bankrupt being soon after issued, they might have stopped me
by orders from the commissioners. But my husband, having
so dexterously got out of the bailiff’s house by letting himself
down in a most desperate manner from almost the top of the
house to the top of another building, and leaping from thence,
which was almost two storeys, and which was enough indeed
to have broken his neck, he came home and got away his goods
before the creditors could come to seize; that is to say, before
they could get out the commission, and be ready to send their
officers to take possession.
My husband was so civil to me, for still I say he was much
of a gentleman, that in the first letter he wrote me from France,
he let me know where he had pawned twenty pieces of fine
holland for #30, which were really worth #90, and enclosed
me the token and an order for the taking them up, paying the
money, which I did, and made in time above #100 of them,
having leisure to cut them and sell them, some and some, to
private families, as opportunity offered.
However, with all this, and all that I had secured before, I
found, upon casting things up, my case was very much altered,
any my fortune much lessened; for, including the hollands and
a parcel of fine muslins, which I carried off before, and some
plate, and other things, I found 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
mightsoever be made me; and I had not one friend to advise
with in the condition I was in, lease not one I durst 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 examined upon oath, and all I have saved be taken aware
from me.
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 up in the habit of a widow, and
called myself Mrs. Flanders.
Here, however, I concealed myself, and though my new
acquaintances 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 sorts of people that generally are to be found
there, or that some consolations in the miseries of the place
are more requisite than on other occasions, I soon found an
agreeable woman was exceedingly valuable among the sons
of affliction there, and that those that wanted money to pay
half a crown on the pound to their creditors, and that 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 indeed
with the company too, I began to think of removing.
It was indeed a subject of strange reflection to me to see men
who were overwhelmed in 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 themselves, labouring to forget former things, which
not 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