Section 44

282 MOLL FLANDERS
With this resolution, I proposed to my husband our going away from where we was, and carrying our effects with us to Carolina, where we resolved to settle; for my husband readily agreed to the first part, viz., that it was not at all proper to stay where we was, since I had assured him we should be known there; and the rest I concealed from him.
But now I found a new difficulty upon me. The main affair grew heavy upon my mind still, and I could not think of going out of the country without somehow or other making inquiry into the grand affair of what my mother had done for me; nor could I with any patience bear the thought of going away, and not make myself known to my old husband (brother), or to my child, his son; only I would fain have had it done without my new husband having any knowledge of it, or they having any knowledge of him.
I cast about innumerable ways in my thoughts how this might be done. I would gladly have sent my husband away to Carolina, and have come after myself, but this was im- practicable; he would not stir without me, being himself unacquainted with the country, and with the methods of settling anywhere. Then I thought we would both go first, and that when we were settled I should come back to Vir- ginia; but even then I knew he would never part with me, and be left there alone. The case was plain; he was bred a gentleman, and was not only unacquainted, but indolent, and when we did settle, would much rather go into the woods with his gun, which they call there hunting, and which is the ordinary work of the Indians; I say, he would much rather do that than attend to the natural business of the plantation.
These were, therefore, difficulties unsurmountable, and such as I knew not what to doin. I had such strong impres- sions on my mind about discovering myself to my old hus- band, that I could not withstand them; and the rather, because it ran in my thoughts, that if I did not while he lived, I might in vain endeavour to convince my son after- ward that I was really the same person, and that I was his mother, and so might both lose the assistance and comfort of the relation, and lose whatever it was my mother had left me; and yet, on the other hand, I could never think it proper to discover the circumstances I was in, as well relating to the having a husband with me.as to my being brought
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REASONS FOR REMOVAL 283
over as a criminal; on both which accounts it was absolutely necessary to me to remove from the place where I was, and come again to him, as from another place and in another figure.
Upon those considerations, I went on with telling my husband the absolute necessity there was of our not settling in Potomac River, that we should presently be made public there; whereas if we went to any other place in the world, we could come in with as much reputation as any family that came to plant; that, as it was always agreeable to the inhabitants to have families come among them to plant, who brought substance with them, so we should be sure of agree- able reception, and without any possibility of a discovery of our circumstances.
I told him too, that as I had several relations in the place where we was, and that I durst not now let myself be known to them, because they would soon come to know the occasion of my coming over, which would be to expose myself to the last degree; so I had reason to believe that my mother, who! died here, had left me something, and perhaps considerable, | which it might be very well worth my while to inquire after; | but that this too could not be done without exposing us’ publicly, unless we went from hence; and then, wherever we settled, I might come, as it were, to visit and to see my brother and nephews, make myself known, inquire after what was my due, be received with respect, and, at the same time, have justice done me; whereas, if I did it now, I could expect nothing but with trouble, such as exacting it by force, receiving it with curses and reluctance, and with all kinds of affronts, which he would not perhaps bear to see; that in case of being obliged to legal proofs of being really her daughter, I might be at a loss, be obliged to have recourse to England, and, it may be, to fail at last, and so lose it. With these arguments, and having thus acquainted my husband with the whole secret, so far as was needful to him, we resolved to go and seek a settlement in some other colony, and at first Carolina was the place pitched upon. :
In order to this we began to make inquiry for vessels going to Carolina, and in a very little while got information, that on the other side of the bay, as they call it, namely, in Maryland, there was a ship which came from Carolina,
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loaden with rice and other goods, and was going back again thither. On this news we hired a sloop to take in our goods, and taking, as it were, a final farewell of Potomac River, we went with all our cargo over to Maryland.
This was a long and unpleasant voyage, and my spouse said it was worse to him than all the voyage from England, because the weather was bad, the water rough, and the vessel small and inconvenient. In the next place, we were full a hundred miles up Potomac River, in a part they call Westmorland County; and as that river is by far the greatest in Virginia, and I have heard say it is the greatest river in the world that falls into another river, and not directly into the sea, so we had base weather in it, and were frequently in great danger; for though they call it but a river, ’tis frequently so broad, that when we were in the middle we could not see land on either side for many leagues together. Then we had the great bay of Chesapeake to cross, which is, where the River Potomac falls into it, near thirty miles broad, so that our voyage was full two hundred miles, in a poor, sorry sloop, with all our treasure, and if any accident had happened to us we might at last have been very miser- able; supposing we had lost our goods and saved our lives only, and had then been left naked and destitute, and in a wild, strange place, not having one friend or acquaintance in all that part of the world. The very thoughts of it gives me some horror, even since the danger is past.
Well, we came to the place in five days’ sailing; I think they call it Philip’s Point ; and behold when we came thither, the ship bound to Carolina was loaded and gone away but three days before. This was a disappointment; but, however, I, that was to be discouraged with nothing, told my husband that since we could not get passage to Carolina, and that the country we was in was very fertile and good, we would see if we could find out anything for our turn where we was, and that if he liked things we would settle here.
We immediately went on shore, but found no conveniences just at that place, either for our being on shore or preserving our goods on shore, but was directed by a very honest Quaker, whom we found there, to go to a place about sixty miles east ; that is to say, nearer the mouth of the bay, where he said he lived, and where we should be accommodated, either to plant
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or to wait for any other place to plant in that might be more convenient ; and he invited us with so much kindness that we agreed to go, and the Quaker himself went with us.
Here we bought us two servants, viz. an English woman-
servant, just come on shore from a ship of Liverpool, and a negro man-servant, things absolutely necessary for all people that pretended to settle in that country. This honest Quaker was very helpful to us, and when we came to the place that he proposed, found us out a convenient storehouse for our goods, and lodging for ourselves and servants 3 and about two months, or thereabout, afterwards, by his direction, we took up a large piece of land from the government of that country, in order to form our plantation, and so we laid the thoughts of going to Carolina wholly aside, having been very well received here, and accommodated with a convenient lodging till we could prepare things, and have land enough cured, and materials provided for building us a house, all which we managed by the direction of the Quaker; so that in one year’s time, we had near fifty acres of land cleared, part of it enclosed, and some of it planted with tobacco, though not much; besides, we had garden-ground and corn sufficient to supply our servants with roots and herbs and bread.
And now I persuaded my husband to let me go over the bay again, and inquire after my friends. He was the willinger to consent to it now, because he had business upon his hands sufficient to employ him, besides his gun to divert him, which they call hunting there, and which he greatly delighted in; and indeed we used to look at one another, sometimes with a great deal of pleasure, reflecting how much better that was, not than Newgate only, but than the most prosperous of our circumstances in the wicked trade we had been both carrying on.
Our affair was now in a very good posture; we purchased of the proprietors of the colony as much land for £35, paid in ready money, as would make a sufficient plantation to us as long as we could either of us live 3 and as for children, I was past anything of that kind.
But our good fortune did not end here. I went, as I have said, over the bay, to the place where my brother, once a husband, lived; but I did not go to the same village where I was before, but went up another great river, on the east
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side of the river Potomac, called Rappahannoc River, and by this means came on the back of his plantation, which was large, and by the help of a navigable creek, that ran into the Rappahannoc, I came very near it.
I was now fully resolved to go up point-blank to my brother (husband), and to tell him who I was; but not knowing what temper I might find him in, or how much out of temper, rather, I might make him by such a rash visit, I resolved to write a letter to him first, to let him know who I was, and that I was come not to give him any trouble upon the old relation, which I hoped was entirely forgot, but that I applied to him as a sister to a brother, desiring his assistance in the case of that provision which our mother, at her decease, had left for my support, and which I did not doubt but he would do me justice in, especially considering that I was come thus far to look after it.
I said some very tender, kind things in the letter Siow his son, which I told him he knew to be my own child, and that as I was guilty of nothing in marrying him, any more than he was in marrying me, neither of us having then known our being at all related to one another, so I hoped he would allow me the most passionate desire of once seeing my own and only child, and of showing something of the infirmities of a mother in preserving a violent affection for him, who had never been able to retain any thought of me one way or other.
I did believe that, having received this letter, he would immediately give it to his son to read, his eyes being, I knew, so dim that he could not see to read it; but it fell out better than so, for as his sight was dim, so he had allowed his son to open all letters that came to his hand for him, and the old gentleman being from home, or out of the way when my messenger came, my letter came directly to my son’s hand, and he opened and read it.
He called the messenger in, after some little stay, and asked him where the person was who gave him that letter. The messenger told him the place, which was about seven miles off; so he bid him stay, and ordering a horse to be got ready, and two servants, away he came to me with the messenger. Let any one judge the consternation I was in when my messenger came back and told me the old gentleman was not _ at home, but his son was come along with him, and was just
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coming up to me. I was perfectly confounded, for I knew not whether it was peace or war, nor could I tell how to behave; however, I had but a very few moments to think, for my son was at the heels of the messenger, and coming up into my lodgings, asked the fellow at the door something. I suppose it was, for I did not hear it, which was the gentle- woman that sent him; for the messenger said, “There she is, sir”; at which he comes directly up to me, kisses me, took me in his arms, embraced me with so much passion that he could not speak, but I could feel his breast heave and throb like a child, that cries, but sobs, and cannot cry out.
I can neither express or describe the joy that touched my very soul when I found, for it was easy to discover that part, that he came not as a stranger, but as a son to a mother, and indeed a son who had never before known what a mother of his own was; in short, we cried over one another a con- siderable while, when at last he broke out first. “My dear mother,” says he, “are you still alive? I never expected to have seen your face.” As for me, I could say nothing a great while.
After we had both recovered ourselves a little, and were able to talk, he told me how things stood. He told me he had not showed my letter to his father, or told him anything about it; that what his grandmother left me was in his | hands, and that he would do me justice to my full satisfac- tion ; that as to his father, he was old and infirm both in body and mind; that he was very fretful and passionate, almost | blind, and capable of nothing; and he questioned whether | he would know how to act in an affair which was of so nice a nature as this; and that therefore he had come himself, as well to satisfy himself in seeing me, which he could not restrain himself from, as also to put it into my power. to make a judgment, after I had seen how things were, whether I would discover myself to his father or no.
This was really so prudently and wisely managed, that I found my son was a man of sense, and needed no direction from me, «I told him I did not wonder that his father was as he had described him, for that his head was a little touched | before I went away; and principally his disturbance was because I could not be persuaded to live with him as my husband, after I knew that he was my brother; that as he
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knew better than I what his father’s present condition was, I should readily join with him in such measures as he would direct; that I was indifferent as to seeing his father, since I had seen him first, and he could not have told me better news than to tell me that what his grandmother had left me was entrusted in his hands, who, I doubted not, now he knew who I was, would, as he said, do me justice. I inquired then how long my mother had been dead, and where she died, and told so many particulars of the family, that I left him no room to doubt the truth of my being really and truly his mother.
My son then inquired where I was, and how I had disposed myself. I told him I was on the Maryland side of the bay, at the plantation of a particular friend, who came from England in the same ship with me; that as for that side of the bay where he was, I had no habitation. He told me I should go home with him, and live with him, if I pleased, as long as I lived; that as to his father, he knew nobody, and would never so much as guess at me. I considered of that a little, and told him, that though it was really no little concern to me to live at a distance from him, yet I could not say it would be the most comfortable thing in the world to me to live in the house with him, and to have that unhappy object always before me, which had been such a blow to my peace before; that though I should be glad to have his company (my son), or to be as near him as possible, yet I could not think of being in the house where I should be also under constant restraint for fear of betraying myself in my dis- course, nor should I be able to refrain some expressions in my conversing with him as my son, that might discover the whole affair, which would by no means be convenient.