by Daniel Defoe
came away for England in the month of August, after I had been eightyears in that country; and now a new scene of misfortunes attended me,which perhaps few women have gone through the life of.
We had an indifferent good voyage till we came just upon the coast ofEngland, and where we arrived in two-and-thirty days, but were thenruffled with two or three storms, one of which drove us away to thecoast of Ireland, and we put in at Kinsdale. We remained there aboutthirteen days, got some refreshment on shore, and put to sea again,though we met with very bad weather again, in which the ship sprung hermainmast, as they called it, for I knew not what they meant. But wegot at last into Milford Haven, in Wales, where, though it was remotefrom our port, yet having my foot safe upon the firm ground of mynative country, the isle of Britain, I resolved to venture it no moreupon the waters, which had been so terrible to me; so getting myclothes and money on shore, with my bills of loading and other papers,I resolved to come for London, and leave the ship to get to her port asshe could; the port whither she was bound was to Bristol, where mybrother's chief correspondent lived.
I got to London in about three weeks, where I heard a little whileafter that the ship was arrived in Bristol, but at the same time hadthe misfortune to know that by the violent weather she had been in, andthe breaking of her mainmast, she had great damage on board, and that agreat part of her cargo was spoiled.
I had now a new scene of life upon my hands, and a dreadful appearanceit had. I was come away with a kind of final farewell. What I broughtwith me was indeed considerable, had it come safe, and by the help ofit, I might have married again tolerably well; but as it was, I wasreduced to between two or three hundred pounds in the whole, and thiswithout any hope of recruit. I was entirely without friends, nay, evenso much as without acquaintance, for I found it was absolutelynecessary not to revive former acquaintances; and as for my subtlefriend that set me up formerly for a fortune, she was dead, and herhusband also; as I was informed, upon sending a person unknown toinquire.
The looking after my cargo of goods soon after obliged me to take ajourney to Bristol, and during my attendance upon that affair I tookthe diversion of going to the Bath, for as I was still far from beingold, so my humour, which was always gay, continued so to an extreme;and being now, as it were, a woman of fortune though I was a womanwithout a fortune, I expected something or other might happen in my waythat might mend my circumstances, as had been my case before.
The Bath is a place of gallantry enough; expensive, and full of snares.I went thither, indeed, in the view of taking anything that mightoffer, but I must do myself justice, as to protest I knew nothingamiss; I meant nothing but in an honest way, nor had I any thoughtsabout me at first that looked the way which afterwards I suffered themto be guided.
Here I stayed the whole latter season, as it is called there, andcontracted some unhappy acquaintances, which rather prompted thefollies I fell afterwards into than fortified me against them. I livedpleasantly enough, kept good company, that is to say, gay, finecompany; but had the discouragement to find this way of living sunk meexceedingly, and that as I had no settled income, so spending upon themain stock was but a certain kind of bleeding to death; and this gaveme many sad reflections in the interval of my other thoughts. However,I shook them off, and still flattered myself that something or othermight offer for my advantage.
But I was in the wrong place for it. I was not now at Redriff, where,if I had set myself tolerably up, some honest sea captain or othermight have talked with me upon the honourable terms of matrimony; but Iwas at the Bath, where men find a mistress sometimes, but very rarelylook for a wife; and consequently all the particular acquaintances awoman can expect to make there must have some tendency that way.
I had spent the first season well enough; for though I had contractedsome acquaintance with a gentleman who came to the Bath for hisdiversion, yet I had entered into no felonious treaty, as it might becalled. I had resisted some casual offers of gallantry, and hadmanaged that way well enough. I was not wicked enough to come into thecrime for the mere vice of it, and I had no extraordinary offers mademe that tempted me with the main thing which I wanted.
However, I went this length the first season, viz. I contracted anacquaintance with a woman in whose house I lodged, who, though she didnot keep an ill house, as we call it, yet had none of the bestprinciples in herself. I had on all occasions behaved myself so wellas not to get the least slur upon my reputation on any accountwhatever, and all the men that I had conversed with were of so goodreputation that I had not given the least reflection by conversing withthem; nor did any of them seem to think there was room for a wickedcorrespondence, if they had any of them offered it; yet there was onegentleman, as above, who always singled me out for the diversion of mycompany, as he called it, which, as he was pleased to say, was veryagreeable to him, but at that time there was no more in it.
I had many melancholy hours at the Bath after the company was gone; forthough I went to Bristol sometime for the disposing my effects, and forrecruits of money, yet I chose to come back to Bath for my residence,because being on good terms with the woman in whose house I lodged inthe summer, I found that during the winter I lived rather cheaper therethan I could do anywhere else. Here, I say, I passed the winter asheavily as I had passed the autumn cheerfully; but having contracted anearer intimacy with the said woman in whose house I lodged, I couldnot avoid communicating to her something of what lay hardest upon mymind and particularly the narrowness of my circumstances, and the lossof my fortune by the damage of my goods at sea. I told her also, thatI had a mother and a brother in Virginia in good circumstances; and asI had really written back to my mother in particular to represent mycondition, and the great loss I had received, which indeed came toalmost #500, so I did not fail to let my new friend know that Iexpected a supply from thence, and so indeed I did; and as the shipswent from Bristol to York River, in Virginia, and back again generallyin less time from London, and that my brother corresponded chiefly atBristol, I thought it was much better for me to wait here for myreturns than to go to London, where also I had not the leastacquaintance.
My new friend appeared sensibly affected with my condition, and indeedwas so very kind as to reduce the rate of my living with her to so lowa price during the winter, that she convinced me she got nothing by me;and as for lodging, during the winter I paid nothing at all.
When the spring season came on, she continued to be as kind to me asshe could, and I lodged with her for a time, till it was foundnecessary to do otherwise. She had some persons of character thatfrequently lodged in her house, and in particular the gentleman who, asI said, singled me out for his companion the winter before; and he camedown again with another gentleman in his company and two servants, andlodged in the same house. I suspected that my landlady had invited himthither, letting him know that I was still with her; but she denied it,and protested to me that she did not, and he said the same.
In a word, this gentleman came down and continued to single me out forhis peculiar confidence as well as conversation. He was a completegentleman, that must be confessed, and his company was very agreeableto me, as mine, if I might believe him, was to him. He made noprofessions to me but of an extraordinary respect, and he had such anopinion of my virtue, that, as he often professed, he believed if heshould offer anything else, I should reject him with contempt. He soonunderstood from me that I was a widow; that I had arrived at Bristolfrom Virginia by the last ships; and that I waited at Bath till thenext Virginia fleet should arrive, by which I expected considerableeffects. I understood by him, and by others of him, that he had awife, but that the lady was distempered in her head, and was under theconduct of her own relations, which he consented to, to avoid anyreflections that might (as was not unusual in such cases) be cast onhim for mismanaging her cure; and in the meantime he came to the Bathto divert his thoughts from the disturbance of such a melancholycircumstance as that was.
My landlady, who of her own accord encouraged the corre
spondence on alloccasions, gave me an advantageous character of him, as a man of honourand of virtue, as well as of great estate. And indeed I had a greatdeal of reason to say so of him too; for though we lodged both on afloor, and he had frequently come into my chamber, even when I was inbed, and I also into his when he was in bed, yet he never offeredanything to me further than a kiss, or so much as solicited me toanything till long after, as you shall hear.
I frequently took notice to my landlady of his exceeding modesty, andshe again used to tell me, she believed it was so from the beginning;however, she used to tell me that she thought I ought to expect somegratification from him for my company, for indeed he did, as it were,engross me, and I was seldom from him. I told her I had not given himthe least occasion to think I wanted it, or that I would accept of itfrom him. She told me she would take that part upon her, and she didso, and managed it so dexterously, that the first time we were togetheralone, after she had talked with him, he began