so well as to be a volunteer transport, not a convict, and in whose life there is an incredible variety. But, as I said, there are things too long to bring in here, so neither can I make a promise of their coming out by themselves. We cannot say, indeed, that this history is carried on quite to the end of the life of this famous Moll Flanders, for nobody can write their own life to the full end of it, unless they can write it after they are dead; but her husband's life being written by a third hand, gives a full account of them both, how long they lived together in that country, and how they came both to England again, after about eight years; in which time they were grown very rich, and where she lived, it seems, to be very old, but was not so extraordinary a penitent as she was at first; it seems only that indeed she always spoke with abhorrence of her former life, and of every part of it. In her last scene at Maryland and Virginia, many pleasant things happened, which make that part of her life very agreeable; but they are not told with the same elegance as those accounted for by herself, so it is still to the more advantage that we break off here. THE HISTORY OF MOLL FLANDERS. My true name is so well known in the records or registers at Newgate, and in the Old Bailey, and there are some things of such consequence still depending there, relating to my particular conduct, that it is not to be expected I should set my name, or the account of my family, to this work; perhaps, after my death, it may be better known, at present it would not be proper, no, though a general pardon should be issued, even without exceptions and reserve of persons or crimes. It is enough to tell you that as some of my worst comrades, who are out of the way of doing me harm, having gone out of the world by the steps and the string, as I often expected to go,|| knew me by the name of Moll Flanders; so you may give me leave to speak of myself under that name, till I dare own who I have been, as well as who I am. I have been told, that in one of our neighbour || nations, whether it be in France or where else I know not, they have an order from the king that when any criminal is condemned, either to die or to the gallies, or to be transported, if they || leave any children, as such are generally unprovided for by the poverty or forfeiture of their parents, so they are immediately taken care of by the government, and put into a hospital called the House of Orphans, where they are bred up, clothed, fed, taught, and when fit to go out are placed to trades, or to services, so as to be well able to provide for themselves by an honest, industrious behaviour. Had this been the custom in our country, I had not been left a poor desolate girl, without friends, without clothes, without help or helper in the world, as was my fate, and by which I was not only exposed to very great distresses, even before I was capable either of understanding my case, or how to amend it, but brought into a course of life which was not only scandalous in itself, but which in its ordinary course tended to the swift destruction both of soul and body. But the case was otherwise here; my mother was convicted of felony for a certain petty theft, scarce worth naming, viz. having an opportunity of borrowing three pieces of fine Holland, of a certain draper in Cheapside. The circumstances are too long to repeat, and I have heard them related so many ways, that I can scarce be certain which is the right account. However it was, this they all agree in, that || my mother pleaded her belly, and being found quick with child, she was respited for about seven months, in which time having brought me into the world, and being about again, she was called down, as they term it, to her former judgment, but obtained the favour of being transported to Virginia, and left me about half a year old, and in bad hands you may be sure. This is too near the first hours of my life for me to relate anything of myself but by hearsay; it is enough to mention, that as I was born in such an unhappy place, I had no parish to have recourse to for my nourishment in my infancy, nor can I give the least account how I was kept alive, other than that as I have been told some relation of my mother's took me away for awhile as a nurse child, but at whose expense, or by whose directions, I know nothing at all of it. The first account that I can recollect, or could ever learn of myself, was, that I had wandered among a crew of those people they call gipsies or Egyptians, but I believe it was but a very little while that I had been among them, for I had not had my skin discoloured or blackened, as they do very young to all the children they carry about with them, nor can I tell how I came among them, or how I got from them. am It was at Colchester, in Essex, that those people left me; but I have a notion in my head that I left them there (that is, that I hid myself and would go no farther with them), but Í not able to be particular in that account; only this I remember, that being taken up by some of the parish officers of Colchester, I gave an account that I came into the town with the gipsies, but that I would not go any farther with them, and that so they had left me, but whither they were gone that I knew not, nor could they expect it of me; for, though they sent round the country to inquire after them, it seems they could not be found. I was now in a way to be provided for; for though I was not a parish charge upon this or that part of the town by law, yet as my case came to be known, and that I was too young to do any work, being not above four years old, compassion moved the magistrates to order some care to be taken of me, and I became one of their own as much as if I had been born in the place. In the provision they made for me it was my good hap to be put to nurse, as they call it, to a woman who was indeed poor, but had been in better circumstances, and who got a little livelihood by taking such as I was supposed to be, and keeping them with all necessaries till they were of a certain age, in which it might be supposed they might go to service, or get their own bread. This woman had also had a little school, which she kept to teach children to read and to work; and having, as I have said, lived before that in good fashion, she bred up the children she took with a great deal of art, as well as with a great deal of care, but which was worth all the rest, she bred them up very religiously also, being herself a very sober, pious woman, very housewifely and clean, and very mannerly, and with good behaviour, so that, excepting a plain diet, coarse lodging, and mean clothes, we were brought up as mannerly as if we had been at the dancing school. I was continued here till I was eight years old, when I was terrified with the news that the magistrates, as I think they call them, had ordered that I should go to service. I was able to do but very little wherever I was to go, except it was to run of errands, and be a drudge to some cookmaid; and this they told me of often, which put me into a great fright, for I had a thorough aversion to going to service, as they called it, though I was so young, and I told my nurse, as we called her, that I believed I could get my living without going to service, if she pleased to let me; for she had taught me to work with my needle and spin worsted, which is the chief trade of that city; and I told her, if that she would keep me, I would work for her, and I would work very hard. I talked to her almost every day of working hard, and, in short, I did nothing but work and cry all day, which grieved the good kind woman || so much that at last she began to be concerned, for she loved me very well. One day after this, as she came into the room where all we poor children were at work, she sat down just over against me, not in her usual place as mistress, but as if she had set herself on purpose to observe me and see me work. I was doing something she had set me to, as I remember; it was marking some shirts which she had taken to make, and after awhile she began to talk to me. "Thou foolish child," says she, "thou art always crying," for I was crying then. Prithee, what dost cry for?" Because they will take me away," says I, "and put me to service, and I can't work house-work." "Well, child," says she, "but though you can't work house-work, as you call it, you will learn it in time, and they will not put you to hard things at first." "Yes they will," says I, "and if I cannot do it they will beat me, and the maids will beat me, and make me do great work, and I am but a little girl, and I can't do it ;" and then I cried again till I could not speak any more. This moved my good motherly nurse so that she resolved I should not go to service yet; so she bid me not cry, and she would speak to Mr Mayor, and I should not go to service till I was bigger. Well, this did not satisfy me; for to think of going to service was such a frightful thing to me that if she had assured me I should not have gone till I was 20 years old, it would have been the same to me, I should have cried I believe all the time with the very apprehension of its being to be so at last. When she saw that I was not pacified yet she began to be angry with me." And what would you have?" says she. "Do I not tell you that you shall not go to service till you grow bigger?" "Ay," says I, "but then I must go at last." Why, what !" said she; "is the girl mad? What, would you be a gentlewoman ?" "Yes." says I, and cried heartily, till I roared out again. This set the old gentlewoman a laughing at me, as you may be sure it would. "Well, madam, forsooth," says she, gibing at me, "you would be a gentlewoman; and how would you come to be a gentlewoman; what, will you do it by your fingers' ends." 66 "what Yes," says I again very innocently. Why, what can you earn," says she; can you get a day at your work?" "Threepence," said I, "when I spin, and fourpence when I work plain work." "Alas! poor gentlewoman," said she again, laughing; "what will that do for thee?" "It will keep me," says I, "if you will let me live with you," and this I said in such a poor petitioning tone that it made the poor woman's heart yearn to me, as she told me afterwards. "But," says she, "that will not keep you, and buy you clothes too; and who must buy the little gentlewoman clothes," says she, and smiled all the while at me. "I will work harder, then," says I," and you shall have it all." "Poor child! it will not keep you," says she; "it will hardly find you in victuals." "Then I will have no victuals," says I again very innocently; "let me but live with you." Why, can you live without victuals?" says she. "Yes," again says I, very much like a child, you may be sure, and still I cried heartily. I had no policy in all this; you may easily see it was all nature; but it was joined with so much innocence and so much passion that, in short, it set the good motherly creature a weeping too, and she cried at last as fast as I did, and then took me, and led me out of the teaching-room. Come," says she, "you shall not go to service, you shall live with me;" and this pacified me for the present. 66 He Some time after this she going to wait on the mayor, and talking of such things as belonged to her business, at last my story came up, and my good nurse told Mr Mayor the whole tale. was so pleased with it that he would call his lady and his two daughters to hear it; and it made mirth enough among them, you may be sure. " says However, not a week had passed over but on a sudden comes the mayor's lady and her two daughters to the house to see my old nurse, her school, and the children. When they had looked about them a little, "Well, Mrs the lady to my nurse, "pray which is the little lass that intends to be a gentlewoman?" I heard her, and was terribly frightened at first, though I did not know why neither; but the lady came up to me, "Well, Miss," says she, "and what are you at work upon?" The word miss was a language that had hardly been heard of in our school, and I wondered what sad name it was she called me; however, I stood up, made a curtsy, || brought others with them, so that I was known by it almost all over the town. I was now about ten years old, and began to look a little womanish, for I was mighty grave and humble, very mannerly; and, as I had often heard the ladies say I was pretty, and would be a very handsome woman, so you may be sure that hearing them say so made me not a little proud; however, that pride had no ill effect upon me yet, caly as they often gave me money, and I gave it all to my old nurse; she, honest woman, was so just to me as to lay it all out again for me, Now, all this while my good old nurse, the and gave me head-dresses, linen, gloves, and lady, and all the rest of them, did not understand ribands, and I went very neat, and always clean, me at all, for they meant one sort of thing by the for that I would do, and if I had rags on I would word gentlewoman and I meant quite another; always be clean, or else I would dabble them in for, alas, all I understood by being a gentlewo-water myself; but I say, my good nurse, when I man was, to be able to work for myself, and to had money given me, very honestly laid it out for get enough to keep me without that terrible bug-me, and would always tell the ladies this or that bear, "going to service;" whereas they meant to live great, rich, and high, and I know not what. Well, after the mayor's lady was gone, her two daughters came in, and they called for the gentlewoman too, and they talked a long while to me, and I answered them in my innocent way, but always, if they asked me whether I resolved to be a gentlewoman, I answered "Yes." At last one of them asked me what a gentlewoman was. That puzzled me much, but however I explained myself negatively, that it was one that did not go to service to do house-work. They were pleased to be familiar with me, and liked my little prattle to them, which it seems was agreeable enough to them, and they gave me money too. As for my money, I gave it to my Mrs Nurse, as I called her, and told her she should have all I got for myself when I was a gentlewoman, as well as now. By this and some other of my talk my old tutoress began to understand me about what I meant by being a gentlewoman, and that I understood by it no more than to be able to get my bread by my own work; and at last she asked me whether it was not so. I told her "Yes," and I insisted on it, that to do so was to be a gentlewoman; "For," says I, "there is such a one," naming a woman that mended lace and washed the ladies' laced heads; 'she," says I, "is a gentlewoman, and they call her madam." 66 "Poor child," says my good old nurse, you may soon be such a gentlewoman as that, for she is a person of ill fame, and has had two or three bastards." I did not understand anything of that, but answered, "I am sure they call her madam, and she does not go to service, nor do housework;" and therefore I insisted that she was a gentlewoman, and I would be such a gentlewoman as that. The ladies were told all this again, to be sure, and they made themselves merry with it, and every now and then the young ladies (Mr Mayor's daughters) would come and see me, and ask where the little gentlewoman was, which made me not a little proud of myself. This held a great while, and I was often visited by these young ladies, and sometimes they was bought with their money, and this made them oftentimes give me more, till at last I was indeed called upon by the magistrates, as I understood it, to go out to service; but then I was come to be so good a workwoman myself, and the ladies were so kind to me, that it was plain I could maintain myself, that is to say, I could earn as much for my nurse as she was able by it to keep me; so she told them that if they would give her leave she would keep the gentlewoman, as she called me, to be her assistant, and teach the children, which I was very well able to do, for I was very nimble at my work, and had a good hand with my needle, though I was yet very young. But the kindness of the ladies of the town did not end here; for when they came to understand that I was no more maintained by the public allowance, as before, they gave me money oftener than formerly, and as I grew up they brought me work to do for them, such as linen to make, and laces to mend, and heads to dress up, and not only paid me for doing them, but even taught me how to do them; so that now I was a gentlewoman indeed, as I understood that word, and as I desired to be; for, by the time I was twelve years old, I not only found myself clothes and paid my nurse for my keeping, but got money in my pocket too beforehand. The ladies also gave me clothes frequently of their own or their children's, and stockings, some petticoats, some gowns, some one thing, some another, and these my old woman managed for me like a mere mother, and kept them for me, obliged me to mend them and turn them and twist them to the best advantage, for she was a rare housewife. At last one of the ladies took so much fancy to me that she would have me home to her house, for a month, she said, to be among her daughters. Now, though this was exceeding kind in her, yet, as my old good woman said to her, unless she resolved to keep me for good and all, she would do the little gentlewoman more harm than good. "Well," says the lady, "that is true, and therefore I will only take her home for a week, that I may see how my daughters and she agree together, and how I like her temper, and then I will tell you more; and, in the mean time, if anybody comes to see her as they used to do, you may only tell them you have sent her to my house. This was prudently managed enough, and 1 went to the lady's house, but I was so pleased there with the young ladies, and they so pleased with me, that I had enough to do to come away, and they were as unwilling to part with me. However, I did come away, and lived almost a year more with my honest old woman, and began now to be very helpful to her; for I was almost 14 years old, was tall of my age, and looked a little womanish; but I had such a taste of genteel living at the lady's house that I was not so easy in my old quarters as I used to be, and I thought it was fine to be a gentlewoman indeed, for I had quite other notions of a gentlewoman now than I had before; and, as I thought, I say, that it was fine to be a gentlewoman, so I loved to be among gentlewomen, and therefore I longed to be there again. About the time that I was fourteen years and a quarter old, my good old nurse-mother I ought rather to call her-fell sick and died. I was then in a sad condition indeed; for, as there is no great bustle in putting an end to a poor body's family, when once they are carried to the grave, so the poor good woman being buried, the parish children she kept were immediately removed by the churchwardens, the school was at an end, and the children of it had no more to do but just to stay at home till they were sent somewhere else; and, as for what she left, her daughter, a married woman with six or seven children, came and swept it all away at once, and, removing the goods, they had no more to say to me than to jest with me, and tell me that the little gentlewoman might set up for herself if she pleased. I was frightened almost out of my wits, and knew not what to do, for I was, as it were, turned out of doors to the wide world; and that which was still worse, the old honest woman had two and twenty shillings of mine in her hand, which was all the estate the little gentlewoman had in the world, and when I asked the daughter for it, she huffed me, and laughed at me, and told me she had nothing to do with it. It was true, the good woman had told her daughter of it, and that it lay in such a place, and that it was the child's money, and had called once or twice for me, to give it me, but I was unhappily out of the way, somewhere or other, and when I came back she was past being in a condition to speak of it; however, the daughter was so honest afterward as to give it me, though at first she used me cruelly about it. But my new generous mistress, for she exceeded the good woman I was with before in everything, as well as in the matter of estateI say in everything except honesty-and for that, though this was a lady most exactly just, yet I must not forget to say on all occasions, that the first, though poor, was as uprightly honest as it was possible for any one to be. Now was I a poor gentlewoman indeed, and was just that very night to be turned into the wide world; for the daughter removed all the goods, and i had not so much as a lodging to go || to, or a bit of bread to eat but it seems some of the neighbours who had known my circumstances took so much compassion of me as to acquaint the lady in whose family I had been a week, as I mentioned above, and immediately she sent her maid to fetch me away, and her two daughters came with the maid, though unsent; so I went with them bag and baggage, and with a glad heart you may be sure the fright of my condition had made such an impres sion upon me that I did not want now to be a gentlewoman, but was very willing to be a servant, and that any kind of servant they thought fit to have me be. I was no sooner carried away, as I have said, by this good gentlewoman, but the first lady, that is to say, the mayor's lady that was, sent her two daughters to take care of me, and another family which had taken notice of me when I was the little gentlewoman, and had given me work to do, sent for me after her, so that I was mightily made of, as we say; nay, and they were not a little angry, especially madame the mayoress, that her friend had taken me away from her as they called it; for, as she said, I was hers by right, she having been the first that took any notice of me, but they that had me would not part with me, and as for me, though I should have been very well treated with any of the other, yet I could not be better than where I was. Here I continued till I was between seventeen and eighteen years of age, and here I had all the advantages for my education that could be imagined; the lady had masters home in her own house to teach her daughters to dance, and to speak French, and to write, and others to teach them music; and as I was always with them, I learnt as fast as they, and though the masters were not appointed to teach me, yet I learnt by imitation and inquiry all that they learnt by instruction and direction. So that, in short, I learned to dance and speak French as well as any of them, and to sing much better, for I had a better voice than any of them; I could not so readily come at playing on the harpsicord or spinnet, because I had no instrument of my own to practise on, and could only come at theirs in the intervals when they left it, which was uncertain, but yet I learnt tolerably well too, and the young ladies at length got two instruments, that is to say, a harpsichord and a spinnet, and then they taught me themselves; but as to dancing, they could hardly help my learning country dances, because they always wanted me to make up an even number; and, on the other hand, they were as heartily willing to learn me everything that they had been taught themselves, as I could be to take the learning. By this means I had, as I have said above, all the advantages of education that I could have had, if I had been as much a gentlewoman as they were with whom I lived, and in some things I had the advantage of my ladies, though they were my superiors; viz. that mine were all the gifts of nature, and which all their fortunes could not furnish. First, I was apparently handsomer than any of them; secondly, I was better shaped; and thirdly, I sung better, by which I mean i had a better voice; in all which¦ |