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jail in a little while, though not without the help of money, and continued teasing the merchant a long while, and at last threatened to assassinate and murder him; so the merchant, who, having buried his wife about two months before, was now a single man, and not knowing what such a villain might do, thought fit to quit Paris, and come away to Holland also.

It is most certain, that speaking of originals, I was the source and spring of all that trouble and vexation to this honest gentleman; and as it was afterwards in my power to have made him full satisfaction, and did not, I cannot say but I added ingratitude to all the rest of my follies; but of that I shall give a fuller account presently.

In short, be took up his lodgings in the same house where I lodged, and the room he lay in opened, as he was wishing it would, just to my lodging-room, so we could almost call out of bed to one another, and I was not at all shy of him on that score, for I believed him perfectly honest; and so indeed he was, and if he had not, that article was at present no part of my concern,

It was not till two or three days, and after his first hurry of business were over, that we began to enter into the history of our affairs on every side, but when we began, it took up all our conversation for almost a fortnight. First I gave him a particular account of everything that happened material upon my voyage, and how we were driven into Harwich by a very terrible storm, how I had left my woman behind me, so frightened with the danger she had been in, that she durst not venture to set her foot into a ship again, and that I had not come myself, if the bills I had of him had not been payable in Holland; but that money, he might see, would make a woman go anywhere.

I was surprised one morning, when being at the merchant's house whom he had recommended me to in Rotterdam, and being busy in his counting house, managing my bills, and preparing to write a letter to him to Paris, I heard a noise of horses at the door, which is not very common in a city where everybody passes by water; but he had, it seems, ferryed over the Maze from Wil- He seemed to laugh at all our womanish fears liamstadt, and so came to the very door, and I upon the occasion of the storm, telling me it soon after saw a gentleman alight and come in at was nothing but what was very ordinary in those the gate. I knew nothing and expected nothing,seas, but that they had harbours on every coast to be sure, of the person; but, as I say, I was surprised, and indeed more than ordinarily surprised, when coming near to me, I saw it was my merchant of Paris, my benefactor, and indeed, || my deliverer.

so near, that they were seldom in danger of be ing lost; "for indeed," says he, "if they cannot fetch one coast they can always stand away for another, and run afore it," as he called it," for one side or other." But when I came to tell him what a crazy ship it was, and how, even when they had got into Harwich, and into smooth water, they were fain to run the ship on shore, or she would have sunk in the harbour; and that I looked out at the cabin door, and saw one Dutch man upon his knees here, and another there, at prayers, then indeed he acknowledged I had reason to be alarmed; but smiling, added, “but you, madam," says he, "are so good a lady, and so pious, you would but have gone to heaven a little the sooner. The difference had not been ' much to you."

I confess it was an agreeable surprise to me, and I was exceeding glad to see him, who was so honourable and so kind to me, and who indeed had saved my life. As soon as he saw me he ran to me, took me in his arms, and kissed me with a freedom that he never offered to take with me before: "Dear madam," says he, "I am glad to see you safe in this country; if you had stayed two days longer in Paris you had been undone." I was so glad to see him that I could not speak a good while, and I burst out into tears without speaking a word for a minute, but I recovered that disorder, and said, "The more, I confess, when he said this, it made all the sir, is my obligation to see you that had saved my blood turn in my veins, and I thought I shoak life;" and added, "I am glad to see you here, have fainted. Poor gentleman!" thought I that I may consider how to balance an account "you know little of me; what would I give to he in which I am so much your debtor."- "You really what you really think me to be!" He per and I will adjust that matter easily," says he,ceived the disorder, but said nothing till I spoke; "now we are so near together; pray, where do you lodge?" says he.

"In a very honest, good house," said I, "where that gentleman, your friend, recommended me," pointing to the merchant in whose house we then were.

"And where you may lodge too, sir," says the gentleman, "if it suits with your business, and your other conveniencies."

"With all my heart," says he; "then, madam," adds he, turning to me, I shall be near you, and have time to tell you a story which will be very long, and yet many ways very pleasant to you; how troublesome that devilish fellow, the Jew has been to me on your account, and what a hellish snare he had laid for you, if he could have found you."

"I shall have leisure too, sir," said I, " to tell you all my adventures since that; which have not been a few, I assure you."

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when, shaking my head, “O, sir,” said I, "death in any shape has some terror in it, but in the frightful figure of a storm at sea, and a sinking ship, it comes with a double, a treble, and indeed an inexpressible horror; and if I were that saint you think me to be (which God knows I am not it is still very dismal; I desire to die in a calm, if can." He said a great many good things, and very prettily ordered his discourse between serious reflection and compliment, but I had too much guilt to relish it as it was meant, so I turned it off to something else, and talked of the neces sity I had on me to come to Holland, but I wished myself safe on shore in England again.

He said he was glad I had such an obligation upon me to come over into Holland, but hinted that he was so interested in my welfare, and be sides had such further designs upon me, that if I had not so happily been found in Holland, be was resolved to have gone to England to see me, )

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THE FORTUNATE MISTRESS.

and that it was one of the principal reasons for|| his leaving Paris.

the Jew, and what expense he had put him to; how at length he had cast him, as above, and had I told him I was extremely obliged to him for recovered good damage of him, but that the so far interesting himself in my affairs, but that rogue was unable to make him any considerable I had been so far his debtor before, that I knew reparation. He had told me also how the Prince -'s gentleman had resented his treatment not how anything could increase it; for I owed || d' my life to him already, and I could not be in debt of his master; and how he had caused him to be He anused upon the Pont Neuf, &c. as I have menfor anything more valuable than that. swered in the most obliging manner possible, that tioned above, which I laughed at most heartily. he would put it in my power to pay that debt, and all the obligation besides that ever he had or should be able to lay upon me.

I began to understand him now, and to see plainly that he resolved to make love to me; but I would by no means seem to take the hint, and besides I knew that he had a wife with him in Paris; and I had just then, indeed, no gust for any more intriguing; however, he surprised me into a sudden notice of the thing a little while after, by saying something in his discourse that he did, as he said, in his wife's days. I started at that word-"What mean you by that, sir?" said 1; "have you not a wife in Paris ?"-" No, madam, indeed," said he, "my wife died the beginning of September last;" which it seems was but a little after I came away.

"It is pity," said I, "that I should sit here and make that gentleman no amends; if you would direct me, sir," said I, "how to do it, I would make him a handsome present, and acknowledge the justice he had done to me as well as to the Prince, his master." He said he would do what I directed in it; so I told him I would send him "That's too much," said he, "for 500 crowns. you are but half interested in the usage of the Well, however, we were Jew; it was on his master's account he corrected him, not on yours.' obliged to do nothing in it, for neither of us knew how to direct a letter to him, or to direct anybody to him; so I told him I would leave it till I came to England, for that my woman, Amy, corresponded with him, and that he had made love to her.

"

"Well but, sir," said I, "as in requital for his

We lived in the same house all this while; and as we lodged not far off one another, oppor-generous concern for me, I am careful to think of tunities were not wanting of as near an acquaintance as we might desire; nor have such opportunities the least agency in vicious minds to bring to pass even what they might not intend at

first.

However, though he courted me at so much distance, yet his pretensions were very honourable; and as I had before found him a most disinterested friend, and perfectly honest in his dealings, even when I trusted him with all I had, so now I found him strictly virtuous, till I made him otherwise myself, even almost whether he would or no, as you shall hear.

It was not long after our former discourse when he repeated what he had insinuated before, namely that he had yet a design to lay before me, which, if I would agree to his proposals, would more than balance all accounts between I told him I could not reasonably deny him anything; and except one thing, which I hoped and believed he would not think of, I should think myself very ungrateful if I did not do everything for him that lay in my power,

us.

He told me what he should desire of me would be fully in my power to grant, or else he should be very unfriendly to offer it, and still all this while he declined making the proposal, as he called it, and so for that time we ended our discourse, turning it off to other things; so that, in short, I began to think he might have met with some disaster in his business, and might have come away from Paris in some discredit, or had had some blow on his affairs in general; and as really I had kindness enough to have parted with a good sum to have helped him, and was in gratitude bound to have done so, he having so effectually saved to me all I had; so I resolved to make him the offer the first time I had an opportunity, which two or three days after offered itself very much to my satisfaction.

He had told me at large, though on several occasions, the treatment he had met with from

him; it is but just that what expense you have been obliged to be at, which was all on my account, should be repaid you, and therefore," said I, "let me see" and there I paused and began to reckon up what I had observed from his own discourse it had cost him in the several disputes and hearings which he had with that dog of a Jew, and I cast them up at something above 2,130 crowns; so I pulled out some bills which I had upon a merchant in Amsterdam, and a particular account in bank, and was looking on them in order to give them to him.

When he seeing evidently what I was going about, interrupted me with some warmth, and told me he would have nothing of me on that account, and desired I would not pull out my bills and papers on that score; that he had not told me the story on that account, or with any such view; that it had been his misfortune first to bring that ugly rogue to me, which, though it was with a good design, yet he would punish himself with the expense he had been at, for his being so unlucky to me; that I could not think so hard of him as to suppose he would take money of me, a widow, for serving me, and doing acts of kindness to me in a strange country, and in distress too; but he said he would repeat what he had he would put said before, that he kept me for a deeper reckoning, and that, as he had told me, me into a posture to even all that favour, as I called it, at once, so we should talk it over another time, and balance all together.

Now I expected it would come out, but still he put it off, as before, from whence I concluded it could not be matter of love, for that those things are not usually delayed in such a manner, and therefore it must be matter of money; upon which thought I broke the silence, and told him that as he knew I had, by obligation, more kindness for him than to deny any favour to him that I could grant, and that he seemed backward to mention his case, I begged of him to give me

"

advantage; and I resolved that I would, at least, feign to be as merry as he; and that, in short, if he offered anything, he should have his will easily enough.

leave to ask him whether anything lay upon his mind with respect to his business and effects in the world; that if it did, he knew what I had in the world as well as I did; and that if he wanted money, I would let him have any sum for his About one o'clock in the morning, for so long occasion, as far as five or six thousand pistoles, we sat up together, I said, “Come, 'tis one and he should pay me as his own affairs would o'clock, I must go to bed."-" Well," says he, permit; and that if he never paid me I would" I'll go with you."-" No, no," says I, never give him any trouble for it.

He rose up with ceremony, and gave me thanks in terms that sufficiently told me he had been bred among people more polite and more courteous than is esteemed the ordinary usage of the Dutch; and after his compliment was over he came nearer to me, and told me that he was obliged to assure me, though with repeated acknowledgments of my kind offer, that he was not in any want of money; that he had met with no uneasiness in any of his affairs, no, not of any kind whatever, except that of the loss of his wife and one of his children, which indeed had troubled him much; but that this was no part of what he had to offer to me, and by granting which I should balance all obligations; but that, in short, it was that, seeing Providence had (as it were for that purpose) taken his wife from him, I would make up the loss to him; and with that he held me fast in his arms, and, kissing me, would not give me leave to say no, and hardly to breathe.

At length, having got room to speak, I told him that, as I said before, I could deny him but one thing in the world, I was very sorry he should propose that thing only that I could not grant.

I could not but smile, however, to myself that he should make so many circles and roundabout motions to come to a discourse which had no such rarity at the bottom of it, if he had known all. But there was another reason why I resolved not to have him, when, at the same time, if he had courted me in a manner less honest or virtuous, I believe I should not have denied him; but I shall come to that part presently.

He was, as I have said, long a-bringing it out, but when he had brought it out he pursued it with such importunities as would admit of no denial, at least he intended they should not; but I resisted them obstinately, and yet with expressions of the utmost kindness and respect for him that could be imagined, often telling him there was nothing else in the world that I could deny him, and showing him all the respect, and upon all occasions treating him with intimacy and freedom, as if he had been my brother.

He tried all the ways imaginable to bring his design to pass, but I was inflexible; at last, he thought of a way, which, he flattered himself, would not fail; nor would he have been mistaken perhaps in any other woman in the world but me; this was, to try if he could take me at an advantage and get to bed to me, and then, as was most rational to think, I should willingly enough marry him afterwards.

We were so intimate together, that nothing but man and wife could, or at least ought, to be more; but still our freedoms kept within the bounds of modesty and decency. But one evening, above all the rest, we were very merry, and I fancied he pushed the mirth to watch for his

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go to

your own chamber;" he said he would go to bed with me. "Nay," says I, "if you will, I don't know what to say; if I can't help it, you must." However, I got from him, left him, and went into my chamber, but did not shut the door, and, as he could easily see that I was undressing myself he steps to his own room, which was but on the same floor, and in a few minutes undresses himself also, and returns to my door in his gown and slippers.

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I thought he had been gone indeed, and so that he had been in jest; and, by the way, thought either he had no mind to the thing, or that he never intended it; so I shut my door, that is, latched it, for I seldom locked or bolted it, and went to bed. I had not been in bed a minute, but he comes in his gown to the door, and opens it a little way, but not enough to come in, or look in, and says softly, What, are you really gone to bed?"-"Yes, yes," says I, "get you gone."-" No, indeed," says he, "I shall not be gone, you gave me leave before to come to bed, and you shan't say get you gone now." So he comes into my room, and then turns about, and fastens the door, and immediately comes to the bedside to me. I pretended to scold and struggle, and bid him begone, with more warmth than before; but it was all one; he had not a rag of clothes on but his gown and slippers and shirt, so he throws off his gown, and throws open the bed, and came in at once.

I made a seeming resistance, but it was no more indeed; for, as above, I resolved from the beginning he should lie with me if he would, and for the rest I left it to come after.

Well, he lay with me that night, and the two next, and very merry we were all the three days between; but the third night he began to be a little more grave. "Now, my dear," says he,

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though I have pushed this matter farther than ever I intended, or than I believe you expected from me, who never made any pretences to you but what were very honest; yet to heal it all up and let you see how sincerely I meant at first, and how honest I will ever be to you, I am ready to marry you still, and desire you to let it be done to-morrow morning; and I will give you the same fair conditions of marriage as I would have done before."

This, it must be owned, was a testimony that he was very honest, and that he loved me sincerely; but I construed it quite another way, namely, that he aimed at the money. But bow surprised did he look, and how was he confounded when he found me receive his proposal with coldness and indifference, and still tell him that it was the only thing I could not grant !

He was astonished. "What not take me now!" says he, "when I have been a-bed with you!" I answered coldly, though respectfully still," It is true, to my shame be it spoken," says I, "that you have taken me by surprise, and have

had your will of me; but I hope you will not take it ill that I cannot consent to marry, for all that. If I am with child," said I, "care must be taken to manage that as you direct; I hope you won't expose me, for my having exposed myself to you, but I cannot go any farther.". and at that point I stood, and would hear of no matrimony by any means.

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portune me to marry, though he had lain with me, and still did lay with me as often as he pleased, and I continued to refuse to marry him, though I let him lay with me whenever he desired it; I say, as these two circumstances made up our conversation, it could not continue long thus, but we must come to an explanation.

One morning, in the middle of our unlawful Now because this may seem a little odd, I shall freedoms, that is to say, when we were in bed tostate the matter clearly; as I understood it my. gether he sighed, and told me, he desired my self. I knew that while I was a mistress, it is leave to ask me one question, and that I would customary for the person kept to receive from give him an answer to it, with the same ingenuthem that keep; but if I should be a wife, all I ous freedom and honesty, that I had used to had then was given up to the husband, and I was treat him with. I told him I would. Why then thenceforth to be under his authority only; and his question was, why I would not marry him, as I had money enough, and needed not fear seeing I allowed him all the freedom of a husbeing what they call a cast-off mistress, so I had band? "Or," says he, "my dear, since you no need to give him twenty thousand pounds to have been so kind as to take me to your bed, marry me, which had been buying my lodging too || why will you not make me your own, and take dear a great deal. me for good and all, that we may enjoy ourselves without any reproach to one another."

Thus his project of coming to bed to me was a bite upon himself, while he intended it for a bite upon me; and he was no nearer his aim of marrying me than he was before. All his arguments he could urge upon the subject of matrimony were at an end, for I positively declined | marrying him; and as he had refused the thousand pistoles which I had offered him in compensation for his expenses and loss at Paris, with the Jew, and had done it upon the hopes he had of marrying me; so when he found his way difficult still, he was amazed, and I had some reason to believe, repented that he had refused the money.

But thus it is when men run into wicked measures to bring their designs about. I that was infinitely obliged to him before, began to talk to him as if I had balanced accounts with him now, and that the favour of lying with a whore was equal, not to the thousand pistoles only, but to all the debt I owed him, for saving my life and all my effects.

But he drew himself into it, and though it was a dear bargain, yet it was a bargain of his own making; he could not say I had tricked him into it; but as he projected and drew me into lie with him, depending that it was a sure game in order to a marriage, so I granted him the favour, as he called it, to balance the account of favours received from him, and keep the thousand pistoles with a good grace.

He was extremely disappointed in this article, and knew not how to manage for a great while; and as I dare say, if he had not expected to have made it an earnest for marrying me, he would never have attempted me the other way; so, I believed, if it had not been for the money, which he knew I had, he would never have desired to marry me after he had lain with me. For, where is the man that cares to marry a whore, though of his own making? And as I knew him to be no fool, so I did him no wrong, when I supposed that, but for the money, he would not have had any thoughts of me that way, especially after my yielding as I had done; in which it is to be remembered that I made no capitulation for marrying him, when I yielded to him, but let him do just what he pleased, without any previous bargain.

Well, hitherto we went upon guesses at one another's designs; but as he continued to im

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I told him, that as I confessed it was the only thing I could not comply with him in, so it was the only thing in all my actions, that I could not give him a reason for. That it was true I had let him come to bed to me, which was supposed to be the greatest favour a woman could grant; but it was evident, and he might see it, that as I was sensible of the obligation I was under to him for saving me from the worst circumstance it was possible for me to be brought to, I could deny him nothing; and if I had had any greater favour to yield him, I should have done it, that of matrimony only excepted, and he could not but see that I loved him to an extraordinary degree, in every part of my behaviour to him; but that as to marrying, which was giving up my liberty, it was what once he knew I had done, and he had seen how it had hurried me up and down in the world, and what it had exposed me to; that I had an aversion to it, and desired he would no* insist upon it. He might easily see I had no aversion to him; and that if I was with child by him, he should see a testimony of my kindness to the father, for that I would settle all I had in the world upon the child.

He was mute a good while; at last, says he, "Come, my dear, you are the first woman in the world that ever lay with a man, and then refused to marry him, and therefore there must be some other reason for your refusal; and I have therefore one other request, and that is, if I guess at the true reason, and remove the objection, will you then yield to me?" I told him if he removed the objection I must needs comply, for I should certainly do everything that I had no objection against.

"Why then, my dear, it must be that either you are already engaged, and married to some other man, or you are not willing to dispose of your money to me, and expect to advance yourself higher with your fortune. Now, if it be the first of these, my mouth will be stopped, and I have no more to say; but if it be the last, I am prepared effectually to remove the objections, and answer all you can say on that subject."

I took him up short at the first of these, telling him he must have base thoughts of me indeed, to think that I could yield to him in such a manner as I had done, and continue it with so much free

dom, as he found I did, if I had a husband, or were engaged to any other man; and that he might depend upon it that was not my case, nor any part of my case.

"Why then," said he, "as to the other, I have an offer to make to you that shall take off all the objection, viz., That I will not touch one pistole of your estate more than shall be with your own voluntary consent, neither now or at any other time, but you shall settle it as you please for your life, and upon whom you please after your death;" that I should see he was able to maintain me without it; and that it was not for that that he followed me from Paris.

I was indeed surprised at that part of his offer, and he might easily perceive it; it was not only what I did not expect, but it was that I knew not what answer to make to. He had, indeed, removed my principal objection, nay, all my objections, and it was not possible for me to give any answer; for if upon so generous an offer I should agree with him, I then did as good as confess that it was upon the account of my money that I refused him; and that though I could give up my virtue, and expose myself, yet I would not give up my money, which, though it was true, yet was really too gross for me to acknowledge, and I could not pretend to marry him upon that principle neither. Then as to having him, and make over all my estate out of his hands, so as not to give him the management of what I had, I thought it would be not only a little Gothic and inhuman, but it would be always a foundation of unkindness between us, and render us suspected one to another; so that upon the whole I was obliged to give a new turn to it, and talk upon a kind of an elevated strain, which really was not in my thoughts at first, at all; for I own, as above, the divesting myself of my estate and putting my money out of my hand, was the sum of the matter that made me refuse to marry; but, I say, I gave it a new turn upon this occassion, as follows:

I told him I had, perhaps, differing notions of matrimony from what the received custom had given us of it; that I thought a woman was a free agent, as well as a man, and was born free, and could she manage herself suitably, might enjoy that liberty to as much purpose as the men do; that the laws of matrimony were indeed otherwise, and mankind at this time acted quite upon other principles; and those such that a woman gave herself entirely away from herself, in marriage, and capitulated only to be, at best, but an upper servant, and from the time she took the man, she was no better or worse than the servant among the Israelites, who had his ears bored, that is, nailed to the door-post, who by that act gave himself up to be a servant during life.

That the very nature of the marriage contract was, in short, nothing but giving up liberty, estate, authority, and everything, to the man, and the woman was indeed a mere woman ever after, that is to say, a slave.

He replied, that though in some respects it was as I had said, yet I ought to consider that as an equivalent to this, the man had all the care of things devolved upon him; that the weight of business lay upon his shoulders, and

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as he had the trust, so he had the toil of life upon him; his was the labour, his the anxiety of living; that the woman had nothing to do but to eat the fat and drink the sweet; to sit still and look round her, to be waited on and made much of, be served, and loved, and made easy, especially if the husband acted as became him; and that, in general, the labour of the man was appointed to make the woman live quiet and unconcerned in the world; that they had the name of subjection without the thing; and if, in inferior families, they had the drudgery of the house, and care of the provisions upon them, yet they had, indeed, much the easier part; for in general, the women had only the care of managing, that is, spending what their husbands get; and that a woman had the name of subjec tion, indeed, but that they generally commanded, not the men only, but all they had; managed all for themselves; and where the man did his duty, the woman's life was all ease and tranquillity, and that she had nothing to do but to be easy, and to make all that were about her both easy and merry.

I returned, that while a woman was single, she was a masculine in her politic capacity; that she had then the full command of what she had, and the full direction of what she did; that she was a man in her separated capacity, to all intents and purposes that a man could be so to himself; that she was controled by none, because unaccountable to none: so I sung these two lines of Mr

-'s.

"O! 'tis pleasant to be free,

The sweetest Miss is Liberty."

I added, that whoever the woman was that had an estate, and would give it up to be the slave of a great man, that woman was a fool, and must be fit for nothing but a beggar; that it was my opi. nion a woman was as fit to govern and enjoy her own estate, without a man, as a man was without a woman; and that, if she had a mind to gratify herself as to sexes, she might entertain a man, as a man does a mistress; that while she was thus single she was her own, and if she gave away that power, she merited to be as miserable as it was possible that any creature could be.

All he could say could not anwer the force of this as to argument, only this, that the other way was the ordinary method that the world was guided by; that he had reason to expect I should be content with that which all the world was contented with; that he was of the opinion, that a sincere affection between a man and his wife! answered all the objections that I had made about the being a slave, a servant, and the like, and where there was a mutual love there could be no bondage; but that there was but one interest. one aim, one design, and all conspired to make both very happy.

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Ay," said 1, "that is the thing I complain of The pretence of affection takes from a woman everything that can be called herself; she is to have no interest, no aim, no view; but all is the interest, aim, and view, of the husband; she is to be the passive creature you spoke of,” said I. "She is to lead a life of perfect indolence, and living by faith (not in God, but) in her husband, she sinks or swims, as he is either fool or wise

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