The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders

by Daniel Defoe

me, hebehaved much better than I expected, and told me plainly he had playedthe fool, and suffered himself to be surprised, which he might haveprevented; that now he foresaw he could not stand it, and therefore hewould have me go home, and in the night take away everything I had inthe house of any value, and secure it; and after that, he told me thatif I could get away one hundred or two hundred pounds in goods out ofthe shop, I should do it; 'only,' says he, 'let me know nothing of it,neither what you take nor whither you carry it; for as for me,' sayshe, 'I am resolved to get out of this house and be gone; and if younever hear of me more, my dear,' says he, 'I wish you well; I am onlysorry for the injury I have done you.' He said some very handsomethings to me indeed at parting; for I told you he was a gentleman, andthat was all the benefit I had of his being so; that he used me veryhandsomely and with good manners upon all occasions, even to the last,only spent all I had, and left me to rob the creditors for something tosubsist on.

  However, I did as he bade me, that you may be sure; and having thustaken my leave of him, I never saw him more, for he found means tobreak out of the bailiff's house that night or the next, and go overinto France, and for the rest of the creditors scrambled for it as wellas they could. How, I knew not, for I could come at no knowledge ofanything, more than this, that he came home about three o'clock in themorning, caused the rest of his goods to be removed into the Mint, andthe shop to be shut up; and having raised what money he could gettogether, he got over, as I said, to France, from whence I had one ortwo letters from him, and no more. I did not see him when he camehome, for he having given me such instructions as above, and I havingmade the best of my time, I had no more business back again at thehouse, not knowing but I might have been stopped there by thecreditors; for a commission of bankrupt being soon after issued, theymight have stopped me by orders from the commissioners. But myhusband, having so dexterously got out of the bailiff's house byletting himself down in a most desperate manner from almost the top ofthe house to the top of another building, and leaping from thence,which was almost two storeys, and which was enough indeed to havebroken his neck, he came home and got away his goods before thecreditors could come to seize; that is to say, before they could getout the commission, and be ready to send their officers to takepossession.

  My husband was so civil to me, for still I say he was much of agentleman, that in the first letter he wrote me from France, he let meknow where he had pawned twenty pieces of fine holland for #30, whichwere really worth #90, and enclosed me the token and an order for thetaking them up, paying the money, which I did, and made in time above#100 of them, having leisure to cut them and sell them, some and some,to private families, as opportunity offered.

  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 fortunemuch lessened; for, including the hollands and a parcel of finemuslins, 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 itwas buried), yet I was a widow bewitched; I had a husband and nohusband, and I could not pretend to marry again, though I knew wellenough my husband would never see England any more, if he lived fiftyyears. Thus, I say, I was limited from marriage, what offer mightsoever be made me; and I had not one friend to advise with in thecondition I was in, least not one I durst trust the secret of mycircumstances to, for if the commissioners were to have been informedwhere I was, I should have been fetched up and examined upon oath, andall I have saved be taken away from me.

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

  Here, however, I concealed myself, and though my new acquaintances knewnothing of me, yet I soon got a great deal of company about me; andwhether it be that women are scarce among the sorts of people thatgenerally are to be found there, or that some consolations in themiseries of the place are more requisite than on other occasions, Isoon found an agreeable woman was exceedingly valuable among the sonsof affliction there, and that those that wanted money to pay half acrown on the pound to their creditors, and that run in debt at the signof the Bull for their dinners, would yet find money for a supper, ifthey liked the woman.

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

  It was indeed a subject of strange reflection to me to see men who wereoverwhelmed in perplexed circumstances, who were reduced some degreesbelow being ruined, whose families were objects of their own terror andother people's charity, yet while a penny lasted, nay, even beyond it,endeavouring to drown themselves, labouring to forget former things,which now it was the proper time to remember, making more work forrepentance, and sinning on, as a remedy for sin past.

  But it is none of my talent to preach; these men were too wicked, evenfor 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 actagainst conscience, but against nature; they put a rape upon theirtemper to drown the reflections, which their circumstances continuallygave them; and nothing was more easy than to see how sighs wouldinterrupt their songs, and paleness and anguish sit upon their brows,in spite of the forced smiles they put on; nay, sometimes it wouldbreak out at their very mouths when they had parted with their moneyfor a lewd treat or a wicked embrace. I have heard them, turningabout, fetch a deep sigh, and cry, 'What a dog am I! Well, Betty, mydear, I'll drink thy health, though'; meaning the honest wife, thatperhaps had not a half-crown for herself and three or four children.The next morning they are at their penitentials again; and perhaps thepoor weeping wife comes over to him, either brings him some account ofwhat his creditors are doing, and how she and the children are turnedout of doors, or some other dreadful news; and this adds to hisself-reproaches; but when he has thought and pored on it till he isalmost mad, having no principles to support him, nothing within him orabove him to comfort him, but finding it all darkness on every side, heflies to the same relief again, viz. to drink it away, debauch it away,and falling into company of men in just the same condition withhimself, he repeats the crime, and thus he goes every day one steponward of his way to destruction.

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

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

  I accepted her offer, and was with her half a year, and should havebeen longer, but in that interval what she proposed to me happened toherself, and she married very much to her advantage. But whose fortunesoever was upon the increase, mine seemed to be upon the wane, and Ifound nothing present, except two or three boatswains, or such fellows,but as for the commanders, they were generally of two sorts: 1. Suchas, having good business, that is to say, a good ship, resolved not tomarry 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) awife who, having some money, could enable them to hold, as they callit, a good part of a ship themselves, so to encourage owners to comein; or (2) a wife who, if she had not money, had friends who wereconcerned in shipping, and so could help to put the young man into agood ship, which to them is as good as a portion; and