The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders

by Daniel Defoe

you with what has been my condition for some timepast; and how, having been at the edge of the grave, I am, by theunexpected and undeserved mercy of Heaven, restored again. In thecondition I have been in, it cannot be strange to you that our unhappycorrespondence had not been the least of the burthens which lay upon myconscience. I need say no more; those things that must be repented of,must be also reformed.

  I wish you would think of going back to the Bath. I enclose you here abill for #50 for clearing yourself at your lodgings, and carrying youdown, and hope it will be no surprise to you to add, that on thisaccount only, and not for any offence given me on your side, I can seeyou no more. I will take due care of the child; leave him where he is,or take him with you, as you please. I wish you the like reflections,and that they may be to your advantage.--I am,' etc.

  I was struck with this letter as with a thousand wounds, such as Icannot describe; the reproaches of my own conscience were such as Icannot express, for I was not blind to my own crime; and I reflectedthat I might with less offence have continued with my brother, andlived with him as a wife, since there was no crime in our marriage onthat score, neither of us knowing it.

  But I never once reflected that I was all this while a married woman, awife to Mr. ---- the linen-draper, who, though he had left me by thenecessity of his circumstances, had no power to discharge me from themarriage contract which was between us, or to give me a legal libertyto marry again; so that I had been no less than a whore and anadulteress all this while. I then reproached myself with the libertiesI had taken, and how I had been a snare to this gentleman, and thatindeed I was principal in the crime; that now he was mercifullysnatched out of the gulf by a convincing work upon his mind, but that Iwas left as if I was forsaken of God's grace, and abandoned by Heavento a continuing in my wickedness.

  Under these reflections I continued very pensive and sad for nearmonth, and did not go down to the Bath, having no inclination to bewith the woman whom I was with before; lest, as I thought, she shouldprompt me to some wicked course of life again, as she had done; andbesides, I was very loth she should know I was cast off as above.

  And now I was greatly perplexed about my little boy. It was death tome to part with the child, and yet when I considered the danger ofbeing one time or other left with him to keep without a maintenance tosupport him, I then resolved to leave him where he was; but then Iconcluded also to be near him myself too, that I then might have thesatisfaction of seeing him, without the care of providing for him.

  I sent my gentleman a short letter, therefore, that I had obeyed hisorders in all things but that of going back to the Bath, which I couldnot think of for many reasons; that however parting from him was awound to me that I could never recover, yet that I was fully satisfiedhis reflections were just, and would be very far from desiring toobstruct his reformation or repentance.

  Then I represented my own circumstances to him in the most moving termsthat I was able. I told him that those unhappy distresses which firstmoved 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 ofour correspondence, which I believed neither of us intended to fallinto at the time, was broken off; that I desired to repent as sincerelyas he had done, but entreated him to put me in some condition that Imight not be exposed to the temptations which the devil never fails toexcite us to from the frightful prospect of poverty and distress; andif he had the least apprehensions of my being troublesome to him, Ibegged he would put me in a posture to go back to my mother inVirginia, from when he knew I came, and that would put an end to allhis fears on that account. I concluded, that if he would send me #50more to facilitate my going away, I would send him back a generalrelease, and would promise never to disturb him more with anyimportunities; unless it was to hear of the well-doing of the child,whom, if I found my mother living and my circumstances able, I wouldsend for to come over to me, and take him also effectually off hishands.

  This was indeed all a cheat thus far, viz. that I had no intention togo to Virginia, as the account of my former affairs there may convinceanybody of; but the business was to get this last #50 of him, ifpossible, knowing well enough it would be the last penny I was ever toexpect.

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

  And here I cannot but reflect upon the unhappy consequence of too greatfreedoms between persons stated as we were, upon the pretence ofinnocent intentions, love of friendship, and the like; for the fleshhas generally so great a share in those friendships, that is great oddsbut inclination prevails at last over the most solemn resolutions; andthat vice breaks in at the breaches of decency, which really innocentfriendship ought to preserve with the greatest strictness. But I leavethe readers of these things to their own just reflections, which theywill 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 loosedfrom all the obligations either of wedlock or mistress-ship in theworld, except my husband the linen-draper, whom, I having not now heardfrom in almost fifteen years, nobody could blame me for thinking myselfentirely freed from; seeing also he had at his going away told me, thatif 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 muchimportunity, and with the intercession of my mother too, had a secondreturn 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 toowas upon the condition of my sealing a general release to him, and tosend it him by his correspondent at Bristol, which, though I thoughthard of, yet I was obliged to promise to do. However, I managed sowell in this case, that I got my goods away before the release wassigned, and then I always found something or other to say to evade thething, and to put off the signing it at all; till at length I pretendedI 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 mystrength to amount, put all together, to about #400, so that with thatI had about #450. I had saved above #100 more, but I met with adisaster with that, which was this--that a goldsmith in whose hands Ihad trusted it, broke, so I lost #70 of my money, the man's compositionnot making above #30 out of his #100. I had a little plate, but notmuch, and was well enough stocked with clothes and linen.

  With this stock I had the world to begin again; but you are to considerthat 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 thebetter for my age, nor for my rambles to Virginia and back again; andthough I omitted nothing that might set me out to advantage, exceptpainting, for that I never stooped to, and had pride enough to think Idid not want it, yet there would always be some difference seen betweenfive-and-twenty and two-and-forty.

  I cast about innumerable ways for my future state of life, and began toconsider very seriously what I should do, but nothing offered. I tookcare to make the world take me for something more than I was, and hadit given out that I was a fortune, and that my estate was in my ownhands; 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 theconsequence of that was, I had no adviser, at least who could assistand advise together; and above all, I had nobody to whom I could inconfidence commit the secret of my circumstances to, and could dependupon for their secrecy and fidelity; and I found by experience, that tobe friendless is the worst condition, next to being in want that awoman can be reduced to: I say a woman, because 'tis evident men canbe their own advisers, and their own directors, and
know how to workthemselves out of difficulties and into business better than women; butif a woman has no friend to communicate her affairs to, and to adviseand assist her, 'tis ten to one but she is undone; nay, and the moremoney 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 thehands of the goldsmith, as above, whose credit, it seems, was upon theebb before, but I, that had no knowledge of things and nobody toconsult with, knew nothing of it, and so lost my money.

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

  This was evidently my case, for I