Section 43

Here, being detained by bad weather for some time, the captain, who continued the same kind, good-humoured man as at first, took us two on shore with him again. He did it now in kindness to my husband indeed, who bore the sea very ill, especially when it blew so hard. Here we bought again store of fresh provisions, beef, pork, mutton, and fowls, and the captain stayed to pickle up five or six barrels of beef, to lengthen out the ship’s store. We were here not above five days, when the weather turning mild, and a fair wind, we set sail again, and in two-and-forty days came safe to the coast of Virginia.
___ When we drew near to the shore the captain called me to him, and told me that he found by my discourse I had some relations in the place, and that I had been there before, and so he supposed I understood the custom in their disposing the convict prisoners when they arrived. I told him I did not; and that, as to what relations I had in the place, he might be sure I would make myself known to none of them while in the circumstances of a prisoner, and that, as to the rest, we left ourselves entirely to him to assist us, as he was pleased to promise us he would do. He told me I must get somebody in the place to come and buy me as a servant, and who must answer for me to the governor of the country if he demanded me. I told him we should do as he should direct; so he brought a planter to treat with him, as it were, for the purchase of me for a servant, my husband not being ordered to be sold, and there I was formally sold to him, and went ashore with him. The captain went with us, and carried us to a certain house, whether it was to be called a tavern or not I know not, but we had a bowl of punch there
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made of rum, etc., and were very merry. After some time, the planter gave us a certificate of discharge, and an acknow- ledgment of having served him faithfully, and I was free from him the next morning to go whither I would.
For this piece of service the captain demanded of me six thousand weight of tobacco, which he said he was accountable for to his freighter, and which we immediately bought for him, and made him a present of twenty guineas besides, with which he was abundantly satisfied.
It is not proper to enter here into the particulars of what part of the colony of Virginia we settled in, for divers reasons; it may suffice to mention that we went into the great river of Potomac, the ship being bound thither; and there we in- tended to have settled at first, though afterwards we altered our minds.
The first thing I did of moment after having gotten all our goods on shore, and placed them in a storehouse, which, with a lodging, we hired at the small place or village where we landed ; I say, the first thing was to inquire after my mother, and after my brother (that fatal person whom I married as a husband, as I have related at large). A little inquiry furnished me with information that Mrs. , that is, my mother, was dead; that my brother, or husband, was alive, and, which was worse, I found he was removed from the plantation where I lived, and lived with one of his sons in a plantation just by the place where we landed, and had hired a warehouse.
I was a little surprised at first, but as I ventured to satisfy myself that he could not know me, J, was not only perfectly easy, but had a great mind to see him if it was possible, without his seeing me. In order to that, I found out by inquiry the plantation where he lived, and with a woman of the place whom I got to help me, like what we call a char- woman, I rambled about towards the place as if I had only a mind to see the country and look about me. At last I came so near that I saw the dwelling-house. I asked the woman whose plantation that was; she said it belonged to such a man, and looking out a little to our right hands, “There,” says she, “is the gentleman that owns the plantation, and his father with him.” ‘‘What are their Christian names?” said I. “TI know not,” said she, “what the old gentleman’s
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name is, but his son’s name is Humphry; and I believe,” says she, “the father’s is so too.”” You may guess, if you
can, what a confused mixture of joy and fright possessed my |
thoughts upon this occasion, for I immediately knew that.
this was nobody else but my own son, by that father she showed me, who was my own brother. I had no mask, but I ruffled my hoods so about my face that I depended upon it that after above twenty years’ absence, and withal not expecting anything of me in that part of the world, he would not be able to know me. But I need not have used all that caution, for he was grown dim-sighted by some distemper which had fallen upon his eyes, and could but just see well enough to walk about, and not run against a tree or into a ditch. As they drew near to us I said, “ Does he know you, Mrs. Owen?” (so they called the woman), “Yes,” she said “if he hears me speak, he will know me; but he can’t see well enough to know me or anybody else”; and so she told me the story of his sight, as I have related. This made me secure, and so I threw open my hoods again, and let them pass by me. It was a wretched thing for a mother thus to see her own son, a handsome, comely young gentleman in flourishing circumstances, and durst not make herself known to him, and durst not take any notice of him. Let any mother of children that reads this consider it, and but think with what anguish of mind I restrained myself; what yearn- ings of soul I had in me to embrace him, and weep over him; and how I thought all my entrails turned within me, that my very bowels moved, and I knew not what to do, as I now know not how to express those agonies! When he went from me I stood gazing and trembling, and looking after him as long as I could see him; then sitting down on the grass, just at a place I had marked, I made as if I lay down to rest me, but turned from her, and lying on my face, wept, and kissed the ground that he had set his foot on.
I could not conceal my disorder so much from the woman, but that she perceived it, and thought I was not well, which I was obliged to pretend was true; upon which she pressed me to rise, the ground being damp and dangerous, which I did, and walked away.
As I was going back again, and still talking of this gentle- man and his son, a new occasion of melancholy offered itself,
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thus. The woman began, as if she would tell me a story to divert me: ‘‘There goes,” says she, “a very odd tale among the neighbours where this gentleman formerly lived.” “What was that?” said I. “Why,” says she, ‘“‘that old gentleman going to England, when he was a young man, fell in love with a young lady there, one of the finest women that ever was seen here, and married her, and brought her over hither to his mother, who was then living. He lived here several years with her,” continued she, “and had several children by her, of which the young gentleman that was with him now was one; but after some time, the old gentle- woman, his mother, talking to her of something relating to herself, and of her circumstances in England, which were bad enough, the daughter-in-law began to be very much surprised and uneasy; and, in short, in examining farther into things, it appeared past all contradiction, that she, the old gentlewoman, was her own mother, and that conse- quently that son was her own brother, which struck the family with horror, and put them into such confusion that it had almost ruined them all. The young woman would not live with him, he for a time went distracted, and at last the young woman went away for England, and has never been heard of since.”
It is easy to believe that I was strangely affected with this story, but ’tis impossible to describe the nature of my dis- turbance. I seemed astonished at the story, and asked her
a thousand questions about the particulars, which I found
she was thoroughly acquainted with. At last I began to inquire into the circumstances of the family, how the old gentlewoman, I mean my mother, died, and how she left what she had; for my mother had promised me, very solemnly, that when she died she would do something for me, and leave it so, as that, if I was living, I should, one way or other, come at it, without its being in the power of her son, my brother and husband, to prevent it. She told me she did not know exactly how it was ordered, but she had been told that my mother had left a sum of money, and had tied her plantation for the payment of it, to be made good to the daughter, if ever she could be heard of, either in England or elsewhere; and that the trust was left with this son, whom
_ we saw with his father.
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This was news too good for me to make light of, and you may be sure filled my heart with a thousand thoughts, what course I should take, and in what manner I should make myself known, or whether I should ever make myself known or no.
Here was a perplexity that I had not indeed skill to manage myself in, neither knew I what course to take. It lay heavy upon my mind night and day. I could neither sleep or converse, so that my husband perceived it, wondered what ailed me, and strove to divert me, but it was all to no purpose. He pressed me to tell him what it was troubled me, but I put it off, till at last importuning me continually, I was forced to form a story which yet had a plain truth to lay it upon too. I told him I was troubled because I found we must shift our quarters and alter our scheme of settling, for that I found I should be known if I stayed in that part of the country; for that my mother being dead, several of my relations were come into that part where we then was, and that I must either discover myself to them, which in our present circumstances was not proper on many accounts, or remove; and which to do I knew not, and that this it was that made me melancholy.
He joined with me in this, that it was by no means proper for me to make myself known to anybody in the circum- stances in which we then were; and therefore he told me he would be willing to remove to any part of the country, or even to any other country if I thought fit. But now I had another difficulty, which was, that if I removed to another colony, I put myself out of the way of ever making a due search after those things which my mother had left; again, I could never so much as think of breaking the secret of my former marriage to my new husband; it was not a story would bear telling, nor could I tell what might be the consequences of it: it was impossible, too, without making it public all over the country, as well who I was, as what I now was also.
This perplexity continued a great while, and made my spouse very uneasy ; for he thought I was not open with him, and did not let him into every part of my grievance; and he would often.say he wondered what he had done, that I would not trust him, whatever it was, especially if it was grievous and afflicting. The truth is, he ought to have been trusted
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with everything, for no man could deserve better of a wife; but this was a thing I knew not how to open to him, and yet having nobody to disclose any part of it to, the burthen was too heavy for my mind; for, let them say what they please of our sex not being able to keep a secret, my life is a plain conviction to me of the contrary; but be it our sex, or the men’s sex, a secret of moment should always have a confidant, a bosom friend to whom we may communicate the joy of it, or the grief of it, be it which it will, or it will be a double weight upon the spirits, and perhaps become even insup- portable in itself; and this I appeal to human testimony for the truth of.
And this is the cause why many times men as well as women, and men of the greatest and best qualities other ways, yet have found themselves weak in this part, and have not been able to bear the weight of a secret joy or of a secret sorrow, but have been obliged to disclose it, even for the mere giving vent to themselves, and to unbend the mind, oppressed with the weights which attended it. Nor was this any token of folly at all, but a natural consequence of the thing; and such people, had they struggled longer with the oppression, would certainly have told it in their sleep, and disclosed the secret, let it have been of what fatal nature soever, without regard to the person to whom it might be exposed. This necessity of nature is a thing which works sometimes with such vehemency in the minds of those who are guilty of any atrocious villainy, such as a secret murder in particular, that they have been obliged to discover it, though the consequence has been their own destruction. Now, though it may be true that the ‘divine justice ought to have the glory of all those discoveries and confessions, yet tis as certain that Providence, which ordinarily works by the hands of nature, makes use here of the same natural causes to produce those extraordinary effects.
I could give several remarkable instances of this in my long conversation with crime and with criminals. I knew one fellow that, while I was a prisoner in Newgate, was one of those they called then night-fliers. I know not what word they may have understood it by since, but he was one who by connivance was admitted to go abroad every evening, when he played his pranks, and furnished those honest people
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they call thief-catchers with business to find out the next day, and restore for a reward what they had stolen the evening before. This fellow was as sure to tell in his sleep _ all that he had done, and every step he had taken, what he had stolen, and where, as sure as if he had engaged to tell it waking, and therefore he was obliged, after he had been out, to lock himself up, or be locked up by some of the keepers that had him in fee, that nobody should hear him; but, on the other hand, if he had told all the particulars, and given a full account of his rambles and success, to any comrade, any brother thief, or to his employers, as I may justly call them, then all was well, and he slept as quietly as other people. .
As the publishing this account of my life is for the sake of | the just moral of every part of it, and for instruction, caution, | warning, and improvement to every reader, so this will not / pass, I hope, for an unnecessary digression, concerning some. people being obliged to disclose the greatest secrets either of | their own or other people’s affairs.
Under the oppression of this weight, I laboured in the case I have been naming; and the only relief I found for it was to let my husband into so much of it as I thought would con- vince him of the necessity there was for us to think of settling in some other part of the world; and the next consideration before us was, which part of the English settlements we should go to. My husband was a perfect stranger to the country, and had not yet so much as a geographical know- ledge of the situation of the several places; and I, that, till I wrote this, did not know what the word geographical sig- nified, had only a general knowledge from long conversation with people that came from or went to several places; but this I knew, that Maryland, Pennsylvania, East and West Jersey, New York, and New England lay all north of Vir- ginia, and that they were consequently all colder climates, to which, for that very reason, I had an aversion. For that as I naturally loved warm weather, so now I grew into years, I had a stronger inclination to shun a cold climate. I there. fore considered of going to Carolina, which is the most southern colony of the English on the continent; and hither I proposed to go, the rather because I might with ease come from thence at any time, when it might be proper to inquire after my mother’s effects, and to demand them.