I could hardly muster up £500, and my condition was very odd, for though I had no child (I had had one by my gentleman draper but it was buried), yet I was a widow bewitched, I had a husband and no husband, and I could not pretend to marry again, though I knew well enough my husband would never see England any more, if he lived fifty years. Thus, I say, I was limited from marriage, what offer soever might be made me; and I had not one friend to advise with in the condition I was in, at least, not one who I could trust the secret of my circumstances to, for if the commissioners were to have been informed where I was, I should have been fetched up and all I had saved be taken away.
Upon these apprehensions the first thing I did was to go quite out of my knowledge, and go by another name. This I did effectually, for I went into the Mint too, took lodgings in a very private place, dressed me up in the habit of a widow, and called myself Mrs. Flanders.
Here, however, I concealed myself and though my new acquaintance knew nothing of me, yet I soon got a great deal of company about me; and whether it be that women are scarce among the people that generally are to be found there, or that some consolations in the miseries of that place are more requisite than on other occasions, I soon found that an agreeable woman was exceedingly valuable among the sons of affliction there; and that those that could not pay half a crown in the pound to their creditors and run in debt at the Sign of the Bull for their dinners, would yet find money for a supper if they liked the woman.
However, I kept myself safe yet, though I began, like my Lord Rochester’s mistress that loved his company but would not admit him farther, to have the scandal of a whore without the joy; and upon this score, tired with the place and with the company too, I began to think of removing.
It was indeed a subject of strange reflection to me to see men in the most perplexed circumstances, who were reduced some degrees below being ruined, whose families were objects of their own terror and other people’s charity; yet while a penny lasted, nay, even beyond it, endeavouring to drown their sorrow in their wickedness; heaping up more guilt upon themselves, labouring to forget former things, which now it was the proper time to remember, making more work for repentance, and sinning on as a remedy for sin past.
But it is none of my talent to preach; these men were too wicked even for me; there was something horrid and absurd in their way of sinning, for it was all a force even upon themselves; they did not only act against conscience, but against nature, and nothing was more easy than to see how sighs would interrupt their songs, and paleness and anguish sit upon their brows in spite of the forced smiles they put on; nay, sometimes it would break out at their very mouths, when they had parted with their money for a lewd treat or a wicked embrace; I have heard them, turning about, fetch a deep sigh, and cry “What a dog am I! Well, Betty, my dear, I’ll drink thy health though,” meaning the honest wife, that perhaps had not half a crown for herself, and three or four children. The next morning they were at their penitentials again, and perhaps the poor weeping wife comes over to him, either brings him some account of what his creditors are doing and how she and the children are turned out of doors, or some other dreadful news, and this adds to his self-reproaches; but when he has thought and pored on it till he is almost mad, having no principles to support him, nothing within him, or above him, to comfort him; but finding it all darkness on every side, he flies to the same relief again, namely, to drink it away, debauch it away, and falling into company of men in just the same condition with himself, he repeats the crime, and thus he goes every day one step onward of his way to destruction.
I was not wicked enough for such fellows as these yet, on the contrary, I began to consider here very seriously what I had to do; how things stood with me, and what course I ought to take. I knew I had no friends, no not one friend or relation in the world; and that little I had left apparently wasted, which when it was gone, I saw nothing but misery and starving was before me. Upon these considerations, I say, and filled with horror at the place I was in, I resolved to be gone.
I had made an acquaintance with a sober good sort of a woman who was a widow, too, like me, but in better circumstances; her husband had been a captain of a ship, and having had the misfortune to be cast away coming home from the West Indies, was so reduced by the loss that though he had saved his life then, it broke his heart and killed him afterwards, and his widow being pursued by the creditors was forced to take shelter in the Mint. She soon made things up with the help of friends, and was at liberty again; and finding that I rather was there to be concealed than by any particular prosecutions, and finding also that I agreed with her, or rather she with me, in a just abhorrence of the place and of the company, she invited me to go home with her till I could put myself in some posture of settling in the world to my mind; withal telling me that it was ten to one but some good captain of a ship might take a fancy to me and court me, in that part of the town where she lived.
I accepted of her offer and was with her half a year, and should have been longer, but in that interval what she proposed to me happened to herself, and she married very much to her advantage; but whose fortune soever was upon the increase mine seemed to be upon the wane, and I found nothing present except two or three boatswains, or such fellows, but as for the commanders they were generally of two sorts. I. Such as having good business, that is to say, a good ship, resolved not to marry but with advantage. 2.
Such as being out of employ wanted a wife to help them to a ship. I mean, (I) a wife, who having some money could enable them to hold a good part of a ship themselves, so to encourage owners to come in; or (2) a wife, who if she had not money had friends who were concerned in shipping, and so could help to put the young man into a good ship, and neither of these was my case; so I looked like one that was to lie on hand.
This knowledge I soon learnt by experience, namely, that the state of things was altered, as to matrimony, that marriages were here the consequences of politic schemes for forming interests, carrying on business, and that love had no share or but very little in the matter.
That, as my sister-in-law at Colchester had said, beauty, wit, manners, sense, good humour, good behaviour, education, virtue, piety, or any other qualification, whether of body or mind, had no power to recommend: that money only made a woman agreeable: that men chose mistresses indeed by the gust of their affection, and it was requisite for a whore to be handsome, well-shaped, have a good mien, and a graceful behaviour; but that for a wife, no deformity would shock the fancy, no ill qualities the judgment; the money was the thing; the portion was neither crooked nor monstrous, but the money was always agreeable, whatever the wife was.
On the other hand, as the market run all on the men’s side, I found the women had lost the privilege of saying “No”; that it was a favour now for a woman to have the question asked, and if any young lady had so much arrogance as to counterfeit a negative, she never had the opportunity of denying twice; much less of recovering that false step and accepting what she had seemed to decline. The men had such choice everywhere, that the case of the women was very unhappy; for they seemed to ply at every door, and if the man was by great chance refused at one house he was sure to be received at the next.
Besides this, I observed that the men made no scruple to set themselves out and to go a fortune hunting, as they call it, when they had really no fortune themselves to demand it or merit to deserve it; and they carried it so high, that a woman was scarce allowed to enquire after the character or estate of the person that pretended to her. This I had an example of in a young lady at the next house to me, and with whom I had contracted an intimacy; she was courted by a young captain, and though she had near £2,000 to her fortune, she did but enquire of some of his neighbours about his character, his morals, or substance; and he took occasion at the next visit to let her know, truly, that he took it very ill, and that he should not give her the trouble of his visits any more. I heard of it, and I had begun my acquaintance with her, I went to see her upon it. She entered into a close conversation with me about it, and unbosomed herself very freely. I perceived presently that though she thought herself very ill used, yet she had no power to resent it; that she was exceedingly piqued she had lost him, and particularly that another of less fortune had gained him.
I fortified her mind against such a meanness, as I called it. I told her that as low as I was in the world, I would have despised a man that should think I ought to take him upon his own recommendation only; also I told her that as she had a good fortune, she had no need to stoop to