found my weakness; the inclination was not to be resisted, but I was obliged to yield up all even before he asked it. However, he was so just to me that he never upbraided me with that; nor did he ever express the least dislike to my conduct on any occasion, but always protested he was as much delighted with my company as he was the first hour we came together; I mean came together as bedfellows. It is true that he had no wife, that is to say, she was no wife to him, and so I was in no danger that way; but the just reflections of conscience oftentimes snatch a man, especially a man of sense, from the arms of a mistress, as it did him at last, though on another occasion. On the other hand, though I was not without secret reproaches of my own conscience for the life I led, and that even in the greatest height of the satisfaction I ever took, yet I had a terrible prospect of poverty and starving, which lay on me as a frightful spectre, so that there was no looking behind me. But as poverty brought me into it, so fear of poverty kept me in it, and I frequently resolved to leave it quite off, if I could but come to lay up money enough to maintain me. But these were thoughts of no weight, and whenever he came to me they vanished; for his company was so delightful that there was no being melancholy when he was there. The reflections were all the subjects of those hours when I was alone. I lived six years in this happy but unhappy condition, in which time I brought him three children, but only the first of them lived; and though I removed twice in those six years, yet came back the sixth year to my first lodgings at Hammersmith. Here it was that I was one morning surprised with a kind but melancholy letter from my gentleman; intimating that he was very ill, and was afraid he should have another fit of sickness, but that his wife's relations being in the house with him, it would not be practicable to have me with him, which, however, he expressed his great dissatisfaction in, and that he wished I could be allowed to tend and nurse him as I did before. I was very much concerned at this account, and was very impatient to know how it was with him. I waited a fortnight or thereabout, and heard nothing, which surprised me, and I began to be very uneasy indeed. I think, I may say, that for the next fortnight I was near to distracted. It was my particular difficulty, that I did not know directly where he was; for I understood at first he was in the lodgings of his wife's mother; but having removed myself to London, I soon found, by the help of the direction I had for writing my letters to him, how to inquire after him, and there I found he was at a house in Bloomsbury, whither he had, a little before he fell sick, removed his whole family; and that his wife and wife's mother were in the same house, though the wife was not suffered to know that she was in the same house with her husband. Here I also soon understood that he was at the last extremity, which made me almost at the last extremity too, to have a true account. One night I had the curiosity to disguise myself 'as a servant-maid, in a round cap and straw bonnet, and went to the door, as sent by a lady of his neighbourhood where he lived before, and giving her master and mistress's service, I said I was sent to know how Mr did, and how he had rested that night. In delivering this message I got the opportunity I desired; for, speaking with one of the maids, I held a gossip's tale with her, and heard all the particulars of his illness, which I found was a pleurisy, attended with a cough and fever. She told me also who was in the house, and how his wife was, who, by her relation, they were in hopes would recover her understanding; but as to the gentleman himself, in short, she told me, the doctors said, there was very little hope of him; that in the morning they thought he had been dying, and that he was but little better then, for they did not expect he would live over the next night. This was heavy news for me, and I began now to see an end to my prosperity, and to see that it was well I had played the good housewife, and saved something while he was alive, for I had no view of my own living before me. It lay very heavy upon my mind, too, that I had a son, a fine lovely boy, above five years old, and no provision made for it, at least that I knew of. With these considerations, and a sad heart, I went home that evening, and began to cast with myself how I should live, and in what manner to bestow myself for the residue of my life. You may be sure I could not rest without inquiring very quickly what was become of him; and not venturing to go myself, I sent several sham messengers, till, after a fortnight's waiting longer, I found there was hopes of his life, though he was still very ill; then I abated my sending any more to the house, and in some time after i learnt in the neighbourhood that he was about house, and then he was abroad again. I made no doubt then but that I should soon hear of him, and began to comfort myself with my circumstances being, as I thought, recovered; but with much surprise and amazement I waited near two months and heard nothing but that, being recovered, he was gone into the country for the air, and for the better recovery after his distemper. After this it was yet two months more, and then I understood he was come to his city house again, but still I heard nothing from him. I had written several letters for him, and directed them as usual, but found two or three of them had been called for, but not the rest. I wrote again in a more pressing manner than ever, and in one of them let him know that I must be forced to wait on him myself, representing my circumstances, the rent of lodgings to pay, and the provision for the child wanting, and my own deplorable condition, destitute of subsistence after his most solemn engagement to take care of and provide for me. I took a copy of this letter, and finding it lay at the house near a month, and was not called for, I found means to have the copy of it put into his own hands at a coffee-house, where I had by inquiry found he ! used to go. This letter forced an answer from him, by which, though I found I was to be abandoned, yet I found he had sent a letter to me some time before, desiring me to go down to the Bath again, its contents I shall come to presently. It is true that sick-beds are the times when such correspondence as this is looked on with different countenance, and seen with other eyes than we saw them with, or than they appeared with before. My lover had been at the gates of death, at the very brink of eternity; and it seems had been struck with a due remorse, and with sad reflections upon his past life of gallantry and levity; and among the rest, this criminal correspondence with me, which was neither more or less than a long continued life of adultery had represented itself, as it really was, and not as it had been formerly thought by him to be, and he looked upon it now with a just and a religious abhor rence. I cannot but observe also, and leave it for the direction of my sex in such cases of pleasure, that whenever sincere repentance succeeds such a crime as this, there never fails to attend a hatred of the object; and the more the affection might seem to be before, the hatred will be the more in proportion. It will always be so, indeed it can be no otherwise; for there cannot be a true and sincere abhorrence of the offence and the love to the cause of it remain, there will with an abhorrence of the sin be found a detestation of the fellow sinner; you can expect no other. I found it so here, though good manners and justice in this gentleman kept him from carrying it to any extreme; but the short history of his part in this affair was thus; he perceived by my last letter, and by all the rest, which he went for after, that I was not gone to the Bath, and that his first letter had not come to my hand, upon which he writes me this following: "Madam, "I am surprised that my letter, dated the 8th of last month, did not come to your hand; I give you my word it was delivered at your lodgings, and to the hands of your maid. "I need not acquaint you with what has been my condition for some time past, and how I have been at the edge of the grave: I am, by the unexpected and undeserved mercy of heaven, restored again. In the condition I have been in, it cannot be strange to you that our unhappy correspondence has not been the least of the burthens which lay upon my conscience; 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 inclose you here a bill for 50%. for clearing yourself at your lodgings, and carrying you down, and hope it will be no surprise to you to add, that on this account only, and not for any offence given me on your side, I can see you 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," &c. I was struck with this letter as with a thousand wounds; the reproaches of my own conscience were such as I cannot express, for I was not blind to my own crime; and I reflected that I might with less offence have continued with my brother, and lived with him as a wife, since there was no crime in our marriage on that score, neither of us knowing it. But I never once reflected that I was all this while a married woman, a wife to Mr. the linen draper, who, though he had left me by the necessity of his circumstances, had no power to discharge me from the marriage contract which was between us, or to give me a legal liberty to marry again; so that I had been no less than a whore and an adultress all this while; I then reproached myself with the liberties I had taken, and how I had been a snare to this gentleman, and that, indeed, I was principal in the crime; that now he was mercifully snatched out of the gulph by a convincing work upon his mind, but that I was left as if I was forsaken of God's grace, and abandoned by heaven to a continuing in my wickedness. Under these reflections I continued very pensive and sad for near a month, and did not go down to the Bath, having no inclination to be with the woman who I was with before; lest, as I thought, she should prompt me to some wicked course of life again, as she had done; and besides, I was very loath she should know I was cast off as above. And now I was greatly perplexed about my little boy; it was death to me to part with the child, and yet when I remembered the danger of being one time or other left with him to keep, without a maintenance to support him, I then resolved to leave him where he was; but then I concluded also to be near him myself too, that I might have the satisfaction of seeing him without the care of providing for him. I sent my gentleman a short letter therefore, that I had obeyed his orders in all things but that of going back to the Bath, which I could not think of for many reasons. That, however, parting from him was a wound to me that I could never recover, and yet that I was fully satisfied his reflections were just, and would be very far from desiring to obstruct his reformation or repentance. Then I represented my own circumstances to him in the most moving terms that I was able. I told him that that those unhappy distresses which first moved him to a generous and an honest friendship for me, would, I hoped, move him to a little concern for me now; though the criminal part of our correspondence, which I believed neither of us intended to fall into at that time, was broken off; that I desired to repent as sincerely as he had done, but entreated him to put me in some condition, that I might not be exposed to the temptations which the devil never fails to excite us to, from the frightful prospect of poverty and distress; and if he had the least apprehensions of my being troublesome to him, begged he would put me in a posture to go back to my mother in Virginia, from whence he knew I came, and that would put an end to all his fears on that account. I concluded, that if he would send me fifty more to facilitate my going away, I would send him back a general release, and would promise never to disturb him more with any importunities; unless it were to hear of the well-doing of the child, who, if I found my mother living, and my circumstances able, I would send for to come over to me, and take him also effectually off his hands. This was, indeed, all a cheat thus far, viz. that I had no intention to go to Virginia, as the account of my former affairs there may convince anybody of; but the business was to get this last fifty pounds of him, if possible, knowing well enough it would be the last penny I was ever to expect. However, the argument I used, namely, of giving him a general release, and never troubling him any more, prevailed effectually with him, and he sent me a bill for the money by a person who brought with him a general release for me to sign, and which I frankly signed, and received the money; and thus, though full sore against my will, a final end was put to this affair. and had pride enough to think that I did not want it, yet there would always be some difference seen between five and twenty and two and forty. I cast about innumerable ways for my future state of life, and began to consider very seriously what I should do, but nothing offered; I took care to make the world take me for something more than I was, and had it given out that I was a fortune, and that my estate was in my own hands, the last of which was very true, the first of it was as above. I had no acquaintance, And here I cannot but reflect upon the un- which was one of my worst misfortunes, and the happy consequence of too great freedoms be- consequence of that was, I had no adviser, at tween persons situated as we were, upon the least who could advise and assist together; and pretence of innocent intentions, love of friend-above all, I had nobody to whom I could in confi. ship, and the like; for the flesh has generally so dence commit the secret of any circumstances to, great a share in those friendships, that it is great and could depend upon for their secresy and fideodds but inclination prevails at last over the most lity; and I found by experience, that to be solemn resolutions; and that vice breaks in at friendless is the worst condition, next to being in the breaches of decency, which really innocent want, that a woman can be reduced to. I say a friendship ought to preserve with the greatest woman, because it is evident men can be their strictness; but I leave the readers of these own advisers and their own directors, and know things to their own just reflections, which they how to work themselves out of difficulties and will be more able to make effectual than I, who into business better than women; but if a woso soon forgot myself, and am therefore but a very man has no friend to communicate her affairs to, indifferent monitor. and to advise and assist her, it is ten to one but she is undone; nay, and the more money she has the more danger she is in of being wronged and deceived; and this was my case in the affair of the hundred pounds which I left in the hands of the goldsmith as above, whose credit, it seems, was upon the ebb before; but I that had no knowledge of things, and nobody to consult with, knew nothing of it, and so lost my money. I was now a single person again, as I may call myself; I was loosed from all the obligations either of wedlock or mistress-ship in the world; except my husband the linen-draper, who I having not now heard from in almost fifteen years, nobody could blame me for thinking myself entirely freed from. When a woman is thus left desolate and void of council, she is just like a bag of money or a jewel dropped on the highway, which is a prey to the next comer. If a man of virtue and upright principles happens to find it, he will have it cried, and the owner may come to hear of it again; but how many times shall such a thing fall into the hands that will make no scruple of seizing it for their own, to once that it shall come into good hands? I now began to cast up my accounts; I had by many letters, and much importunity, and with the intercession of my mother too, I had a second return 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 too was upon the condition of my sealing a general release to him, and to send it him by his correspondent at Bristol, which though I thought hard of, yet I was obliged to promise to do. However, I managed so well in this case, that I got my goods away before the release was signed, This was evidently my case, for I was now a and then I always found something or other to loose unguided creature, and had no help, no say to evade the thing, and to put off the sign-assistance, no guide for my conduct. I knew ing it at all; till at length I pretended I must write to my brother, and have his answer, before I could do it. Including this recruit, and before I got the last fifty, I found my strength to amount, put all together, to about 400l., so that with that I had above 450l. I had saved about 1007. more, but I met with a disaster with that, which was this, that a goldsmith in whose hands I had trusted it, broke, so I lost 701. of my money, the man's composition not making above 301. out of this 100%. I had a little plate, but not much, and was well enough stocked for clothes and linen. With this stock I had the world to begin again; but you are to consider that 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 the better for my age, nor for my rambles to Virginia and back again; and though I omitted nothing that might set me out to advantage, except painting, for that I never stooped to, what I aimed at, and what I wanted, but knew nothing how to pursue the end by direct means. I wanted to be placed in a settled state of living, and had I happened to meet with a sober good husband, I should have been as faithful and true a wife to him as virtue itself could have formed. If I had been otherwise, the vice came in always at the door of necessity, not at the door of inclination; and I understood too well, by the want of it, what the value of a settled life was, to do any thing to forfeit the felicity of it; nay, should have made the better wife for all the difficulties I had passed through, by a great deal; nor did I, in any of the times that I had been a wife, give my husbands the least uneasiness on account of my behaviour. But all this was nothing, I found no encourag ing prospect; I waited; I lived regularly, and with as much frugality as became my circumstances, but nothing offered; nothing presented, and the main stock wasted apace, and what to do I knew not; the terror of approaching poverty I lay hard upon my spirits. I had some money, || robbed, and perhaps murdered, in a strange place out where to place it I knew not, nor would the for them. This perplexed me strangely, and interest of it maintain me, at least not in London. what to do I knew not. At length a new scene opened. There was in It came into my thoughts one morning that I the house where I lodged a north countrywoman would go to the bank myself, where I had often that passed for a gentlewoman, and nothing was been to receive the interest of some bills I had, more frequent in her discourse than her account which had interest payable on them, and where of the cheapness of provisions, and the easy way I had found the clerk, to whom I applied myself, of living in her country; how plentiful and how very honest and just to me, and particularly so cheap everything was; what good company they fair one time, that when I had mis-told my kept, and the like; till at last I told her she money and taken less than my due, and was almost tempted me to go and live in her coun-coming away, he set me to rights and gave me try, for I that was a widow, though I had suffi- the rest, which he might have put into his own cient to live on, yet had no way of increasing it, pocket. and that London was an expensive and extravagant place; that I found I could not live here under a hundred pounds a year, unless kept no company, no servant, made no appearance, and buried myself in privacy, as if I was obliged to it by necessity. I should have observed, that she was always made to believe, as everybody else was, that was a great fortune, or at least that I had 30001, or 4000l., if not more, and all in my own hands; and she was mighty sweet upon me when she thought me inclined in the least to go into her country. She said she had a sister lived near Liverpool, that her brother was a considerable gentleman there, and had a great estate also in Ireland; that she would go down there in about two months, and if I would give her my company thither, I should be as welcome as herself for a month or more, as I pleased, till I should see how I liked the country; and if I thought fit to live there, she would undertake they would take care, though they did not entertain lodgers themselves, to recommend me to some agreeable family, where I should be placed to my conten If this woman had known my real circumstances, she would never have laid so many snares, and taken so many weary steps, to catch a poor desolate creature that was good for little when it was caught; and, indeed, I, whose case was almost desperate, and thought I could not be much worse, was not very anxious about what might befall me, provided they did me no personal injury; so I suffered myself, though not without a great deal of invitation, and great professions of sincere friendship and real kindness, say I suffered myself to be prevailed upon to go with her, and accordingly I packed up my baggage, and put myself in a posture for a journey, though I did not absolutely know whither I was to go. I And now I found myself in great distress; what little I had in the world was all in money, except as before, a little plate, some linen, and my clothes; as for household stuff I had little or none, for I had lived always in lodgings; but I had not one friend in the world with whom to trust that little I had, or to direct me how to dispose of it, and this perplexed me night and day. I thought of the bank and of the other companies in London, but I had no friend to commit the management of it to; and to keep and carry about with me bank bills, tallies, orders, and such things, I looked upon it as unsafe; that if they were lost my money was lost, and then I was undone; and, on the other hand, I might be I went to him and represented my case very plainly, and asked if he would trouble himself to be my adviser, who was a poor friendless widow and knew not what to do. He told me, if I desired his opinion of anything within the reach of his business, he would do his endeavours that I should not be wronged, but that he would also help me to a good sober person who was a grave man of his acquaintance, who was a clerk in such business too, though not in their house, whose judgment was good, and whose honesty I might depend upon; "for," added he, "I will answer for him, and for every step he takes; if he wrongs you, madam, of one farthing, it shall lie at my door; I will make it good; and he delights to assist people in such cases; he does it as an act of charity." I was a little at a stand at this discourse, but after some pause I told him I had rather have depended upon him, because I had found him honest; but if that could not be, I would take his recommendation sooner than any one else. "I dare say, madam," says he, "that you will be as well satisfied with my friend as with me.' It seems he had his hands full of the business of the bank. I had engaged to meddle with no other business than that of his office. He added, that his friend should take nothing off me for his advice or assistance, and this indeed encouraged me very much. He appointed the same evening, after the bank was shut and business over, for me to meet him and his friend; and, indeed, as soon as I saw his friend, and he began but to talk of the affair, I was fully satisfied that I had a very honest man to deal with; his countenance spoke it, and his character, as I heard afterwards, was everywhere so good that I had no room for any more doubts upon me. After the first meeting, in which I only said what I had said before we parted, and he appointed me to come the next day to him, telling me, I might in the meantime satisfy myself or him by inquiry, which, however, I knew not how well to do, having no acquaintance myself. Accordingly I met him the next day, when I entered more freely with him into my case; I told him my circumstances at large; that I was a widow come over from America, perfectly desolate and friendless; that I had a little money, and but a little, and I was almost distracted for fear of losing it, having no friend in the world to trust with the management of it; that I was going into the north of England to live cheap, that my stock might not waste; that I would willingly lodge my money in the bank, but that I durst not carry the bills about me, and the like, as above, and how to correspond about it, or with who, I knew not. He told me I might lodge the money in the bank as an account, and its being entered in the books would entitle me to the money at any time, and if I was in the north I might draw bills on the cashier, and receive it when I would; but that then it would be esteemed as running cash, and the bank would give no interest for it; that I might buy stock with it, and so it would lie in store for me, but that then, if I wanted to dispose of it, I must come up to town on purpose to transfer it, and even it would be with some difficulty I should receive the half-yearly dividend, unless I was here in person, or had some friend I could trust with having the stock in his name to do it for me, and that would have the same difficulty in it as before; and with that he looked hard at me and smiled a little. At last, says he,| "Why do you not get a head steward, madam, that may take you and your money together into keeping, and then you would have the trouble taken off your hands?" Ay, sir, and the money too it may be," said I," for truly I find the hazard that way is as much as it is the other way;" but I remember, I said, secretly to myself, I wish you would ask me the question fairly, I would consider very seriously on it before I said no. He went on a good way with me, and I thought once or twice he was in earnest, but to my real affliction, I found at last he had a wife; but when he owned he had a wife he shook his head, and said, with some concern, that indeed he had a wife and no wife. I began to think he had been in the condition of my late lover, and that his wife had been distempered, or lunatic, or some such thing. However, we had not much more discourse at that time, but he told me he was in too much hurry of business then, but that if I would come home to his house after their business was over, he would by that time consider what might be done for me, to put my affairs in a posture of security. I told him I would come, and desired to know where he lived. He gave me a direction in writing, and when he gave it me he read it to me, and said, "There it is, madam, if you dare trust yourself with me." Yes, sir," said I, "I believe I may venture to trust you with myself, for you have a wife you say, and I do not want a husband; besides, I dare trust you with my money, which is all I have in the world, and if that were gonc, I might trust myself anywhere." He said some things in jest that were very handsome and mannerly, and would have pleased me very well if they had been in earnest; but that passed over, I took the directions, and appointed to attend him at his house at seven o'clock the same evening. When I came he made several proposals for my placing my money in the bank, in order to my having interest for it; but still some difficulty or other came in the way, which he objected as not safe; and I found such a sincere disinterested honesty in him, that I began to muse with myself, that I had certainly found the honest man I wanted, and that I could never put myself into better hands; so I told him || with a great deal of frankness, that I had never met with man or woman yet that I could trust, or in whom I could think myself safe, but that I saw he was so disinterestedly concerned for my safety, that I said I would freely trust him with the management of that little I had, if he would accept to be steward for a poor widow that could give him no salary. He smiled, and standing up with great respect, saluted me. He told me he could not but take it very kindly that I had so good an opinion of him; that he would not deceive me; that he would do anything in his power to serve me and expect no salary; but that he could not by any means accept of a trust, that it might bring him to be suspected of self-interest, and that if I should die he might have disputes with my executors, which he should be very loath to encumber himself with. I told him if those were all his objections I would soon remove them, and convince him that there was not the least room for any difficulty; for that, first, as for suspecting him, if ever I should do it, now was the time to suspect him, and not put the trust into his hands, and whenever I did suspect him, he could but throw it up then and refuse to go any farther. Then, as to executors, I assured him I had no heirs, nor any relations in England, and I would have neither heirs or executors but himself, unless I should alter my condition before I died, and then his trust and trouble should cease together, which, however, I had no prospect of yet; but I told him, if I died as I was, it should be all his own, and he would deserve it by being so faithful to me as I was satisfied he would be. He changed his countenance at this discourse, and asked me how I came to have so much good will for him, and looking very much pleased, said, he might very lawfully wish he was a single man for my sake. I smiled and told him, that as he was not, my offer could have no design upon him in it, and to wish as he did was not to be allowed, it was criminal to his wife. He told me I was wrong; "for," says he, "madam, as I said before, I have a wife and no wife, and it would be no sin to me to wish her hanged, if that were all.” "I know nothing of your circumstances that way, sir," said I; "but it cannot be innocent to wish your wife dead." "I tell you," says he again, "she is a wife and no wife; you do not know what I am, or what she is." That is true," said I, "sir, I do not know what you are; but I believe you to be an hones man, and that is the cause of all my confidence in you." "Well, well," says he, "and so I am, I hope, too, but I am something else too, madam, for," says he, "to be plain with you, I am a cuckold, and she is a whore." He spoke it in a kind of a jest, but it was with such an awkward smile, that I perceived it was what stuck very close to him, and he looked dismally when he said it. "That alters the case indeed, sir," said I, "as to that part you were speaking of; but a cuckold you know may be an honest man, it does not alter that case at all. Besides, I think," said I, |