Excerpt
MY TRUE NAME is so well known in the records or registers at Newgate,
and in the Old Bailey, and there are some things of such consequence
still depending there, relating to my particular conduct, that it is not
to be expected I should set my name or the account of my family to this
work; perhaps, after my death, it may be better known; at present it
would not be proper, no, not though a general pardon should be issued,
even without exceptions and reserve of persons or crimes.
It is enough to tell you, that as some of my worst comrades, who are out
of the way of doing me harm (having gone out of the world by the steps
and the string as I often expected to go), knew me by the name of Moll
Flanders, so you may give me leave to speak of myself under that name
till I dare own who I have been, as well as who I am.
I have been told that in one of neighbour nations, whether it be in
France or where else I know not, they have an order from the king, that
when any criminal is condemned, either to die, or to the galleys, or to
be transported, if they leave any children, as such are generally
unprovided for, by the poverty or forfeiture of their parents, so they
are immediately taken into the care of the Government, and put into an
hospital called the House of Orphans, where they are bred up, clothed,
fed, taught, and when fit to go out, are placed out to trades or to
services, so as to be well able to provide for themselves by an honest,
industrious behaviour.
Had this been the custom in our country, I had not been left a poor
desolate girl without friends, without clothes, without help or helper
in the world, as was my fate; and by which I was not only exposed to
very great distresses, even before I was capable either of understanding
my case or how to amend it, but brought into a course of life which was
not only scandalous in itself, but which in its ordinary course tended
to the swift destruction both of soul and body.
But the case was otherwise here. My mother was convicted of felony for a
certain petty theft scarce worth naming, viz. having an opportunity of
borrowing three pieces of fine holland of a certain draper in Cheapside.
The circumstances are too long to repeat, and I have heard them related
so many ways, that I can scarce be certain which is the right account.
However it was, this they all agree in, that my mother pleaded her
belly, and being found quick with child, she was respited for about
seven months; in which time having brought me into the world, and being
about again, she was called down, as they term it, to her former
judgment, but obtained the favour of being transported to the
plantations, and left me about half a year old; and in bad hands, you
may be sure.
This is too near the first hours of my life for me to relate anything of
myself but by hearsay; it is enough to mention, that as I was born in
such an unhappy place, I had no parish to have recourse to for my
nourishment in my infancy; nor can I give the least account how I was
kept alive, other than that, as I have been told, some relation of my
mother's took me away for a while as a nurse, but at whose expense, or
by whose direction, I know nothing at all of it.
The first account that I can recollect, or could ever learn of myself,
was that I had wandered among a crew of those people they call gypsies,
or Egyptians; but I believe it was but a very little while that I had
been among them, for I had not had my skin discoloured or blackened, as
they do very young to all the children they carry about with them; nor
can I tell how I came among them, or how I got from them.
It was at Colchester, in Essex, that those people left me; and I have a
notion in my head that I left them there (that is, that I hid myself and
would not go any farther with them), but I am not able to be particular
in that account; only this I remember, that being taken up by some of
the parish officers of Colchester, I gave an account that I came into
the town with the gypsies, but that I would not go any farther with
them, and that so they had left me, but whither they were gone that I
knew not, nor could they expect it of me; for though they sent round the
country to inquire after them, it seems they could not be found.
I was now in a way to be provided for; for though I was not a parish
charge upon this or that part of the town by law, yet as my case came to
be known, and that I was too young to do any work, being not above three
years old, compassion moved the magistrates of the town to order some
care to be taken of me, and I became one of their own as much as if I
had been born in the place.
In the provision they made for me, it was my good hap to be put to
nurse, as they call it, to a woman who was indeed poor but had been in
better circumstances, and who got a little livelihood by taking such as
I was supposed to be, and keeping them with all necessaries, till they
were at a certain age, in which it might be supposed they might go to
service or get their own bread.
This woman had also had a little school, which she kept to teach
children to read and to work; and having, as I have said, lived before
that in good fashion, she bred up the children she took with a great
deal of art, as well as with a great deal of care.
But that which was worth all the rest, she bred them up very
religiously, being herself a very sober, pious woman, very housewifely
and clean, and very mannerly, and with good behaviour. So that in a
word, excepting a plain diet, coarse lodging, and mean clothes, we were
brought up as mannerly and as genteelly as if we had been at the
dancing-school.
I was continued here till I was eight years old, when I was terrified
with news that the magistrates (as I think they called them) had ordered
that I should go to service. I was able to do but very little service
wherever I was to go, except it was to run of errands and be a drudge to
some cookmaid, and this they told me of often, which put me into a great
fright; for I had a thorough aversion to going to service, as they
called it (that is, to be a servant), though I was so young; and I told
my nurse, as we called her, that I believed I could get my living
without going to service, if she pleased to let me; for she had taught
me to work with my needle, and spin worsted, which is the chief trade of
that city, and I told her that if she would keep me, I would work for
her, and I would work very hard.
I talked to her almost every day of working hard; and, in short, I did
nothing but work and cry all day, which grieved the good, kind woman so
much, that at last she began to be concerned for me, for she loved me
very well.
Continues.
