, 'that you had been well
informed that he was not the man that you expected, and that
you thought it was not safe to meddle with him; that you heard
he was of an ill temper, and that he boasted how he had used
the women ill upon many occasions, and that particularly he
was debauched in his morals', etc. The last of which, indeed,
had some truth in it; but at the same time I did not find that
she seemed to like him much the worse for that part.

As I had put this into her head, she came most readily into it.
Immediately she went to work to find instruments, and she
had very little difficulty in the search, for telling her story in
general to a couple of gossips in the neighbourhood, it was the
chat of the tea-table all over that part of the town, and I met
with it wherever I visited; also, as it was known that I was
acquainted with the young lady herself, my opinion was asked
very often, and I confirmed it with all the necessary aggravations,
and set out his character in the blackest colours; but then as a
piece of secret intelligence, I added, as what the other gossips
knew nothing of, viz. that I had heard he was in very bad
circumstances; that he was under a necessity of a fortune to
support his interest with the owners of the ship he commanded;
that his own part was not paid for, and if it was not paid quickly,
his owners would put him out of the ship, and his chief mate
was likely to command it, who offered to buy that part which
the captain had promised to take.

I added, for I confess I was heartily piqued at the rogue, as I
called him, that I had heard a rumour, too, that he had a wife
alive at Plymouth, and another in the West Indies, a thing which
they all knew was not very uncommon for such kind of gentlemen.

This worked as we both desire it, for presently the young lady
next door, who had a father and mother that governed both
her and her fortune, was shut up, and her father forbid him the
house. Also in one place more where he went, the woman had
the courage, however strange it was, to say No; and he could
try nowhere but he was reproached with his pride, and that he
pretended not to give the women leave to inquire into his
character, and the like.

Well, by this time he began to be sensible of his mistake; and
having alarmed all the women on that side of the water, he
went over to Ratcliff, and got access to some of the ladies
there; but though the young women there too were, according
to the fate of the day, pretty willing to be asked, yet such was
his ill-luck, that his character followed him over the water and
his good name was much the same there as it was on our side;
so that though he might have had wives enough, yet it did not
happen among the women that had good fortunes, which was
what he wanted.

But this was not all; she very ingeniously managed another
thing herself, for she got a young gentleman, who as a relation,
and was indeed a married man, to come and visit her two or
three times a week in a very fine chariot and good liveries, and
her two agents, and I also, presently spread a report all over,
that this gentleman came to court her; that he was a gentleman
of a #1000 a year, and that he was fallen in love with her, and
that she was going to her aunt's in the city, because it was
inconvenient for the gentleman to come to her with his coach
in Redriff, the streets being so narrow and difficult.

This took immediately. The captain was laughed at in all
companies, and was ready to hang himself. He tried all the
ways possible to come at her again, and wrote the most
passionate letters to her in the world, excusing his former
rashness; and in short, by great application, obtained leave to
wait on her again, as he said, to clear his reputation.

At this meeting she had her full revenge of him; for she told
him she wondered what he took her to be, that she should
admit any man to a treaty of so much consequence as that to
marriage, without inquiring very well into his circumstances;
that if he thought she was to be huffed into wedlock, and that
she was in the same circumstances which her neighbours might
be in, viz. to take up with the first good Christian that came,
he was mistaken; that, in a word, his character was really bad,
or he was very ill beholden to his neighbours; and that unless
he could clear up some points, in which she had justly been
prejudiced, she had no more to say to him, but to do herself
justice, and give him the satisfaction of knowing that she was
not afraid to say No, either to him or any man else.

With that she told him what she had heard, or rather raised
herself by my means, of his character; his not having paid for
the part he pretended to own of the ship he commanded; of
the resolution of his owners to put him out of the command,
and to put his mate in his stead; and of the scandal raised on
his morals; his having been reproached with such-and-such
women, and having a wife at Plymouth and in the West Indies,
and the like; and she asked him whether he could deny that she
had good reason, if these things were not cleared up, to refuse
him, and in the meantime to insist upon having satisfaction in
points to significant as they were.

He was so confounded at her discourse that he could not
answer a word, and she almost began to believe that all was
true, by his disorder, though at the same time she knew that
she had been the raiser of all those reports herself.

After some time he recovered himself a little, and from that
time became the most humble, the most modest, and most
importunate man alive in his courtship.

She carried her jest on a great way. She asked him, if he
thought she was so at her last shift that she could or ought to
bear such treatment, and if he did not see that she did not
want those who thought it worth their while to come farther
to her than he did; meaning the gentleman whom she had
brought to visit her by way of sham.

She brought him by these tricks to submit to all possible
measures to satisfy her, as well of his circumstances as of his
behaviour. He brought her undeniable evidence of his having
paid for his part of the ship; he brought her certificates from
his owners, that the report of their intending to remove him
from the command of the ship and put his chief mate in was
false and groundless; in short, he was quite the reverse of what
he was before.

Thus I convinced her, that if the men made their advantage
of our sex in the affair of marriage, upon the supposition of
there being such choice to be had, and of the women being
so easy, it was only owing to this, that the women wanted
courage to maintain their ground and to play their part; and
that, according to my Lord Rochester,

'A woman's ne'er so ruined but she can
Revenge herself on her undoer, Man.'

After these things this young lady played her part so well, that
though she resolved to have him, and that indeed having him
was the main bent of her design, yet she made his obtaining
her be to him the most difficult thing in the world; and this she
did, not by a haughty reserved carriage, but by a just policy,
turning the tables upon him, and playing back upon him his
own game; for as he pretended, by a kind of lofty carriage, to
place himself above the occasion of a character, and to make
inquiring into his character a kind of an affront to him, she
broke with him upon that subject, and at the same time that
she make him submit to all possible inquiry after his affairs,
she apparently shut the door against his looking into her own.

It was enough to him to obtain her for a wife. As to what
she had, she told him plainly, that as he knew her circumstances,
it was but just she should know his; and though at the same
time he had only known her circumstances by common fame,
yet he had made so many protestations of his passion for her,
that he could ask no more but her hand to his grand request,
and the like ramble according to the custom of lovers. In short,
he left himself no room to ask any more questions about her
estate, and she took the advantage of it like a prudent woman,
for she placed part of her fortune so in trustees, without letting
him know anything of it, that it was quite out of his reach, and
made him be very well content with the rest.

It is true she was pretty well besides, that is to say, she had
about #1400 in money, which she gave him; and the other,
after some time, she brought to light as a perquisite to herself,
which he was to accept as a mighty favour, seeing though it
was not to be his, it might ease him in the article of her particular
expenses; and I must add, that by this conduct the gentleman
himself became not only the more humble in his applications
to her to obtain her, but also was much the more an obliging
husband to her when he had her. I cannot but remind the ladies
here how much they place themselves below the common
station of a wife, which, if I may be allowed not to be partial,
is low enough already; I say, they place themselves below their
common station, and prepare their own mortifications, by their
submitting so to be insulted by the men beforehand, which I
confess I see no necessity of.

This relation may serve, therefore, to let the ladies see that
the advantage is not so much on the other side as the men
think it is; and though it may be true that the men have but too
much choice among us, and that some women may be found
who will dishonour themselves, be cheap, and easy to come
at, and will scarce wait to be asked, yet if they will have women,
as I may say, worth having, they may find them as uncomeatable
as ever and that those that are otherwise are a sort of people
that have such deficiencies, when had, as rather recommend
the ladies that are difficult than encourage the men to go on
with their easy courtship, and expect wives equally valuable
that will come at first call.

Nothing is more certain than that the ladies always gain of the
men by keeping their ground, and letting their pretended
lovers see they can resent being slighted, and that they are not
afraid of saying No. They, I observe, insult us mightily with
telling us of the number of women; that the wars, and the sea,
and trade, and other incidents have carried the men so much
away, that there is no proportion between the numbers of the
sexes, and therefore the women have the disadvantage; but I
am far from granting that the number of women is so great,
or the number of men so small; but if they will have me tell
the truth, the disadvantage of the women is a terrible scandal
upon the men, and it lies here, and here only; namely, that the
age is so wicked, and the sex so debauched, that, in short, the
number of such men as an honest woman ought to meddle
with is small indeed, and it is but here and there that a man is
to be found who is fit for a woman to venture upon.

But the consequence even of that too amounts to no more
than this, that women ought to be the more nice; for how do
we know the just character of the man that makes the offer?
To say that the woman should be the more easy on this
occasion, is to say we should be the forwarder to venture
because of the greatness of the danger, which, in my way of
reasoning, is very absurd.

On the contrary, the women have ten thousand times the more
reason to be wary and backward, by how much the hazard of
being betrayed is the greater; and would the ladies consider
this, and act the wary part, they would discover every cheat
that offered; for, in short, the lives of very few men nowadays
will bear a character; and if the ladies do but make a little
inquiry, they will soon be able to distinguish the men and
deliver themselves. As for women that do not think they own
safety worth their though, that, impatient of their perfect state,
resolve, as they call it, to take the first good Christian that
comes, that run into matrimony as a horse rushes into the battle,
I can say nothing to them but this, that they are a sort of ladies
that are to be prayed for among the rest of distempered people,
and to me they look like people that venture their whole estates
in a lottery where there is a hundred thousand blanks to one prize.

No man of common-sense will value a woman the less for not
giving up herself at the first attack, or for accepting his proposal
without inquiring into his person or character; on the contrary,
he must think her the weakest of all creatures in the world, as
the rate of men now goes. In short, he must have a very
contemptible opinion of her capacities, nay, every of her
understanding, that, having but one case of her life, shall call
that life away at once, and make matrimony, like death, be a
leap in the dark.

I would fain have the conduct of my sex a little regulated in
this particular, which is the thing in which, of all the parts of
life, I think at this time we suffer most in; 'tis nothing but lack
of courage, the fear of not being married at all, and of that
frightful state of life called an old maid, of which I have a
story to tell by itself. This, I say, is the woman's snare; but
would the ladies once but get above that fear and manage
rightly, they would more certainly avoid it by standing their
ground, in a case so absolutely necessary to their felicity, that
by exposing themselves as they do; and if they did not marry
so soon as they may do otherwise, they would make themselves
amends by marrying safer. She is always married too soon who
gets a bad husband, and she is never married too late who gets
a good one; in a word, there is no woman, deformity or lost
reputation excepted, but if she manages well, may be married
safely one time or other; but if she precipitates herself, it is ten
thousand to one but she is undone.

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