by Daniel Defoe
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 weights which attended it. Nor was this any token of folly 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 vehemency in the minds of those who are guilty of any atrocious villainy, such as a secret murder in particular, that they have been obliged to discover it though the consequence has been 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 a prisoner in Newgate, was one of those they called then night-fliers. I know not what 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 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 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 every 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 oppression of this weight, 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 most southern colony of the English on the continent; and hither I proposed to go, the rather because I might with ease come from thence at any time when it might be proper to inquire after my mother’s effects and to demand them.
With this resolution, I proposed to my husband our going away from where we was and carrying our effects with us to Carolina, where we resolved to settle; for my husband readily agreed to the first part, viz., that it was not at all proper to stay where we was since I had assured him we should be known there; and the rest I 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 it done without my new husband having any knowledge of it or they having any knowledge of him.
I cast about innumerable ways in my thoughts how this might be done. I would gladly have sent my husband away to Carolina and have come after myself, but this was impracticable; he would not stir without me, being himself unacquainted with the country and with the methods of settling anywhere. Then I thought we would both go first, and that when we were settled I should come back to Virginia; but even then I knew he would never part with me and be left there alone. The case was plain: he was bred a gentleman, and was not only unacquainted but indolent, and when we did settle, would much rather go into the woods with his gun, which they call there hunting and which is the ordinary work of the Indians; I say, he would much rather do that than attend to the natural business of the plantation.
These were, therefore, difficulties unsurmountable and such as I knew not what to do in. I had such strong impressions on my mind about discovering myself to my old husband that I could not withstand them; and the rather because it run in my thoughts that if I did not 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 lose whatever it was my mother had left me; and yet, on the other hand, I could never think it proper to discover the circumstances I was in, as well relating to the having a husband with me as to my being brought over 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, that we should presently be made public there; whereas if we went to any other place in the world, we could 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, so we should be sure of agreeable reception, and without any possibility of a discovery of our circumstances.
I told him too that as I had several relations in the place where we was, and that I durst not now let myself be known to them because they would soon come to know the occasion 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, inquire after what was my due, be received with respect, and at the same time have justice done me; 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 a loss, be obliged to have recourse to England, and, it may be, to fail at last and so lose it. With these arguments, and having thus acquainted my husband with the whole secret so far as was needful to him, we resolved to go and seek a settlement in some other colony, and at first Carolina was the place 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 of 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.
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 bad, 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 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 they call it but a river, ’tis frequently so broad that when we were in the middle we could not see land on either side for many leagues together. Then we had the great bay of Chesapeake to cross, which is, where the river Potomac falls into it, near thirty miles broad, 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 see if we could find out anything for our turn 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 who 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 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, found us out a convenient storehouse for our goods, and lodging for ourselves and servants; and about two months or thereabout afterwards, by his direction we took up a large piece of land from the government 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 cured, 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 near fifty acres of land cleared, part of it enclosed, and some of it planted with tobacco, though not much; besides, we had garden-ground and corn sufficient to 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 we had been both carrying on.
Our affair was now 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 us as long as we could either of us live; and as for children, I was past anything of that kind.
But our 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 that run 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 own and only child, and of showing something of the infirmities of a mother in preserving a violent affection 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, his eyes being, I knew, 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 that 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, 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, 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 or 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 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. 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 judgement, 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 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 measures 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 little 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, 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.
