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The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders
The Fortunes & Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c.
Who was Born in Newgate, and during a Life of continu'd Variety for
Threescore Years, besides her Childhood, was Twelve Year a Whore, five
times a Wife (whereof once to her own Brother), Twelve Year a Thief,
Eight Year a Transported Felon in Virginia, at last grew Rich, liv'd
Honest, and dies a Penitent. Written from her own Memorandums . . .
by Daniel Defoe
THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE
The world is so taken up of late with novels and romances, that it
will be hard for a private history to be taken for genuine, where the
names and other circumstances of the person are concealed, and on this
account we must be content to leave the reader to pass his own opinion
upon the ensuing sheet, and take it just as he pleases.
The author is here supposed to be writing her own history, and in the
very beginning of her account she gives the reasons why she thinks fit
to conceal her true name, after which there is no occasion to say any
more about that.
It is true that the original of this story is put into new words, and
the style of the famous lady we here speak of is a little altered;
particularly she is made to tell her own tale in modester words that
she told it at first, the copy which came first to hand having been
written in language more like one still in Newgate than one grown
penitent and humble, as she afterwards pretends to be.
The pen employed in finishing her story, and making it what you now
see it to be, has had no little difficulty to put it into a dress fit
to be seen, and to make it speak language fit to be read. When a
woman debauched from her youth, nay, even being the offspring of
debauchery and vice, comes to give an account of all her vicious
practices, and even to descend to the particular occasions and
circumstances by which she ran through in threescore years, an author
must be hard put to it wrap it up so clean as not to give room,
especially for vicious readers, to turn it to his disadvantage.
All possible care, however, has been taken to give no lewd ideas, no
immodest turns in the new dressing up of this story; no, not to the
worst parts of her expressions. To this purpose some of the vicious
part of her life, which could not be modestly told, is quite left out,
and several other parts are very much shortened. What is left 'tis
hoped will not offend the chastest reader or the modest hearer; and as
the best use is made even of the worst story, the moral 'tis hoped
will keep the reader serious, even where the story might incline him
to be otherwise. To give the history of a wicked life repented of,
necessarily requires that the wicked part should be make as wicked as
the real history of it will bear, to illustrate and give a beauty to
the penitent part, which is certainly the best and brightest, if
related with equal spirit and life.
It is suggested there cannot be the same life, the same brightness and
beauty, in relating the penitent part as is in the criminal part. If
there is any truth in that suggestion, I must be allowed to say 'tis
because there is not the same taste and relish in the reading, and
indeed it is to true that the difference lies not in the real worth of
the subject so much as in the gust and palate of the reader.
But as this work is chiefly recommended to those who know how to read
it, and how to make the good uses of it which the story all along
recommends to them, so it is to be hoped that such readers will be
more leased with the moral than the fable, with the application than
with the relation, and with the end of the writer than with the life
of the person written of.
There is in this story abundance of delightful incidents, and all of
them usefully applied. There is an agreeable turn artfully given them
in the relating, that naturally instructs the reader, either one way
or other. The first part of her lewd life with the young gentleman at
Colchester has so many happy turns given it to expose the crime, and
warn all whose circumstances are adapted to it, of the ruinous end of
such things, and the foolish, thoughtless, and abhorred conduct of
both the parties, that it abundantly atones for all the lively
description she gives of her folly and wickedness.
The repentance of her lover at the Bath, and how brought by the just
alarm of his fit of sickness to abandon her; the just caution given
there against even the lawful intimacies of the dearest friends, and
how unable they are to preserve the most solemn resolutions of virtue
without divine assistance; these are parts which, to a just
discernment, will appear to have more real beauty in them all the
amorous chain of story which introduces it.
In a word, as the whole relation is carefully garbled of all the
levity and looseness that was in it, so it all applied, and with the
utmost care, to virtuous and religious uses. None can, without being
guilty of manifest injustice, cast any reproach upon it, or upon our
design in publishing it.
The advocates for the stage have, in all ages, made this the great
argument to persuade people that their plays are useful, and that they
ought to be allowed in the most civilised and in the most religious
government; namely, that they are applied to virtuous purposes, and
that by the most lively representations, they fail not to recommend
virtue and generous principles, and to discourage and expose all sorts
of vice and corruption of manners; and were it true that they did so,
and that they constantly adhered to that rule, as the test of their
acting on the theatre, much might be said in their favour.
Throughout the infinite variety of this book, this fundamental is most
strictly adhered to; there is not a wicked action in any part of it,
but is first and last rendered unhappy and unfortunate; there is not a
superlative villain brought upon the stage, but either he is brought
to an unhappy end, or brought to be a penitent; there is not an ill
thing mentioned but it is condemned, even in the relation, nor a
virtuous, just thing but it carries its praise along with it. What
can more exactly answer the rule laid down, to recommend even those
representations of things which have so many other just objections
leaving against them? namely, of example, of bad company, obscene
language, and the like.
Upon this foundation this book is recommended to the reader as a work
from every part of which something may be learned, and some just and
religious inference is drawn, by which the reader will have something
of instruction, if he pleases to make use of it.
All the exploits of this lady of fame, in her depredations upon
mankind, stand as so many warnings to honest people to beware of them,
intimating to them by what methods innocent people are drawn in,
plundered and robbed, and by consequence how to avoid them. Her
robbing a little innocent child, dressed fine by the vanity of the
mother, to go to the dancing-school, is a good memento to such people
hereafter, as is likewise her picking the gold watch from the young
lady's side in the Park.
Her getting a parcel from a hare-brained wench at the coaches in St.
John Street; her booty made at the fire, and again at Harwich, all
give us excellent warnings in such cases to be more present to
ourselves in sudden surprises of every sort.
Her application to a sober life and industrious management at last in
Virginia, with her transported spouse, is a story fruitful of
instruction to all the unfortunate creatures who are obliged to seek
their re-establishment abroad, whether by the misery of transportation
or other disaster; letting them know that diligence and application
have their due encouragement, even in the remotest parts of the world,
and that no case can be so low, so despicable, or so empty of
prospect, but that an unwearied industry will go a great way to
deliver us from it, will in time raise the meanest creature to appear
again the world, and give him a new case for his life.
There are a few of the serious inferences which we are led by the hand
to in this book, and these are fully sufficient to justify any man in
recommending it to the world, and much more to justify the publication
of it.
There are two of the most beautiful parts still behind, which this
story gives some idea of, and lets us into the parts of them, but they
are either of them too long to be brought into the same volume, and
indeed are, as I may call them, whole volumes of themselves, viz.: 1.
The life of her governess, as she calls her, who had run through, it
seems, in a few years, all the eminent degrees of a gentlewoman, a
whore, and a bawd; a midwife and a midwife-keeper, as they are called;
a pawnbroker, a childtaker, a receiver of thieves, and of thieves'
purchase, that is to say, of stolen goods; and in a word, herself a
thief, a breeder up of thieves and the like, and yet at last a
penitent.
The second is the life of her transported husband, a highwayman, who
it seems, lived a twelve years' life of successful villainy upon the
road, and even at last came off so well as to be a volunteer
transport, not a convict; and in whose life there is an incredible
variety.
But, as I have said, these are things too long to bring in here, so
neither can I make a promise of the coming out by themselves.
We cannot say, indeed, that this history is carried on quite to the
end of the life of this famous Moll Flanders, as she calls herself,
for nobody can write their own life to the full end of it, unless they
can write it after they are dead. But her husband's life, being
written by a third hand, gives a full account of them both, how long
they lived together in that country, and how they both came to England
again, after about eight years, in which time they were grown very
rich, and where she lived, it seems, to be very old, but was not so
extraordinary a penitent as she was at first; it seems only that
indeed she always spoke with abhorrence of her former life, and of
every part of it.
In her last scene, at Maryland and Virginia, many pleasant things
happened, which makes that part of her life very agreeable, but they
are not told with the same elegancy as those accounted for by herself;
so it is still to the more advantage that we break off here.
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 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 a 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
send 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 house-
wifely and clean, and very mannerly, and with good behaviour. So that
in a word, expecting 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.
One day after this, as she came into the room where all we poor
children were at work, she sat down just over against me, not in her
usual place as mistress, but as if she set herself on purpose to
observe me and see me work. I was doing something she had set me to;
as I remember, it was marking some shirts which she had taken to make,
and after a while she began to talk to me. 'Thou foolish child,' says
she, 'thou art always crying (for I was crying then); 'prithee, what
dost cry for?' 'Because they will take me away,' says I, 'and put me
to service, and I can't work housework.' 'Well, child,' says she,
'but though you can't work housework, as you call it, you will learn
it in time, and they won't put you to hard things at first.' 'Yes,
they will,' says I, 'and if I can't do it they will beat me, and the
maids will beat me to make me do great work, and I am but a little
girl and I can't do it'; and then I cried again, till I could not
speak any more to her.
This moved my good motherly nurse, so that she from that time resolved
I should not go to service yet; so she bid me not cry, and she would
speak to Mr. Mayor, and I should not go to service till I was bigger.
Well, this did not satisfy me, for to think of going to service was
such a frightful thing to me, that if she had assured me I should not
have gone till I was twenty years old, it would have been the same to
me; I should have cried, I believe, all the time, with the very
apprehension of its being to be so at last.
When she saw that I was not pacified yet, she began to be angry with
me. 'And what would you have?' says she; 'don't I tell you that you
shall not go to service till your are bigger?' 'Ay,' said I, 'but then
I must go at last.' 'Why, what?' said she; 'is the girl mad? What
would you be -- a gentlewoman?' 'Yes,' says I, and cried heartily till
I roared out again.
This set the old gentlewoman a-laughing at me, as you may be sure it
would. 'Well, madam, forsooth,' says she, gibing at me, 'you would be
a gentlewoman; and pray how will you come to be a gentlewoman? What!
will you do it by your fingers' end?'
'Yes,' says I again, very innocently.
'Why, what can you earn?' says she; 'what can you get at your work?'
'Threepence,' said I, 'when I spin, and fourpence when I work plain
work.'
'Alas! poor gentlewoman,' said she again, laughing, 'what will that do
for thee?'
'It will keep me,' says I, 'if you will let me live with you.' And
this I said in such a poor petitioning tone, that it made the poor
woman's heart yearn to me, as she told me afterwards.
'But,' says she, 'that will not keep you and buy you clothes too; and
who must buy the little gentlewoman clothes?' says she, and smiled all
the while at me.
'I will work harder, then,' says I, 'and you shall have it all.'
'Poor child! it won't keep you,' says she; 'it will hardly keep you in
victuals.'