great damage on board, and that a great part of her cargo was
spoiled.
I had now a new scene of life upon my hands, and a dreadful
appearance it had. I was come away with a kind of final
farewell. What I brought with me was indeed considerable,
had it come safe, and by the help of it, I might have married
again tolerably well; but as it was, I was reduced to between
two or three hundred pounds in the whole, and this without
any hope of recruit. I was entirely without friends, nay, even
so much as without acquaintance, for I found it was absolutely
necessary not to revive former acquaintances; and as for my
subtle friend that set me up formerly for a fortune, she was
dead, and her husband also; as I was informed, upon sending
a person unknown to inquire.
The looking after my cargo of goods soon after obliged me to
take a journey to Bristol, and during my attendance upon that
affair I took the diversion of going to the Bath, for as I was
still far from being old, 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 woman without a fortune,
I expected something or other might happen in my way that
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 might offer, but I must do myself justice, as to protest I
knew nothing amiss; I meant nothing but in an honest way, nor
had I any thoughts about me at first that looked the way which
afterwards I suffered them to be guided.
Here I stayed the whole latter season, as it is called there,
and contracted some unhappy acquaintances, which rather
prompted the follies I fell afterwards into than fortified me
against them. I lived pleasantly enough, kept good company,
that is to say, gay, fine company; but had the discouragement
to find this way of living sunk me exceedingly, and that as I
had no settled income, so spending upon the main stock was
but a certain kind of bleeding to death; and this gave me many
sad reflections in the interval of my other thoughts. However,
I shook them off, and still flattered myself that something or
other might 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 other might have talked with me upon the honourable terms
of matrimony; but I was at the Bath, where men find a mistress
sometimes, but very rarely look for a wife; and consequently
all the particular acquaintances a woman can expect to make
there must have some tendency that way.
I had spent the first season well enough; for though I had
contracted some acquaintance with a gentleman who came to
the Bath for his diversion, yet I had entered into no felonious
treaty, as it might be called. I had resisted some casual offers
of gallantry, and had managed that way well enough. I was
not wicked enough to come into the crime for the mere vice
of it, and I had no extraordinary offers made me that tempted
me with the main thing which I wanted.
However, I went this length the first season, viz. I contracted
an acquaintance with a woman in whose house I lodged, who,
though she did not keep an ill house, as we call it, yet had none
of the best principles in herself. I had on all occasions behaved
myself so well as not to get the least slur upon my reputation
on any account whatever, and all the men that I had conversed
with were of so good reputation that I had not given the least
reflection by conversing with them; nor did any of them seem
to think there was room for a wicked correspondence, if they
had any of them offered it; yet there was one gentleman, as