myself, of which she would talk further to me afterward.
I looked earnestly at her, and I thought she looked more cheerful
than she usually had done, and I entertained immediately a
thousand notions of being delivered, but could not for my life
image the methods, or think of one that was in the least feasible;
but I was too much concerned in it to let her go from me without
explaining herself, which, though she was very loth to do, yet
my importunity prevailed, and, while I was still pressing, she
answered me in a few words, thus: ‘Why, you have money,
have you not? Did you ever know one in your life that was
transported and had a hundred pounds in his pocket, I’ll warrant
you, child?’says she.
I understood her presently, but told her I would leave all that
to her, but I saw no room to hope for anything but a strict
execution of the order, and as it was a severity that was
esteemed a mercy, there was no doubt but it would be strictly
observed. She said no more but this: ‘We will try what can
be done,’ and so we parted for that night.
I lay in the prison near fifteen weeks after this order for
transportation was signed. What the reason of it was, I know
not, but at the end of this time I was put on board of a ship in
the Thames, and with me a gang of thirteen as hardened vile
creatures as ever Newgate produced in my time; and it would
really well take up a history longer than mine to describe the
degrees of impudence and audacious villainy that those thirteen
were arrived to, and the manner of their behaviour in the
voyage; of which I have a very diverting account by me, which
the captain of the ship who carried them over gave me the
minutes of, and which he caused his mate to write down at large.
It may perhaps be thought trifling to enter here into a relation
of all the little incidents which attended me in this interval of
my circumstances; I mean, between the final order of my
transporation and the time of my going on board the ship; and
I am too near the end of my story to allow room for it; but
something relating to me any my Lancashire husband I must
not omit.
He had, as I have observed already, been carried from the
master’s side of the ordinary prison into the press-yard, with
three of his comrades, for they found another to add to them
after some time; here, for what reason I knew not, they were
kept in custody without being brought to trial almost three
months. It seems they found means to bribe or buy off some
of those who were expected to come in against them, and they
wanted evidence for some time to convict them. After some
puzzle on this account, at first they made a shift to get proof
enough against two of them to carry them off; but the other
two, of which my Lancashire husband was one, lay still in
suspense. They had, I think, one positive evidence against
each of them, but the law strictly obliging them to have two
witnesses, they could make nothing of it. Yet it seems they
were resolved not to part with the men neither, not doubting
but a further evidence would at last come in; and in order to
this, I think publication was made, that such prisoners being
taken, any one that had been robbed by them might come to
the prison and see them.
I took this opportunity to satisfy my curiosity, pretending that
I had been robbed in the Dunstable coach, and that I would go
to see the two highwaymen. But when I came into the press-yard,
I so disguised myself, and muffled my face up so, that he could
see little of me, and consequently knew nothing of who I was;
and when I came back, I said publicly that I knew them very well.
Immediately it was rumoured all over the prison that Moll
Flanders would turn evidence against one of the highwaymen,