And yet such was my fate in wives, that, after all the blushing and backwardness of Mrs. Moggy at first, Mrs. Moggy had, it seems, made a slip in her younger days, and was got with child ten years before, by a gentleman of a great estate in that country, who promised her marriage, and afterwards deserted her. But as that had happened long before I came into the country, and the child was dead and forgotten, the people were so good to her, and so kind to me, that, hearing I had married her, nobody ever spoke of it; neither did I ever hear of it or suspect it till after she was in her grave, and then it was of small consequence to me one way or other; and she was a faithful, virtuous, obliging wife to me. I had very severe affliction indeed while she lived with me; for the smallpox, a frightful distemper in that country, broke into my family, and carried off three of my children and a maid-servant; so that I had only one of my former wife’s, and one by my Moggy, the first a son, the last a daughter.While these things were in agitation came on the invasion of the Scots and the fight at Preston; and I have cause to bless the memory of my Moggy; for I was all on fire on that side, and just going away with horse and arms to join the Lord Derwentwater. But Moggy begged me off (as I may call it), and hung about me so with her tears and importunities that I sat still and looked on; for which I had reason to be thankful.I was really a sorrowful father, and the loss of my children stuck close to me; but the loss of my wife stuck closer to me than all the rest. Nor was my grief lessened or my kindest thoughts abated in the least by the account I heard of her former miscarriages, seeing they were so long before I knew her, and were not discovered by me or to me in her lifetime.All these things put together made me very comfortless. And now I thought Heaven summoned me to retire to Virginia, the place, and, as I may say, the only place, I had been blessed at, or had met with anything that deserved the name of success in, and where, indeed, my affairs being in good hands, the plantations were increased to such a degree that some years my return here made up eight hundred pounds, and one year almost a thousand. So I resolved to leave my native country once more, and taking my son with me, and leaving Moggy’s daughter with her grandfather, I made him my principal agent, left him considerable in his hands for the maintenance of the child, and left my will in his hand, by which, if I died before I should otherwise provide for her, I left her £2000 portion, to be paid by my son out of the estate I had in Virginia, and the whole estate, if he died unmarried.I embarked for Virginia in the year ——, at the town of Liverpool, and had a tolerable voyage thither, only that we met with a pirate ship, in the latitude of 48 degrees, who plundered us of every thing they could come at that was for their turn; that is to say, provisions, ammunition, small-arms, and money. But, to give the rogues their due, though they were the most abandoned wretches that were ever seen, they did not use us ill. And as to my loss, it was not considerable; the cargo which I had on board was in goods, and was of no use to them; nor could they come at those things without rummaging the whole ship, which they did not think worth their while.I found all my affairs in very good order at Virginia, my plantations prodigiously increased, and my manager, who first inspired me with travelling thoughts, and made me master of any knowledge worth naming, received me with a transport of joy, after a ramble of four-and-twenty years.I ought to remember it, to the encouragement of all faithful servants, that he gave me an account, which, I believe, was critically just, of the whole affairs of the plantations, each by themselves, and balanced in years, every year’s produce being fully transmitted, charges deducted, to my order at London.I was exceedingly satisfied, as I had good reason indeed, with his management; and with his management, as much in its degree, of his own I can safely say it. He had improved a very large plantation of his own at the same time, which he began upon the foot of the country’s allowance of land and the encouragement he had from me.When he had given me all this pleasing, agreeable account, you will not think it strange that I had a desire to see the plantations, and to view all the servants, which, in both the works, were upwards of three hundred; and as my tutor generally bought some every fleet that came from England, I had the mortification to see two or three of the Preston gentlemen there, who, being prisoners of war, were spared from the public execution, and sent over to that slavery, which to gentlemen must be worse than death.I do not mention what I did or said relating to them here. I shall speak at large of it when the rest of them came over, which more nearly concerned me.But one circumstance occurred to me here that equally surprised me and terrified me to the last degree. Looking over all the servants, as I say above, and viewing the plantations narrowly and frequently, I came one day by a place where some women were at work by themselves. I was seriously reflecting on the misery of human life, when I saw some of those poor wretches. Thought I, “They have perhaps lived gay and pleasantly in the world, notwithstanding, through a variety of distresses, they may have been brought to this; and if a body was to hear the history of some of them now, it would perhaps be as moving and as seasonable a sermon as any minister in the country could preach.”While I was musing thus and looking at the women, on a sudden I heard a combustion among other of the women-servants, who were almost behind me, in the same work, and help was called loudly for, one of the women having swooned away. They said she would die immediately if something was not done to relieve her. I had nothing about me but a little bottle, which we always carried about us there with rum, to give any servant a dram that merited that favour; so I turned my horse and went up towards the place. But as the poor creature was lying flat on the ground, and the rest of the women-servants about her, I did not see her, but gave them the bottle, and they rubbed her temples with it, and, with much ado, brought her to life, and gave her a little to drink. But she could drink none of it, and was exceeding ill afterwards, so that she was carried to the infirmary—so they call it in the religious houses in Italy where the sick nuns and friars are carried; but here, in Virginia, I think they should call it the condemned hole, for it really was only a place just fit for people to die in, not a place to be cured in.The sick woman refusing to drink, one of the women-servants brought me the bottle again, and I bade them drink it among them, which had almost set them together by the ears for the liquor, there being not enough to give every one a sup.I went home to my house immediately, and reflecting on the miserable provision was wont to be made for poor servants when they were sick, I inquired of my manager if it was so still. He said he believed mine was better than any in the country; but he confessed it was but sad lodging. However, he said he would go and look after it immediately and see how it was.He came to me again about an hour after, and told me the woman was very ill, and frighted with her condition; that she seemed to be very penitent for some things in her past life, which lay heavy upon her mind, believing she should die; that she asked him if there was no minister to comfort poor dying servants; and he told her that she knew they had no minister nearer than such a place, but that, if she lived till morning, he should be sent for. He told me, also, that he had removed her into a room where their chief workman used to lodge; that he had given her a pair of sheets, and everything he could that he thought she wanted, and had appointed another woman-servant to tend her and sit up with her.“Well,” says I, “that’s well; for I cannot bear to have poor creatures lie and perish, by the mere hardship of the place they are in, when they are sick and want help. Besides,” said I, “some of those unfortunate creatures they call convicts may be peopie that have been tenderly brought up.” “Really, sir,” says he, “this poor creature, I always said, had something of a gentlewoman in her. I could see it by her behaviour, and I have heard the other women say that she lived very great once, and that she had fifteen hundred pound to her portion; and I dare say she has been a handsome woman in her time, and she has a hand as fine as a lady’s now, though it be tanned with the weather. I dare say she was never brought up to labour as she does here, and she says to the rest that it will kill her.”“Truly,” says I, “it may be so, and that may be the reason that she faints under it;” and I added, “Is there nothing you can put her to within doors that may not be so laborious and expose her to so much heat and cold?” He told me yes, there was. He could set her to be the housekeeper, for the woman that lately was such was out of her time, and was married and turned planter. “Why, then, let her have it,” said I, “if she recovers; and in the meantime go,” said I, “and tell her so; perhaps the comfort of it may help to restore her.”He did so, and with that, taking good care of her, and giving her good warm diet, the woman recovered, and in a little time was abroad again; for it was the mere weight of labour, and being exposed to hard lodging and mean diet, to one so tenderly bred, that struck her and she fainted at her work.When she was made housekeeper she was quite another body. She put all the household into such excellent order, and managed their provisions so well, that my tutor admired her conduct, and would be every now and then speaking of her to me, that she was an excellent manager. “I’ll warrant,” says he, “she has been bred a gentlewoman, and she has been a fine woman in her time too.” In a word, he said so many good things of her that I had a mind to see her. So one day I took occasion to go to the plantation-house, as they called it, and into a parlour always reserved for the master of the plantation. There she had opportunity to see me before I could see her, and as soon as she had seen me she knew me; but indeed had I seen her an hundred times I should not have known her. She was, it seems, in the greatest confusion and surprise at seeing who I was that it was possible for any one to be; and when I ordered my manager to bring her into the room, he found her crying, and begged him to excuse her, that she was frighted, and should die away if she came near me.I, not imagining anything but that the poor creature was afraid of me (for masters in Virginia are terrible things), bade him tell her she need to be under no concern at my calling for her; for it was not for any hurt nor for any displeasure, but that I had some orders to give her. So, having, as he thought, encouraged her, though her surprise was of another kind, he brought her in. When she came in she held a handkerchief in her hand, wiping her eyes, as if she had cried. “Mrs. Housekeeper,” said I, speaking cheerfully to her, “don’t be concerned at my sending for you; I have had a very good account of your management, and I called for you to let you know I am very well pleased with it; and if it falls in my way to do you any good, if your circumstances will allow it, I may be willing enough to help you out of your misery.”She made low courtesies, but said nothing. However, she was so far encouraged that she took her hand from her face, and I saw her face fully; and I believe she did it desiring I should discover who she was; but I really knew nothing of her, any more than if I had never seen her in my life, but went on, as I thought, to encourage her, as I used to do with any that I saw deserved it.In the meantime my tutor, who was in the room, went out on some business or other—I know not what. As soon as he was gone she burst out into a passion, and fell down on her knees just before me: “Oh, sir!” says she, “I see you don’t know me. Be merciful to me; I am your miserable divorced wife!”I was astonished; I was frighted; I trembled like one in an ague; I was speechless; in a word, I was ready to sink, and she fell flat on her face, and lay there as if she had been dead. I was speechless, I say, as a stone. I had only presence of mind enough to step to the door and fasten it, that my tutor might not come in; then, going back to her, I took her up and spoke comfortably to her, and told her I no more knew her than if I had never seen her.“Oh, sir!” said she, “afflictions are dreadful things; such as I have suffered have been enough to alter my countenance; but forgive,” said she, “for God’s sake, the injuries I have done you. I have paid dear for all my wickedness, and it is just, it is righteous, that God should bring me to your foot, to ask your pardon for all my brutish doings. Forgive me, sir,” said she, “I beseech you, and let me be your slave or servant for it as long as I live; it is all I ask;” and with those words she fell upon her knees again and cried so vehemently that it was impossible for her to stop it or to speak a word more. I took her up again, made her sit down, desired her to compose herself, and to hear what I was going to say; though indeed it touched me so sensibly that I was hardly able to speak any more than she was.First, I told her it was such a surprise to me that I was not able to say much to her; and indeed the tears run down my face almost as fast as they did on hers. I told her that I should only tell her now, that, as nobody had yet known anything that had passed, so it was absolutely necessary not a word of it should be known; that it should not be the worse for her that she was thus thrown in my hands again; but that I could do nothing for her if it was known, and, therefore, that her future good or ill fortune would depend upon her entire concealing it; that, as my manager would come in again presently, she should go back to her part of the house, and go on in the business as she did before; that I would come to her and talk more at large with her in a day or two. So she retired, after assuring me that not a word of it should go out of her mouth; and indeed she was willing to retire before my tutor came again, that he might not see the agony she was in.I was so perplexed about this surprising incident that I hardly knew what I did or said all that night; nor was I come to any settled resolution in the morning what course to take in it. However, in the morning I called my tutor, and told him that I had been exceedingly concerned about the poor distressed creature, the housekeeper; that I had heard some of her story, which was very dismal; that she had been in very good circumstances and was bred very well, and that I was glad he had removed her out of the field into the house; but still she was almost naked, and that I would have him go down to the warehouse and give her some linen, especially head-clothes, and all sorts of small things such as hoods, gloves, stockings, shoes, petticoats, &c., and to let her choose for herself; also a morning-gown of calico, and a mantua of a better kind of calico; that is to say, new clothe her; which he did, but brought me word that he found her all in tears, and that she had cried all night long, and, in short, he believed she would indeed cry herself to death; that all the while she was receiving the things he gave her she cried; that now and then she would struggle with and stop it, but that then, upon another word speaking, she would burst out again, so that it grieved everybody that saw her.I was really affected with her case very much, but struggled hard with myself to hide it, and turned the discourse to something else. In the meantime, though I did not go to her the next day, nor till the third day, yet I studied day and night how to act, and what I should do in this remarkable case.When I came to the house, which was the third day, she came into the room I was in, clothed all over with my things which I had ordered her, and told me she thanked God she was now my servant again and wore my livery, thanked me for the clothes I had sent her, and said it was much more than she had deserved from me.I then entered into discourses with her, nobody being present but ourselves; and first I told her she should name no more of the unkind things that had passed, for she had humbled herself more than enough on that subject, and I would never reproach her with anything that was past. I found that she had been the deepest sufferer by far. I told her it was impossible for me, in my present circumstances, to receive her there as a wife who came over as a convict, neither did she know so little as to desire it; but I told her I might be instrumental to put an end to her misfortunes in the world, and especially to the miserable part of it which was her present load, provided she could effectually keep her own counsel and never let the particulars come out of her mouth, and that from the day she did she might date her irrevocable ruin.She was as sensible of the necessity of that part as I was, and told me all she could claim of me would be only to deliver her from her present calamity that she was not able to support; and that then, if I pleased, she might live such a life as that she might apply the residue of what time she should have wholly to repentance; that she was willing to do the meanest offices in the world for me; and though she should rejoice to hear that I would forgive her former life, yet that she would not look any higher than to be my servant as long as she lived; and, in the meantime, I might be satisfied she would never let any creature so much as know that I had ever seen her before.I asked her if she was willing to let me into any part of the history of her life since she and I parted; but I did not insist upon it otherwise than as she thought convenient. She said, as her breach with me began first in folly and ended in sin, so her whole life afterwards was a continued series of calamity, sin and sorrow, sin and shame, and at last misery; that she was deluded into gay company and to an expensive way of living which betrayed her to several wicked courses to support the expenses of it; that after a thousand distresses and difficulties, being not able to maintain herself, she was reduced to extreme poverty; that she would many times have humbled herself to me in the lowest and most submissive manner in the world, being sincerely penitent for her first crime, but that she could never hear of me, nor which way I was gone; that she was by that means so abandoned that she wanted bread, and those wants and distresses brought her into bad company of another kind, and that she fell in among a gang of thieves, with whom she herded for some time, and got money enough a great while, but under the greatest dread and terror imaginable, being in the constant fear of coming to shame; that afterwards what she feared was come upon her, and for a very trifling attempt in which she was not principal, but accidentally concerned, she was sent to this place. She told me her life was such a collection of various fortunes—up and down, in plenty and in misery, in prison and at liberty, at ease and in torment—that it would take up a great many days to give me a history of it; that I was come to see the end of it, as I had seen the best part of the beginning; that I knew she was brought up tenderly and fared delicately; but that now she was, with the prodigal, brought to desire husks with swine, and even to want that supply. Her tears flowed so strongly upon this discourse that they frequently interrupted her, so that she could not go on without difficulty, and at last could not go on at all. So I told her I would excuse her telling any more of her story at that time; that I saw it was but a renewing of her grief, and that I would rather contribute to her forgetting what was past, and desired her to say no more of it; so I broke off that part.In the meantime I told her, since Providence had thus cast her upon my hands again, I would take care that she should not want, and that she should not live hardly neither, though I could go no further at present; and thus we parted for that time, and she continued in the business of housekeeper; only that, to ease her, I gave her an assistant; and, though I would not have it called so, it was neither more or less than a servant to wait on her and do everything for her; and told her, too, that it was so.After she had been some time in this place she recovered her spirits and grew cheerful; her fallen flesh plumped up, and the sunk and hollow parts filled again, so that she began to recover something of that brightness and charming countenance which was once so very agreeable to me; and sometimes I could not help having warm desires towards her, and of taking her into her first station again; but there were many difficulties occurred which I could not get over a great while.But in the meantime another odd accident happened which put me to a very great difficulty, and more than I could have thought such a thing could be capable of. My tutor, a man of wit and learning, and full of generous principles, who was at first moved with compassion for the misery of this gentlewoman, and, even then, thought there were some things more than common in her, as I have hinted; now when, as I say, she was recovered, and her sprightly temper restored and comforted, he was charmed so with her conversation that, in short, he fell in love with her.I hinted in my former account of her that she had a charming tongue, was mistress of abundance of wit, that she sung incomparably fine, and was perfectly well-bred. These all remained with her still, and made her a very agreeable person; and, in short, he came to me one evening and told me that he came to ask my leave to let him marry the housekeeper.I was exceedingly perplexed at this proposal, but, however, I gave him no room to perceive that. I told him I hoped he had considered well of it before he brought it so far as to offer it to me, and supposed that he had agreed that point so that I had no consent to give, but as she had almost four years of her time to serve.He answered no; he paid such a regard to me that he would not so much as take one step in such a thing without my knowledge, and assured me he had not so much as mentioned it to her. I knew not what answer indeed to make to him, but at last I resolved to put it off from myself to her, because then I should have opportunity to talk with her beforehand. So I told him he was perfectly free to act in the matter as he thought fit; that I could not say either one thing or another to it, neither had I any right to meddle in it. As to her serving out her time with me, that was a trifle, and not worth naming, but I hoped he would consider well every circumstance before he entered upon such an affair as that.He told me he had fully considered it already, and that he was resolved, seeing I was not against it, to have her whatever came of it, for he believed he should be the happiest man alive with her. Then he ran on in his character of her, how clever a woman she was in the management of all manner of business, how admirable conversation she was, what a wit, what a memory, what a vast share of knowledge, and the like; all which I knew to be the truth, and yet short of her just character too; for, as she was all that formerly when she was mine, she was vastly improved in the school of affliction, and was all the bright part, with a vast addition of temper, prudence, judgment, and all that she formerly wanted.I had not much patience, as you may well imagine, till I saw my honest housekeeper, to communicate this secret to her, and to see what course she would steer on so nice an occasion. But I was suddenly taken so ill with a cold which held for two days that I could not stir out of doors; and in this time the matter was all done and over; for my tutor had gone the same night and made his attack; but was coldly received at first, which very much surprised him, for he made no doubt to have her consent at first word. However, the next day he came again, and again the third day, when, finding he was in earnest, and yet that she could not think of anything of that kind, she told him, in few words, that she thought herself greatly obliged to him for such a testimony of his respect to her, and should have embraced it willingly, as anybody would suppose one in her circumstances should do, but that she would not abuse him so much, for that she must acknowledge to him she was under obligations that prevented her; that was, in short, that she was a married woman and had a husband alive.This was so sincere but so effectual an answer that he could have no room to reply one word to it, but that he was very sorry, and that it was a very great affliction to him, and as great a disappointment as ever he met with.The next day after he had received this repulse I came to the plantation-house, and, sending for the housekeeper, I began with her, and told her that I understood she would have a very advantageous proposal made to her, and that I would have her consider well of it, and then told her what my tutor had said to me.She immediately fell a-crying, at which I seemed to wonder very much. “Oh, sir!” says she, “how can you name such a thing to me?” I told her that I could name it the better to her because I had been married myself since I parted from her. “Yes, sir,” says she; “but the case alters; the crime being on my side, I ought not to marry; but,” says she, “that is not the reason at all, but I cannot do it.” I pretended to press her to it, though not sincerely, I must acknowledge, for my heart had turned toward her for some time, and I had fully forgiven her in my mind all her former conduct; but, I say, I seemed to press her to it, at which she burst out in a passion. “No, no,” says she; “let me be your slave rather than the best man’s wife in the world.” I reasoned with her upon her circumstances, and how such a marriage would restore her to a state of ease and plenty, and none in the world might ever know or suspect who or what she had been. But she could not bear it; but, with tears, again raising her voice that I was afraid she would be heard, “I beseech you,” says she, “do not speak of it any more. I was once yours, and I will never belong to any man else in the world. Let me be as I am, or anything else you please to make me, but not a wife to any man alive but yourself.”I was so moved with the passion she was in at speaking this that I knew not what I said or did for some time. At length I said to her, “It is a great pity you had not long ago been as sincere as you are now; it had been better for us both. However, as it is, you shall not be forced to anything against your mind, nor shall you be the worse treated for refusing; but how will you put him off? No doubt he expects you will receive his proposal as an advantage; and as he sees no farther into your circumstances, so it is.” “Oh, sir!” says she, “I have done all that already. He has his answer, and is fully satisfied. He will never trouble you any more on that head;” and then she told me what answer she had given him.From that minute I resolved that I would certainly take her again to be my wife as before. I thought she had fully made me amends for her former ill conduct, and she deserved to be forgiven (and so indeed she did, if ever woman did, considering also what dreadful penance she had undergone, and how long she had lived in misery and distress); and that Providence had, as it were, cast her upon me again, and, above all, had given her such an affection to me and so resolved a mind that she could refuse so handsome an offer of deliverance rather than be farther separated from me.As I resolved this in my mind, so I thought it was cruel to conceal it any longer from her. Nor, in deed, could I contain myself any longer, but I took her in my arms: “Well,” says I, “you have given me such a testimony of affection in this that I can no longer withstand. I forgive you all that ever was between us on this account, and, since you will be nobody’s but mine, you shall be mine again as you were at first.”But this was too much for her the other way, and now she was so far overcome with my yielding to her that, had she not got vent to her passion by the most vehement crying, she must have died in my arms; and I was forced to let her go and set her down in a chair, where she cried for a quarter of an hour before she could speak a word.When she was come to herself enough to talk again, I told her we must consider of a method how to bring this to pass, and that it must not be done by publishing there that she was my wife before, for that would expose us both, but that I would openly marry her again. This she agreed was very rational, and accordingly, about two months after, we were married again, and no man in the world ever enjoyed a better wife or lived more happy than we both did for several years after.And now I began to think my fortunes were settled for this world, and I had nothing before me but to finish a life of infinite variety, such as mine had been, with a comfortable retreat, being both made wiser by our sufferings and difficulties, and able to judge for ourselves what kind of life would be best adapted to our present circumstances, and in what station we might look upon ourselves to be most completely happy.But man is a short-sighted creature at best, and in nothing more than in that of fixing his own felicity, or, as we may say, choosing for himself. One would have thought, and so my wife often suggested to me, that the state of life that I was now in was as perfectly calculated to make a man completely happy as any private station in the world could be. We had an estate more than sufficient, and daily increasing, for the supporting any state or figure that in that place we could propose to ourselves or even desire to live in; we had everything that was pleasant and agreeable, without the least mortification in any circumstances of it; every sweet thing, and nothing to embitter it; every good, and no mixture of evil with it; nor any gap open where we could have the least apprehensions of any evil breaking out upon us. Nor indeed was it easy for either of us, in our phlegmatic, melancholy notions, to have the least imagination how anything disastrous could happen to us in the common course of things, unless something should befall us out of the ordinary way of Providence, or of its acting in the world.But, an unseen mine blew up all this apparent tranquillity at once; and though it did not remove my affairs there from me, yet it effectually removed me from them and sent me a-wandering into the world again—a condition full of hazards, and always attended with circumstances dangerous to mankind, while he is left to choose his own fortunes and be guided by his own short-sighted measures.I must now return to a circumstance of my history which had been past for some time, and which relates to my conduct while I was last in England.I mentioned how my faithful wife Moggy, with her tears and her entreaties, had prevailed with me not to play the madman and openly join in the rebellion with the late Lord Derwentwater and his party when they entered Lancashire, and thereby, as I may say, saved my life. But my curiosity prevailed so much at last that I gave her the slip when they came to Preston, and at least thought I would go and look at them, and see what they were likely to come to.My former wife’s importunities, as above, had indeed prevailed upon me from publicly embarking in that enterprise and joining openly with them in arms; and by this, as I have observed, she saved my life to be sure, because I had then publicly espoused the rebellion, and had been known to have been among them, which might have been as fatal to me afterwards, though I had not been taken in the action, as if I had.But when they advanced and came nearer to us to Preston, and there appeared a greater spirit among the people in their favour, my old doctor, whom I mentioned before, who was a Romish priest, and had married us, inspired me with new zeal, and gave me no rest till he obliged me, with only a good horse and arms, to join them the day before they entered Preston, he himself venturing in the same posture with me.I was not so public here as to be very well known, at least by any one that had knowledge of me in the country where I lived; and this was indeed my safety afterwards, as you will soon hear. But yet I was known too among the men, especially among the Scots, with some of whom I had been acquainted in foreign service. With these I was particularly conversant, and, passing for a French officer, I talked to them of making a select detachment to defend the pass between Preston and the river and bridge, upon maintaining which, as I insisted, depended the safety of the whole party.It was with some warmth that I spoke of that affair, and as I passed among them, I say, for a French officer and a man of experience, it caused several debates among them. But the hint was not followed, as is well known, and from that moment I gave them all up as lost, and meditated nothing but how to escape from them, which I effected the night before they were surrounded by the royal cavalry. I did not do this without great difficulty, swimming the river Ribble at a place where, though I got well over, yet I could not for a long while get to a place where my horse could land himself—that is to say, where the ground was firm enough for him to take the land. However, at length I got on shore, and riding very hard, came the next evening in sight of my own dwelling. Here, after lying by in a wood till the depth of night, I shot my horse in a little kind of a gravel pit, or marl pit, where I soon covered him with earth for the present, and marching all alone, I came about two in the morning to my house, where my wife, surprised with joy and yet terribly frighted, let me in; and then I took immediate measures to secure myself upon whatever incident might happen, but which, as things were ordered, I had no need to make use of, for the rebels being entirely defeated, and either all killed or taken prisoners, I was not known by anybody in the country to have been among them; no, nor so much as suspected. And thus I made a narrow escape from the most dangerous action, and most foolishly embarked in, of any that I had ever been engaged in before.It was very lucky to me that I killed and buried my horse, for he would have been taken two days after, and would, to be sure, have been known by those who had seen me upon him at Preston. But now, as none knew I had been abroad, nor any such circumstance could discover me, I kept close, and as my excursion had been short and I had not been missed by any of my neighbours, if anybody came to speak with me, behold I was at home.However, I was not thoroughly easy in my mind, and secretly wished I was in my own dominions in Virginia, to which, in a little time, other circumstances occurring, I made preparations to remove with my whole family.In the meantime, as above, the action at Preston happened, and the miserable people surrendered to the king’s troops. Some were executed for examples, as in such cases is usual, and the government extending mercy to the multitude, they were kept in Chester Castle, and other places a considerable time, till they were disposed of, some one way, some another, as we shall hear.Several hundreds of them after this were, at their own request, transported, as it is vulgarly expressed, to the plantations—that is to say, sent to Virginia and other British colonies to be sold after the usual manner of condemned criminals, or, as we call them there, convicts, to serve a limited time in the country, and then be made freemen again. Some of these I have spoken of above; but now, to my no little uneasiness, I found, after I had been there some time, two ships arrived with more of these people in the same river where all my plantations lay.I no sooner heard of it but the first step I took was to resolve to let none of them be bought into my work or to any of my plantations; and this I did, pretending that I would not make slaves every day of unfortunate gentlemen who fell into that condition for their zeal to their party only, and the like. But the true reason was, that I expected several of them would know me, and might perhaps betray me, and make it public that I was one of the same sort, but had made my escape; and so I might be brought into trouble, and, if I came off with my life, might have all my effects seized on, and be reduced to misery and poverty again at once, all which I thought I had done enough to deserve.This was a just caution, but, as I found quickly, was not a sufficient one, as my circumstances stood, for my safety; for though I bought none of these poor men myself, yet several of my neighbours did, and there was scarce a plantation near me but had some of them, more or less, among them; so that, in a word, I could not peep abroad hardly but I was in danger to be seen, and known too, by some or other of them.I may be allowed to say that this was a very uneasy life to me, and such that, in short, I found myself utterly unable to bear; for I was now reduced from a great man, a magistrate, a governor or master of three great plantations, and having three or four hundred servants at my command, to be a poor self-condemned rebel, and durst not show my face; and that I might with the same safety, or rather more, have skulked about in Lancashire where I was, or gone up to London and concealed myself there till things had been over. But now the danger was come home to me, even to my door, and I expected nothing but to be informed against every day, be taken up, and sent to England in irons, and have all my plantations seized on as a forfeited estate to the Crown.I had but one hope of safety to trust to, and that was, that having been so little a while among them, done nothing for them, and passing for a stranger, they never knew my name, but only I was called the French colonel, or the French officer, or the French gentleman by most, if not by all, the people here. And as for the doctor that went with me, he had found means to escape too, though not the same way that I did, finding the cause not likely to be supported, and that the king’s troops were gathering on all sides round them like a cloud.But to return to myself; this was no satisfaction to me, and what to do I really knew not, for I was more at a loss how to shift in such a distressed case as this, now it lay so close to me, than ever I was in any difficulty in my life. The first thing I did was to come home and make a confidence of the whole affair to my wife; and though I did it generously without conditions, yet I did not do it without first telling her how I was now going to put my life into her hands, that she might have it in her power to pay me home for all that she might think had been hard in my former usage of her; and that, in short, it would be in her power to deliver me up into the hands of my enemies, but that I would trust her generosity, as well as her renewed affection, and put all upon her fidelity, and without any more precaution I opened the whole thing to her, and particularly the danger I was now in.A faithful counsellor is life from the dead, gives courage where the heart is sinking, and raises the mind to a proper use of means; and such she was to me indeed upon every step of this affair, and it was by her direction that I took every step that followed for the extricating myself out of this labyrinth.“Come, come, my dear,” says she, “if this be all, there is no room for any such disconsolate doings as your fears run you upon;” for I was immediately for selling off my plantations and all my stock and embarking myself forthwith, and to get to Madeira or to any place out of the king’s dominions.But my wife was quite of another opinion, and encouraging me on another account, proposed two things, either my freighting a sloop with provisions to the West Indies, and so taking passage from thence to London, or letting her go away directly for England and endeavour to obtain the king’s pardon, whatever it might cost.I inclined to the last proposal; for though I was unhappily prejudiced in favour of a wrong interest, yet I had always a secret and right notion of the clemency and merciful disposition of his Majesty, and, had I been in England, should, I believe, have been easily persuaded to have thrown myself at his foot.But going to England as I was circumstanced must have been a public action, and I must have made all the usual preparations for it, must have appeared in public, have stayed till the crop was ready, and gone away in form and state as usual, or have acted as if something extraordinary was the matter, and have filled the heads of the people there with innumerable suggestions of they knew not what.But my wife made all this easy to me from her own invention; for, without acquainting me of any thing, she comes merrily to me one morning before I was up: “My dear,” says she, “I am very sorry to hear that you are not very well this morning. I have ordered Pennico” (that was a young negro girl which I had given her) “to make you a fire in your chamber, and pray lie still where you are a while till it is done.” At the same instant the little negro came in with wood and a pair of bellows, &c., to kindle the fire, and my wife, not giving me time to reply, whispers close to my ear to lie still and say nothing till she came up again to me.I was thoroughly frighted, that you may be sure of, and thought of nothing but of being discovered, betrayed, and carried to England, hanged, quartered, and all that was terrible, and my very heart sunk within me. She perceived my disorder and turned back, assuring me there was no harm, desired me to be easy, and she would come back again presently and give me satisfaction in every particular that I could desire. So I composed myself a while as well as I could, but it was but a little while that I could bear it, and I sent Pennico downstairs to find out her mistress, and tell her I was very ill and must speak with her immediately; and the girl was scarce out of the room before I jumped out of bed and began to dress me, that I might be ready for all events.My wife was as good as her word, and was coming up as the girl was coming down. “I see,” says she, “you want patience, but pray do not want government of yourself, but take that screen before your face, and go to the window and see if you know any of those Scotchmen that are in the yard, for there are seven or eight of them come about some business to your clerk.”I went and looked through the screen, and saw the faces of them all distinctly, but could make nothing of them other than that they were Scotchmen, which was easy to discern. However, it was no satisfaction to me that I knew not their faces, for they might know mine for all that, according to the old English proverb, “That more knows Tom Fool than Tom Fool knows;” so I kept close in my chamber till I understood they were all gone.After this my wife caused it to be given out in the house that I was not well; and when this not being well had lasted three or four days, I had my leg wrapped up in a great piece of flannel and laid upon a stool, and there I was lame of the gout; and this served for about six weeks, when my wife told me she had given it out that my gout was rather rheumatic than a settled gout, and that I was resolved to take one of my own sloops and go away to Nevis or Antigua, and use the hot baths there for my cure.All this was very well, and I approved my wife’s contrivance as admirably good, both to keep me within doors eight or ten weeks at first, and to convey me away afterwards without any extraordinary bustle to be made about it; but still I did not know what it all tended to, and what the design of it all was. But my wife desired me to leave that to her; so I readily did, and she carried it all on with a prudence not to be disputed; and after she had wrapped my legs in flannel almost three months, she came and told me the sloop was ready and all the goods put on board. “And now, my dear,” says she, “I come to tell you all the rest of my design; for,” added she, “I hope you will not think I am going to kidnap you, and transport you from Virginia, as other people are transported to it, or that I am going to get you sent away and leave myself in possession of your estate; but you shall find me the same faithful, humble creature which I should have been if I had been still your slave, and not had any hopes of being your wife, and that in all my scheme which I have laid for your safety, in this new exigence, I have not proposed your going one step but where I shall go and be always with you, to assist and serve you on all occasions, and to take my portion with you, of what kind soever our lot may be.”This was so generous, and so handsome a declaration of her fidelity, and so great a token, too, of the goodness of her judgment in considering of the things which were before her, and of what my present circumstances called for, that, from that time forward, I gave myself cheerfully up to her management without any hesitation in the least, and after about ten days’ preparation we embarked in a large sloop of my own of about sixty tons.I should have mentioned here that I had still my faithful tutor, as I called him, at the head of my affairs; and, as he knew who to correspond with, and how to manage the correspondence in England, we left all that part to him, as I had done before; and I did this with a full satisfaction in his ability as well as in his integrity. It is true he had been a little chagrined in that affair of my wife, who, as I hinted before, had married me, after telling him, in answer to his solicitations, that she had a husband alive. Now, though this was literally true, yet, as it was a secret not fit to be opened to him, I was obliged to put him off with other reasons, as well as I could, perhaps not much to the purpose, and perhaps not much to his satisfaction, so that I reckoned he looked on himself as not very kindly used several ways. But he began to get over it, and to be easy, especially at our going away, when he found that the trust of everything was still left in his hands as it was before.When my wife had thus communicated everything of the voyage to me, and we began to be ready to go off, she came to me one morning, and, with her usual cheerfulness, told me she now came to tell me the rest of her measures for the completing my deliverance; and this was, that while we made this trip, as she called it, to the hot springs at Nevis, she would write to a particular friend at London, whom she could depend upon, to try to get a pardon for a person on account of the late rebellion, with all the circumstances which my case was attended with, viz., of having acted nothing among them but being three days in the place; and, while we were thus absent, she did not question but to have an answer, which she would direct to come so many ways that we would be sure to have the first of it as soon as it was possible the vessels could go and come. And in the meantime the expense should be very small, for she would have an answer to the grand question first, whether it could be obtained or no; and then an account of the expense of it, that so I might judge for myself whether I would part with the needful sum or no, before any money was disbursed on my account.I could not but be thoroughly satisfied with her contrivance in this particular, and I had nothing to add to it but that I would not have her limit her friend so strictly, but that if he saw the way clear, and that he was sure to obtain it, he should go through stitch with it, if within the expense of two or three or four hundred pounds, and that, upon advice of its being practicable, he should have bills payable by such a person on delivery of the warrant for the thing.To fortify this, I enclosed in her packet a letter to one of my correspondents, whom I could particularly trust, with a credit for the money, on such-an-such conditions; but the honesty and integrity of my wife’s correspondence was such as prevented all the expense, and yet I had the wished-for security, as if it had been all paid, as you shall hear presently.All these things being fixed to our minds, and all things left behind in good posture of settlement as usual, we embarked together and put to sea, having the opportunity of an English man-of-war being on the coast in pursuit of the pirates, and who was just then standing away towards the Gulf of Florida, and told us he would see us safe as far as New Providence, on the Bahama Islands.And now having fair weather and a pleasant voyage, and my flannels taken off my legs, I must hint a little what cargo I had with me; for as my circumstances were very good in that country, so I did not go such a voyage as this, and with a particular reserve of fortunes whatever might afterwards happen, without a sufficient cargo for our support, and whatever exigence might happen.Our sloop, as I said, was of about sixty or seventy tons; and as tobacco, which is the general produce of the country, was no merchandise at Nevis, that is to say, for a great quantity, so we carried very little, but loaded the sloop with corn, peas, meal, and some barrels of pork; and an excellent cargo it was, most of it being the produce of my own plantation. We took also a considerable sum of money with us in Spanish gold, which was, as above, not for trade, but for all events. I also ordered another sloop to be hired, and to be sent after me, loaden with the same goods, as soon as they should have advice from me that I was safe arrived.We came to the latitude of the island of Antigua, which was very near to that of Nevis, whither we intended to go, on the eighteenth day after our passing the Capes of Virginia, but had no sight of the island; only our master said he was sure if he stood the same course as he then was, and the gale held, I say he told me he was sure he should make the island in less than five hours’ sail; so he stood on fair for the islands. However, his account had failed him, for we held on all the evening, made no land, and likewise all night, when in the grey of the morning we discovered from the topmast-head a brigantine and a sloop making sail after us, at the distance of about six leagues, fair weather, and the wind fresh at S.E.Our master soon understood what they were, and came down into the cabin to me to let me know it. I was much surprised, you may be sure, at the danger, but my poor wife took from me all the concern for myself to take care of her, for she was frighted to that degree that I thought we should not have been able to keep life in her.While we were thus under the first hurry and surprise of the thing, suddenly another noise from the deck called us up to look out, and that was, “Land! land!” The master and I—for by this time I had got out of my cabin—run upon the deck, and there we saw the state of our case very plain. The two rogues that stood after us laid on all the canvas they could carry, and crowded after us amain, but at the distance, as I have said, of about six leagues, rather more than less. On the other hand, the land discovered lay about nine leagues right ahead, so that if the pirates could get of us, so as to sail three feet for our two, it was evident they would be up with us before we could make the island. If not, we should escape them and get in; but even then we had no great hope to do any more than to run the ship ashore to save our lives, and so, stranding our vessel, spoil both sloop and cargo.When we were making this calculation our master came in cheerfully, and told me he had crowded on more sail, and found the sloop carried it very well, and that he did not find the rogues gained much upon us, and that especially if one of them did not, that was the sloop, he found he could go away from the brigantine as he pleased. Thus we gave them what they call a stern chase, and they worked hard to come up with us till towards noon, when on a sudden they both stood away and gave us over, to our great satisfaction you may be sure.We did not, it seems, so easily see the occasion of our deliverance as the pirate did; for while we went spooning away large with the wind for one of the islands, with those two spurs in our heels, that is, with the two thieves at our sterns, there lay an English man-of-war in the road of Nevis, which was the same island from whence they espied the pirates, but the land lying between, we could not see them.As the man-of-war discovered them she immediately slipped her cable and put herself under sail in chase of the rogues; and they as soon perceived her, and being windward, put themselves upon a wind to escape her; and thus we were delivered, and in half-an-hour more we knew who was our deliverer, seeing the man-of-war stretch ahead clear of the island, and stand directly after the pirates, who now crowded from us as fast as they crowded after us before; and thus we got safe into Antigua, after the terrible apprehension we had been in of being taken. Our apprehensions of being taken now were much more than they would have been on board a loaden ship from or to London, where the most they ordinarily do is to rifle the ship, take what is valuable and portable, and let her go. But ours being but a sloop, and all our loading being good provisions, such as they wanted, to be sure, for their ship’s store, they would certainly have carried us away, ship and all, taken out the cargo and the men, and perhaps have set the sloop on fire; so that, as to our cargo of gold, it had been inevitably lost, and we hurried away, nobody knows where, and used as such barbarous fellows are wont to use innocent people as fall into their hands.But we were now out of their hands, and had the satisfaction a few days after to hear that the man-of-war pursued them so close, notwithstanding they changed their course in the night, that the next day they were obliged to separate and shift for themselves; so the man-of-war took one of them, namely, the brigantine, and carried her into Jamaica, but the other, viz., the sloop, made her escape.Being arrived here, we presently disposed of our cargo, and at a tolerable good price; and now the question was, what I should do next. I looked upon myself to be safe here from the fears I had been under of being discovered as a rebel, and so indeed I was; but having been now absent five months, and having sent the ship back with a cargo of rum and molasses, which I knew was wanting in my plantations, I received the same vessel back in return loaden, as at first, with provisions.With this cargo my wife received a packet from London from the person whom she had employed, as above, to solicit a pardon, who very honestly wrote to her that he would not be so unjust to her friend, whoever he was, as to put him to any expense for a private solicitation; for that he was very well assured that his Majesty had resolved, from his own native disposition to acts of clemency and mercy to his subjects, to grant a general pardon, with some few exceptions to persons extraordinary, and he hoped her friend was none of the extraordinary persons to be excepted.This was a kind of life from the dead to us both, and it was resolved that my wife should go back in the sloop directly to Virginia, where she should wait the good news from England, and should send me an account of it as soon as she received it.Accordingly she went back, and came safe with the sloop and cargo to our plantation, from whence, after above four months’ more expectation, behold the sloop came to me again, but empty and gutted of all her cargo, except about a hundred sacks of unground malt, which the pirates, not knowing how to brew, knew not what to do with, and so had left in her. However, to my infinite satisfaction, there was a packet of letters from my wife, with another to her from England, as well one from her friend as one from my own correspondent; both of them inti mating that the king had signed an act of grace, that is to say, a general free pardon, and sent me copies of the act, wherein it was manifest that I was fully included.And here let me hint, that having now, as it were, received my life at the hands of King George, and in a manner so satisfying as it was to me, it made a generous convert of me, and I became sincerely given in to the interest of King George; and this from a principle of gratitude and a sense of my obligation to his Majesty for my life; and it has continued ever since, and will certainly remain with me as long as any sense of honour and of the debt of gratitude remains with me. I mention this to hint how far in such cases justice and duty to ourselves commands us; namely, that to those who graciously give us our lives when it is in their power to take them away, those lives are a debt ever after, and ought to be set apart for their service and interest as long as any of the powers of life remain, for gratitude is a debt that never ceases while the benefit received remains; and if my prince has given me my life, I can never pay the debt fully, unless such a circumstance as this should happen, that the prince’s life should be in my power, and I as generously preserved it. And yet neither would the obligation be paid then, because the cases would differ; thus, that my preserving the life of my prince was my natural duty, whereas the prince on his side, my life being forfeited to him, had no motive but mere clemency and beneficence.Perhaps this principle may not please all that read it; but as I have resolved to guide my actions in things of such a nature by the rules of strict virtue and principles of honour, so I must lay it down as a rule of honour, that a man having once forfeited his life to the justice of his prince and to the laws of his country, and receiving it back as a bounty from the grace of his sovereign, such a man can never lift up his hand again against that prince without a forfeiture of his virtue and an irreparable breach of his honour and duty, and deserves no pardon after it either from God or man. But all this is a digression: I leave it as a sketch of the laws of honour, printed by the laws of nature in the breast of a soldier or a man of honour, and which, I believe, all impartial persons who understand what honour means will subscribe to.But I return now to my present circumstances. My wife was gone, and with her all my good fortune and success in business seemed to have forsaken me; and I had another scene of misery to go through, after I had thought that all my misfortunes were over and at an end.My sloop, as I have told you, arrived, but having met with a pirate rogue in the Gulf of Florida, they took her first; then finding her cargo to be all eatables, which they always want, they gutted her of all her loading, except, as I have said, about a hundred sacks of malt, which they really knew not what to do with; and, which was still worse, they took away all the men except the master and two boys, who they left on board just to run the vessel into Antigua, where they said they were bound.But the most valuable part of my cargo, viz., a packet of letters from England, those they left, to my inexpressible comfort and satisfaction; and, particularly, that by those I saw my way home to return to my wife and to my plantations, from which I promised myself never to wander any more.In order to this, I now embarked myself and all my effects on board the sloop, resolving to sail directly to the Capes of Virginia. My captain beating it up to reach the Bahama channel, had not been two days at sea but we were overtaken by a violent storm, which drove us so far upon the coast of Florida as that we twice struck upon the shore, and had we struck a third time we had been inevitably lost. A day or two after that, the storm abating a little, we kept the sea, but found the wind blowing so strong against our passing the gulf, and the sea going so high, we could not hold it any longer. So we were forced to bear away and make what shift we could; in which distress, the fifth day after, we made land, but found it to be Cape ——, the north-west part of the isle of Cuba. Here we found ourselves under a necessity to run in under the land for shelter, though we had not come to an anchor, so we had not touched the king of Spain’s territories at all. However, in the morning we were surrounded with five Spanish barks, or boats, such as they callbarco longos, full of men, who instantly boarded us, took us and carried us into the Havannah, the most considerable port belonging to the Spaniards in that part of the world.Here the sloop was immediately seized, and in consequence plundered, as any one that knows the Spaniards, especially in that country, will easily guess. Our men were made prisoners and sent to the common gaol; and as for myself and the captain, we were carried before the Alcade Major, or intendant of the place, as criminals.I spoke Spanish very well, having served under the king of Spain in Italy, and it stood me in good stead at this time; for I so effectually argued the injustice of their treatment of me that the governor, or what I ought to call him, frankly owned they ought not to have stopped me, seeing I was in the open sea pursuing my voyage, and offered no offence to anybody, and had not landed or offered to land upon any part of his Catholic Majesty’s dominions till I was brought as a prisoner.It was a great favour that I could obtain thus much; but I found it easier to obtain an acknowledgment that I had received wrong than to get any satisfaction for that wrong, and much less was there any hope or prospect of restitution; and I was let know that I was to wait till an account could be sent to the viceroy of Mexico, and orders could be received back from him how to act in the affair.I could easily foresee what all this tended to, namely, to a confiscation of the ship and goods by the ordinary process at the place; and that my being left to the decision of the viceroy of Mexico was but a pretended representation of things to him from the corregidore or judge of the place.However, I had no remedy but the old insignificant thing called patience, and this I was better furnished with because I did not so much value the loss as I made them believe I did. My greatest apprehensions were that they would detain me and keep me as a prisoner for life, and perhaps send me to their mines in Peru, as they have done many, and pretended to do to all that come on shore in their dominions, how great soever the distresses may have been which have brought them thither, and which has been the reason why others who have been forced on shore have committed all manner of violence upon the Spaniards in their turn, resolving, however dear they sold their lives, not to fall into their hands.But I got better quarter among them than that too, which was, as I have said, much of it owing to my speaking Spanish, and to my telling them how I had fought in so many occasions in the quarrel of his Catholic Majesty in Italy; and, by great good chance, I had the king of France’s commission for lieutenant-colonel in the Irish brigade in my pocket, where it was mentioned that the said brigade was then serving in the armies of France, under the orders of his Catholic Majesty, in Italy.I failed not to talk up the gallantry and personal bravery of his Catholic Majesty on all occasions, and particularly in many battles where, by the way, his Majesty had never been at all, and in some where I had never been myself. But I found I talked to people who knew nothing of the matter, and so anything went down with them if it did but praise the king of Spain and talk big of the Spanish cavalry, of which, God knows, there was not one regiment in the army, at least while I was there.However, this way of managing myself obtained me the liberty of the place, upon my parole that I would not attempt an escape; and I obtained also, which was a great favour, to have two hundred pieces of eight allowed me out of the sale of my cargo for subsistence till I could negotiate my affairs at Mexico. As for my men, they were maintained as prisoners at the public charge.Well, after several months’ solicitation and attendance, all I could obtain was the satisfaction of seeing my ship and cargo confiscated and my poor sailors in a fair way to be sent to the mines. The last I begged off, upon condition of paying three hundred pieces of eight for their ransom, and having them set on shore at Antigua, and myself to remain hostage for the payment of the said three hundred pieces of eight, and for two hundred pieces of eight, which I had already had, and for five hundred pieces of eight more for my own ransom, if, upon a return from Mexico, the sentence of confiscation, as above, should be confirmed by the viceroy.These were hard articles indeed, but I was forced to submit to them; nor, as my circumstances were above all such matters as these, as to substance, did I lay it much to heart. The greatest difficulty that lay in my way was, that I knew not how to correspond with my friends in any part of the world, or which way to supply myself with necessaries or with money for the payment I had agreed to, the Spaniards being so tenacious of their ports that they allowed nobody to come on shore, or indeed near the shore, from any part of the world, upon pain of seizure and confiscation, as had been my case already. Upon this difficulty I began to reason with the corregidore, and tell him that he put things upon us that were impossible, and that were inconsistent with the customs of nations; that, if a man was prisoner at Algiers, they would allow him to write to his friends to pay his ransom, and would admit the person that brought it to come and go free as a public person, and if they did not, no treaty could be carried on for the ransom of a slave, nor the conditions be performed when they are agreed upon.I brought it then down to my own case, and desired to know, upon supposition, that I might, within the time limited in that agreement, have the sums of money ready for the ransom of my men and of myself, how I should obtain to have notice given me of it, or how it should be brought, seeing the very persons bringing that notice, or afterwards presuming to bring the money, might be liable to be seized and confiscated, as I had been, and the money itself be taken as a second prize, without redeeming the first.Though this was so reasonable a request that it could not be withstood in point of argument, yet the Spaniard shrunk his head into his shoulders, and said they had not power sufficient to act in such a case; that the king’s laws were so severe against the suffering any strangers to set their foot on his Catholic Majesty’s dominions in America, and they could not dispense with the least tittle of them without a particularassiento, as they called it, from the Consulado, or Chamber of Commerce, at Seville, or a command under the hand and seal of the viceroy of Mexico.“How! signior corregidore,” said I, with some warmth, and, as it were, with astonishment, “have you not authority enough to sign a passport for an agent, or ambassador, to come on shore here, from any of the king of Great Britain’s governors in these parts, under a white flag, or flag of truce, to speak with the governor of this place, or with any other person in the king’s name, on the subject of such business as the governor may have to communicate? Why,” said I, “if you cannot do that, you cannot act according to the law of nations.”He shook his head, but still said no, he could not do even so much as that; but here one of the military governors put in and opposed him, and they two differed warmly, the first insisting that their orders were deficient in that particular; but the other said that, as they were bound up to them, it could not be in their power to act otherwise, and that they were answerable for the ill consequences.“Well, then,” says the governor to the corregidore, “now you have kept this Englishman as hostage for the ransom of the men that you have dismissed, suppose he tells you the money is ready, either at such, or such, or such a place, how shall he bring it hither? You will take all the people prisoners that offer to bring it; what must he do? If you say you will send and fetch it, what security shall he have that he shall have his liberty when it is paid you? and why should he trust you so far as to pay the money, and yet remain here a prisoner?”This carried so much reason with it that the corregidore knew not what to say, but that so was the law, and he could act no otherwise but by the very letter of it; and here each was so positive that nothing could determine it but another express to be sent to the viceroy of Mexico.Upon this the governor was so kind as to say he would get me a passport for anybody that should bring the money, and any vessel they were in, by his own authority, and for their safe returning, and taking me with them, provided I would answer for it that they should bring no European or other goods whatever with them, and should not set foot on shore without his express permission, and provided he did not receive orders to the contrary, in the meantime, from any superior hand; and that, even in such a case, they should have liberty to go back freely from whence they came, under the protection of a white flag.I bowed very respectfully to the governor in token of my acknowledging his justice, and then presented my humble petition to him that he would allow my men to take their own sloop; that it should be rated at a certain value, and would be obliged they should bring specie on board with them, and that they should either pay it for the sloop or leave the sloop again.Then he inquired to what country he would send them for so much money, and if I could assure him of the payment; and when he understood it was no farther than to Virginia he seemed very easy; and, to satisfy the corregidore, who still stood off, adhering with a true Spanish stiffness to the letter of the law, the said governor calls out to me: “Signior,” says he, “I shall make all this matter easy to you, if you agree to my proposal. Your men shall have the sloop, on condition you shall be my hostage for her return; but they shall not take her as your sloop, though she shall in the effect be yours on the payment of the money; but you shall take two of my men on board with you, upon your parole for their safe return, and when she returns she shall carry his Catholic Majesty’s colours, and be entered as one of the sloops belonging to the Havannah; one of the Spaniards to be commander, and to be called by such a name as he shall appoint.”This the corregidore came into immediately, and said this was within the letter, of the king’s commanderie or precept; upon condition, however, that she should bring no European goods on board. I desired it might be put in other words; namely, that she should bring no European goods on shore. It cost two days’ debate between these two whether it should pass that no European goods should be brought in the ship or brought on shore; but having found means to intimate that I meant not to trade there, but would not be tied from bringing a small present to a certain person in acknowledgment of favours—I say, after I had found room to place such a hint right where it should be placed, I found it was all made easy to me; and it was all agreed presently that, after the ransom was paid, and the ship also bought, it was but reasonable that I should have liberty to trade to any other country not in the dominions of the king of Spain, so to make up my losses; and that it would be hard to oblige my men to bring away the vessel light, and so lose the voyage, and add so much to our former misfortunes; that, so long as no goods were brought on shore in the country belonging to his Catholic Majesty’s dominions, which was all that they had to defend, the rest was no business of theirs.Now I began to see my way through this unhappy business, and to find, that as money would bring me out of it, so money would bring it to turn to a good account another way. Wherefore I sent the sloop away under Spanish colours, and called her theNuestra Signiora de la Val de Grace, commanded by Signior Giraldo de Nesma, one of the two Spaniards.With the sloop I sent letters to my wife and to my chief manager with orders to load her back, as I there directed, viz., that she should have two hundred barrels of flour, fifty barrels of pease; and, to answer my other views, I ordered a hundred bales to be made up of all sorts of European goods, such as not my own warehouses only would supply, but such as they could be supplied with in other warehouses where I knew they had credit for anything.In this cargo I directed all the richest and most valuable English goods they had, or could get, whether linen, woollen, or silk, to be made up; the coarser things, such as we use in Virginia for clothing of servants, such I ordered to be left behind for the use of the plantation. In less than seven weeks’ time the sloop returned, and I, that failed not every day to look out for her on the strand, was the first that spied her at sea at a distance, and knew her by her sails, but afterwards more particularly by her signals.When she returned she came into the road with her Spanish ancient flying, and came to an anchor as directed; but I, that had seen her some hours before, went directly to the governor and gave him an account of her being come, and fain I would have obtained the favour to have his excellency, as I called him, go on board in person, that he might see how well his orders were executed. But he declined that, saying he could not justify going off of the island, which was, in short, to go out of his command of the fort, which he could not reassume without a new commission from the king’s own hand.Then I asked leave to go on board myself, which he granted me; and I brought on shore with me the full sum in gold which I had conditioned to pay for the ransom both of my men and myself, and for the purchase of the sloop; and as I obtained leave to land in a different place, so my governor sent his son with six soldiers to receive and convey me with the money to the castle, where he commanded, and therein to his own house. I had made up the money in heavy parcels, as if it had been all silver, and gave it to two of my men who belonged to the sloop, with orders to them that they should make it seem, by their carrying it, to be much heavier than it was. This was done to conceal three parcels of goods which I had packed up with the money to make a present to the governor as I intended.When the money was carried in and laid down on a table, the governor ordered my men to withdraw, and I gave the soldiers each of them a piece of eight to drink, for which they were very thankful, and the governor seemed well pleased with it also. Then I asked him presently if he would please to receive the money. He said no, he would not receive it but in presence of the corregidore and the other people concerned. Then I begged his excellency, as I called him, to give me leave to open the parcels in his presence, for that I would do myself the honour to acknowledge his favours in the best manner I could.
And yet such was my fate in wives, that, after all the blushing and backwardness of Mrs. Moggy at first, Mrs. Moggy had, it seems, made a slip in her younger days, and was got with child ten years before, by a gentleman of a great estate in that country, who promised her marriage, and afterwards deserted her. But as that had happened long before I came into the country, and the child was dead and forgotten, the people were so good to her, and so kind to me, that, hearing I had married her, nobody ever spoke of it; neither did I ever hear of it or suspect it till after she was in her grave, and then it was of small consequence to me one way or other; and she was a faithful, virtuous, obliging wife to me. I had very severe affliction indeed while she lived with me; for the smallpox, a frightful distemper in that country, broke into my family, and carried off three of my children and a maid-servant; so that I had only one of my former wife’s, and one by my Moggy, the first a son, the last a daughter.
While these things were in agitation came on the invasion of the Scots and the fight at Preston; and I have cause to bless the memory of my Moggy; for I was all on fire on that side, and just going away with horse and arms to join the Lord Derwentwater. But Moggy begged me off (as I may call it), and hung about me so with her tears and importunities that I sat still and looked on; for which I had reason to be thankful.
I was really a sorrowful father, and the loss of my children stuck close to me; but the loss of my wife stuck closer to me than all the rest. Nor was my grief lessened or my kindest thoughts abated in the least by the account I heard of her former miscarriages, seeing they were so long before I knew her, and were not discovered by me or to me in her lifetime.
All these things put together made me very comfortless. And now I thought Heaven summoned me to retire to Virginia, the place, and, as I may say, the only place, I had been blessed at, or had met with anything that deserved the name of success in, and where, indeed, my affairs being in good hands, the plantations were increased to such a degree that some years my return here made up eight hundred pounds, and one year almost a thousand. So I resolved to leave my native country once more, and taking my son with me, and leaving Moggy’s daughter with her grandfather, I made him my principal agent, left him considerable in his hands for the maintenance of the child, and left my will in his hand, by which, if I died before I should otherwise provide for her, I left her £2000 portion, to be paid by my son out of the estate I had in Virginia, and the whole estate, if he died unmarried.
I embarked for Virginia in the year ——, at the town of Liverpool, and had a tolerable voyage thither, only that we met with a pirate ship, in the latitude of 48 degrees, who plundered us of every thing they could come at that was for their turn; that is to say, provisions, ammunition, small-arms, and money. But, to give the rogues their due, though they were the most abandoned wretches that were ever seen, they did not use us ill. And as to my loss, it was not considerable; the cargo which I had on board was in goods, and was of no use to them; nor could they come at those things without rummaging the whole ship, which they did not think worth their while.
I found all my affairs in very good order at Virginia, my plantations prodigiously increased, and my manager, who first inspired me with travelling thoughts, and made me master of any knowledge worth naming, received me with a transport of joy, after a ramble of four-and-twenty years.
I ought to remember it, to the encouragement of all faithful servants, that he gave me an account, which, I believe, was critically just, of the whole affairs of the plantations, each by themselves, and balanced in years, every year’s produce being fully transmitted, charges deducted, to my order at London.
I was exceedingly satisfied, as I had good reason indeed, with his management; and with his management, as much in its degree, of his own I can safely say it. He had improved a very large plantation of his own at the same time, which he began upon the foot of the country’s allowance of land and the encouragement he had from me.
When he had given me all this pleasing, agreeable account, you will not think it strange that I had a desire to see the plantations, and to view all the servants, which, in both the works, were upwards of three hundred; and as my tutor generally bought some every fleet that came from England, I had the mortification to see two or three of the Preston gentlemen there, who, being prisoners of war, were spared from the public execution, and sent over to that slavery, which to gentlemen must be worse than death.
I do not mention what I did or said relating to them here. I shall speak at large of it when the rest of them came over, which more nearly concerned me.
But one circumstance occurred to me here that equally surprised me and terrified me to the last degree. Looking over all the servants, as I say above, and viewing the plantations narrowly and frequently, I came one day by a place where some women were at work by themselves. I was seriously reflecting on the misery of human life, when I saw some of those poor wretches. Thought I, “They have perhaps lived gay and pleasantly in the world, notwithstanding, through a variety of distresses, they may have been brought to this; and if a body was to hear the history of some of them now, it would perhaps be as moving and as seasonable a sermon as any minister in the country could preach.”
While I was musing thus and looking at the women, on a sudden I heard a combustion among other of the women-servants, who were almost behind me, in the same work, and help was called loudly for, one of the women having swooned away. They said she would die immediately if something was not done to relieve her. I had nothing about me but a little bottle, which we always carried about us there with rum, to give any servant a dram that merited that favour; so I turned my horse and went up towards the place. But as the poor creature was lying flat on the ground, and the rest of the women-servants about her, I did not see her, but gave them the bottle, and they rubbed her temples with it, and, with much ado, brought her to life, and gave her a little to drink. But she could drink none of it, and was exceeding ill afterwards, so that she was carried to the infirmary—so they call it in the religious houses in Italy where the sick nuns and friars are carried; but here, in Virginia, I think they should call it the condemned hole, for it really was only a place just fit for people to die in, not a place to be cured in.
The sick woman refusing to drink, one of the women-servants brought me the bottle again, and I bade them drink it among them, which had almost set them together by the ears for the liquor, there being not enough to give every one a sup.
I went home to my house immediately, and reflecting on the miserable provision was wont to be made for poor servants when they were sick, I inquired of my manager if it was so still. He said he believed mine was better than any in the country; but he confessed it was but sad lodging. However, he said he would go and look after it immediately and see how it was.
He came to me again about an hour after, and told me the woman was very ill, and frighted with her condition; that she seemed to be very penitent for some things in her past life, which lay heavy upon her mind, believing she should die; that she asked him if there was no minister to comfort poor dying servants; and he told her that she knew they had no minister nearer than such a place, but that, if she lived till morning, he should be sent for. He told me, also, that he had removed her into a room where their chief workman used to lodge; that he had given her a pair of sheets, and everything he could that he thought she wanted, and had appointed another woman-servant to tend her and sit up with her.
“Well,” says I, “that’s well; for I cannot bear to have poor creatures lie and perish, by the mere hardship of the place they are in, when they are sick and want help. Besides,” said I, “some of those unfortunate creatures they call convicts may be peopie that have been tenderly brought up.” “Really, sir,” says he, “this poor creature, I always said, had something of a gentlewoman in her. I could see it by her behaviour, and I have heard the other women say that she lived very great once, and that she had fifteen hundred pound to her portion; and I dare say she has been a handsome woman in her time, and she has a hand as fine as a lady’s now, though it be tanned with the weather. I dare say she was never brought up to labour as she does here, and she says to the rest that it will kill her.”
“Truly,” says I, “it may be so, and that may be the reason that she faints under it;” and I added, “Is there nothing you can put her to within doors that may not be so laborious and expose her to so much heat and cold?” He told me yes, there was. He could set her to be the housekeeper, for the woman that lately was such was out of her time, and was married and turned planter. “Why, then, let her have it,” said I, “if she recovers; and in the meantime go,” said I, “and tell her so; perhaps the comfort of it may help to restore her.”
He did so, and with that, taking good care of her, and giving her good warm diet, the woman recovered, and in a little time was abroad again; for it was the mere weight of labour, and being exposed to hard lodging and mean diet, to one so tenderly bred, that struck her and she fainted at her work.
When she was made housekeeper she was quite another body. She put all the household into such excellent order, and managed their provisions so well, that my tutor admired her conduct, and would be every now and then speaking of her to me, that she was an excellent manager. “I’ll warrant,” says he, “she has been bred a gentlewoman, and she has been a fine woman in her time too.” In a word, he said so many good things of her that I had a mind to see her. So one day I took occasion to go to the plantation-house, as they called it, and into a parlour always reserved for the master of the plantation. There she had opportunity to see me before I could see her, and as soon as she had seen me she knew me; but indeed had I seen her an hundred times I should not have known her. She was, it seems, in the greatest confusion and surprise at seeing who I was that it was possible for any one to be; and when I ordered my manager to bring her into the room, he found her crying, and begged him to excuse her, that she was frighted, and should die away if she came near me.
I, not imagining anything but that the poor creature was afraid of me (for masters in Virginia are terrible things), bade him tell her she need to be under no concern at my calling for her; for it was not for any hurt nor for any displeasure, but that I had some orders to give her. So, having, as he thought, encouraged her, though her surprise was of another kind, he brought her in. When she came in she held a handkerchief in her hand, wiping her eyes, as if she had cried. “Mrs. Housekeeper,” said I, speaking cheerfully to her, “don’t be concerned at my sending for you; I have had a very good account of your management, and I called for you to let you know I am very well pleased with it; and if it falls in my way to do you any good, if your circumstances will allow it, I may be willing enough to help you out of your misery.”
She made low courtesies, but said nothing. However, she was so far encouraged that she took her hand from her face, and I saw her face fully; and I believe she did it desiring I should discover who she was; but I really knew nothing of her, any more than if I had never seen her in my life, but went on, as I thought, to encourage her, as I used to do with any that I saw deserved it.
In the meantime my tutor, who was in the room, went out on some business or other—I know not what. As soon as he was gone she burst out into a passion, and fell down on her knees just before me: “Oh, sir!” says she, “I see you don’t know me. Be merciful to me; I am your miserable divorced wife!”
I was astonished; I was frighted; I trembled like one in an ague; I was speechless; in a word, I was ready to sink, and she fell flat on her face, and lay there as if she had been dead. I was speechless, I say, as a stone. I had only presence of mind enough to step to the door and fasten it, that my tutor might not come in; then, going back to her, I took her up and spoke comfortably to her, and told her I no more knew her than if I had never seen her.
“Oh, sir!” said she, “afflictions are dreadful things; such as I have suffered have been enough to alter my countenance; but forgive,” said she, “for God’s sake, the injuries I have done you. I have paid dear for all my wickedness, and it is just, it is righteous, that God should bring me to your foot, to ask your pardon for all my brutish doings. Forgive me, sir,” said she, “I beseech you, and let me be your slave or servant for it as long as I live; it is all I ask;” and with those words she fell upon her knees again and cried so vehemently that it was impossible for her to stop it or to speak a word more. I took her up again, made her sit down, desired her to compose herself, and to hear what I was going to say; though indeed it touched me so sensibly that I was hardly able to speak any more than she was.
First, I told her it was such a surprise to me that I was not able to say much to her; and indeed the tears run down my face almost as fast as they did on hers. I told her that I should only tell her now, that, as nobody had yet known anything that had passed, so it was absolutely necessary not a word of it should be known; that it should not be the worse for her that she was thus thrown in my hands again; but that I could do nothing for her if it was known, and, therefore, that her future good or ill fortune would depend upon her entire concealing it; that, as my manager would come in again presently, she should go back to her part of the house, and go on in the business as she did before; that I would come to her and talk more at large with her in a day or two. So she retired, after assuring me that not a word of it should go out of her mouth; and indeed she was willing to retire before my tutor came again, that he might not see the agony she was in.
I was so perplexed about this surprising incident that I hardly knew what I did or said all that night; nor was I come to any settled resolution in the morning what course to take in it. However, in the morning I called my tutor, and told him that I had been exceedingly concerned about the poor distressed creature, the housekeeper; that I had heard some of her story, which was very dismal; that she had been in very good circumstances and was bred very well, and that I was glad he had removed her out of the field into the house; but still she was almost naked, and that I would have him go down to the warehouse and give her some linen, especially head-clothes, and all sorts of small things such as hoods, gloves, stockings, shoes, petticoats, &c., and to let her choose for herself; also a morning-gown of calico, and a mantua of a better kind of calico; that is to say, new clothe her; which he did, but brought me word that he found her all in tears, and that she had cried all night long, and, in short, he believed she would indeed cry herself to death; that all the while she was receiving the things he gave her she cried; that now and then she would struggle with and stop it, but that then, upon another word speaking, she would burst out again, so that it grieved everybody that saw her.
I was really affected with her case very much, but struggled hard with myself to hide it, and turned the discourse to something else. In the meantime, though I did not go to her the next day, nor till the third day, yet I studied day and night how to act, and what I should do in this remarkable case.
When I came to the house, which was the third day, she came into the room I was in, clothed all over with my things which I had ordered her, and told me she thanked God she was now my servant again and wore my livery, thanked me for the clothes I had sent her, and said it was much more than she had deserved from me.
I then entered into discourses with her, nobody being present but ourselves; and first I told her she should name no more of the unkind things that had passed, for she had humbled herself more than enough on that subject, and I would never reproach her with anything that was past. I found that she had been the deepest sufferer by far. I told her it was impossible for me, in my present circumstances, to receive her there as a wife who came over as a convict, neither did she know so little as to desire it; but I told her I might be instrumental to put an end to her misfortunes in the world, and especially to the miserable part of it which was her present load, provided she could effectually keep her own counsel and never let the particulars come out of her mouth, and that from the day she did she might date her irrevocable ruin.
She was as sensible of the necessity of that part as I was, and told me all she could claim of me would be only to deliver her from her present calamity that she was not able to support; and that then, if I pleased, she might live such a life as that she might apply the residue of what time she should have wholly to repentance; that she was willing to do the meanest offices in the world for me; and though she should rejoice to hear that I would forgive her former life, yet that she would not look any higher than to be my servant as long as she lived; and, in the meantime, I might be satisfied she would never let any creature so much as know that I had ever seen her before.
I asked her if she was willing to let me into any part of the history of her life since she and I parted; but I did not insist upon it otherwise than as she thought convenient. She said, as her breach with me began first in folly and ended in sin, so her whole life afterwards was a continued series of calamity, sin and sorrow, sin and shame, and at last misery; that she was deluded into gay company and to an expensive way of living which betrayed her to several wicked courses to support the expenses of it; that after a thousand distresses and difficulties, being not able to maintain herself, she was reduced to extreme poverty; that she would many times have humbled herself to me in the lowest and most submissive manner in the world, being sincerely penitent for her first crime, but that she could never hear of me, nor which way I was gone; that she was by that means so abandoned that she wanted bread, and those wants and distresses brought her into bad company of another kind, and that she fell in among a gang of thieves, with whom she herded for some time, and got money enough a great while, but under the greatest dread and terror imaginable, being in the constant fear of coming to shame; that afterwards what she feared was come upon her, and for a very trifling attempt in which she was not principal, but accidentally concerned, she was sent to this place. She told me her life was such a collection of various fortunes—up and down, in plenty and in misery, in prison and at liberty, at ease and in torment—that it would take up a great many days to give me a history of it; that I was come to see the end of it, as I had seen the best part of the beginning; that I knew she was brought up tenderly and fared delicately; but that now she was, with the prodigal, brought to desire husks with swine, and even to want that supply. Her tears flowed so strongly upon this discourse that they frequently interrupted her, so that she could not go on without difficulty, and at last could not go on at all. So I told her I would excuse her telling any more of her story at that time; that I saw it was but a renewing of her grief, and that I would rather contribute to her forgetting what was past, and desired her to say no more of it; so I broke off that part.
In the meantime I told her, since Providence had thus cast her upon my hands again, I would take care that she should not want, and that she should not live hardly neither, though I could go no further at present; and thus we parted for that time, and she continued in the business of housekeeper; only that, to ease her, I gave her an assistant; and, though I would not have it called so, it was neither more or less than a servant to wait on her and do everything for her; and told her, too, that it was so.
After she had been some time in this place she recovered her spirits and grew cheerful; her fallen flesh plumped up, and the sunk and hollow parts filled again, so that she began to recover something of that brightness and charming countenance which was once so very agreeable to me; and sometimes I could not help having warm desires towards her, and of taking her into her first station again; but there were many difficulties occurred which I could not get over a great while.
But in the meantime another odd accident happened which put me to a very great difficulty, and more than I could have thought such a thing could be capable of. My tutor, a man of wit and learning, and full of generous principles, who was at first moved with compassion for the misery of this gentlewoman, and, even then, thought there were some things more than common in her, as I have hinted; now when, as I say, she was recovered, and her sprightly temper restored and comforted, he was charmed so with her conversation that, in short, he fell in love with her.
I hinted in my former account of her that she had a charming tongue, was mistress of abundance of wit, that she sung incomparably fine, and was perfectly well-bred. These all remained with her still, and made her a very agreeable person; and, in short, he came to me one evening and told me that he came to ask my leave to let him marry the housekeeper.
I was exceedingly perplexed at this proposal, but, however, I gave him no room to perceive that. I told him I hoped he had considered well of it before he brought it so far as to offer it to me, and supposed that he had agreed that point so that I had no consent to give, but as she had almost four years of her time to serve.
He answered no; he paid such a regard to me that he would not so much as take one step in such a thing without my knowledge, and assured me he had not so much as mentioned it to her. I knew not what answer indeed to make to him, but at last I resolved to put it off from myself to her, because then I should have opportunity to talk with her beforehand. So I told him he was perfectly free to act in the matter as he thought fit; that I could not say either one thing or another to it, neither had I any right to meddle in it. As to her serving out her time with me, that was a trifle, and not worth naming, but I hoped he would consider well every circumstance before he entered upon such an affair as that.
He told me he had fully considered it already, and that he was resolved, seeing I was not against it, to have her whatever came of it, for he believed he should be the happiest man alive with her. Then he ran on in his character of her, how clever a woman she was in the management of all manner of business, how admirable conversation she was, what a wit, what a memory, what a vast share of knowledge, and the like; all which I knew to be the truth, and yet short of her just character too; for, as she was all that formerly when she was mine, she was vastly improved in the school of affliction, and was all the bright part, with a vast addition of temper, prudence, judgment, and all that she formerly wanted.
I had not much patience, as you may well imagine, till I saw my honest housekeeper, to communicate this secret to her, and to see what course she would steer on so nice an occasion. But I was suddenly taken so ill with a cold which held for two days that I could not stir out of doors; and in this time the matter was all done and over; for my tutor had gone the same night and made his attack; but was coldly received at first, which very much surprised him, for he made no doubt to have her consent at first word. However, the next day he came again, and again the third day, when, finding he was in earnest, and yet that she could not think of anything of that kind, she told him, in few words, that she thought herself greatly obliged to him for such a testimony of his respect to her, and should have embraced it willingly, as anybody would suppose one in her circumstances should do, but that she would not abuse him so much, for that she must acknowledge to him she was under obligations that prevented her; that was, in short, that she was a married woman and had a husband alive.
This was so sincere but so effectual an answer that he could have no room to reply one word to it, but that he was very sorry, and that it was a very great affliction to him, and as great a disappointment as ever he met with.
The next day after he had received this repulse I came to the plantation-house, and, sending for the housekeeper, I began with her, and told her that I understood she would have a very advantageous proposal made to her, and that I would have her consider well of it, and then told her what my tutor had said to me.
She immediately fell a-crying, at which I seemed to wonder very much. “Oh, sir!” says she, “how can you name such a thing to me?” I told her that I could name it the better to her because I had been married myself since I parted from her. “Yes, sir,” says she; “but the case alters; the crime being on my side, I ought not to marry; but,” says she, “that is not the reason at all, but I cannot do it.” I pretended to press her to it, though not sincerely, I must acknowledge, for my heart had turned toward her for some time, and I had fully forgiven her in my mind all her former conduct; but, I say, I seemed to press her to it, at which she burst out in a passion. “No, no,” says she; “let me be your slave rather than the best man’s wife in the world.” I reasoned with her upon her circumstances, and how such a marriage would restore her to a state of ease and plenty, and none in the world might ever know or suspect who or what she had been. But she could not bear it; but, with tears, again raising her voice that I was afraid she would be heard, “I beseech you,” says she, “do not speak of it any more. I was once yours, and I will never belong to any man else in the world. Let me be as I am, or anything else you please to make me, but not a wife to any man alive but yourself.”
I was so moved with the passion she was in at speaking this that I knew not what I said or did for some time. At length I said to her, “It is a great pity you had not long ago been as sincere as you are now; it had been better for us both. However, as it is, you shall not be forced to anything against your mind, nor shall you be the worse treated for refusing; but how will you put him off? No doubt he expects you will receive his proposal as an advantage; and as he sees no farther into your circumstances, so it is.” “Oh, sir!” says she, “I have done all that already. He has his answer, and is fully satisfied. He will never trouble you any more on that head;” and then she told me what answer she had given him.
From that minute I resolved that I would certainly take her again to be my wife as before. I thought she had fully made me amends for her former ill conduct, and she deserved to be forgiven (and so indeed she did, if ever woman did, considering also what dreadful penance she had undergone, and how long she had lived in misery and distress); and that Providence had, as it were, cast her upon me again, and, above all, had given her such an affection to me and so resolved a mind that she could refuse so handsome an offer of deliverance rather than be farther separated from me.
As I resolved this in my mind, so I thought it was cruel to conceal it any longer from her. Nor, in deed, could I contain myself any longer, but I took her in my arms: “Well,” says I, “you have given me such a testimony of affection in this that I can no longer withstand. I forgive you all that ever was between us on this account, and, since you will be nobody’s but mine, you shall be mine again as you were at first.”
But this was too much for her the other way, and now she was so far overcome with my yielding to her that, had she not got vent to her passion by the most vehement crying, she must have died in my arms; and I was forced to let her go and set her down in a chair, where she cried for a quarter of an hour before she could speak a word.
When she was come to herself enough to talk again, I told her we must consider of a method how to bring this to pass, and that it must not be done by publishing there that she was my wife before, for that would expose us both, but that I would openly marry her again. This she agreed was very rational, and accordingly, about two months after, we were married again, and no man in the world ever enjoyed a better wife or lived more happy than we both did for several years after.
And now I began to think my fortunes were settled for this world, and I had nothing before me but to finish a life of infinite variety, such as mine had been, with a comfortable retreat, being both made wiser by our sufferings and difficulties, and able to judge for ourselves what kind of life would be best adapted to our present circumstances, and in what station we might look upon ourselves to be most completely happy.
But man is a short-sighted creature at best, and in nothing more than in that of fixing his own felicity, or, as we may say, choosing for himself. One would have thought, and so my wife often suggested to me, that the state of life that I was now in was as perfectly calculated to make a man completely happy as any private station in the world could be. We had an estate more than sufficient, and daily increasing, for the supporting any state or figure that in that place we could propose to ourselves or even desire to live in; we had everything that was pleasant and agreeable, without the least mortification in any circumstances of it; every sweet thing, and nothing to embitter it; every good, and no mixture of evil with it; nor any gap open where we could have the least apprehensions of any evil breaking out upon us. Nor indeed was it easy for either of us, in our phlegmatic, melancholy notions, to have the least imagination how anything disastrous could happen to us in the common course of things, unless something should befall us out of the ordinary way of Providence, or of its acting in the world.
But, an unseen mine blew up all this apparent tranquillity at once; and though it did not remove my affairs there from me, yet it effectually removed me from them and sent me a-wandering into the world again—a condition full of hazards, and always attended with circumstances dangerous to mankind, while he is left to choose his own fortunes and be guided by his own short-sighted measures.
I must now return to a circumstance of my history which had been past for some time, and which relates to my conduct while I was last in England.
I mentioned how my faithful wife Moggy, with her tears and her entreaties, had prevailed with me not to play the madman and openly join in the rebellion with the late Lord Derwentwater and his party when they entered Lancashire, and thereby, as I may say, saved my life. But my curiosity prevailed so much at last that I gave her the slip when they came to Preston, and at least thought I would go and look at them, and see what they were likely to come to.
My former wife’s importunities, as above, had indeed prevailed upon me from publicly embarking in that enterprise and joining openly with them in arms; and by this, as I have observed, she saved my life to be sure, because I had then publicly espoused the rebellion, and had been known to have been among them, which might have been as fatal to me afterwards, though I had not been taken in the action, as if I had.
But when they advanced and came nearer to us to Preston, and there appeared a greater spirit among the people in their favour, my old doctor, whom I mentioned before, who was a Romish priest, and had married us, inspired me with new zeal, and gave me no rest till he obliged me, with only a good horse and arms, to join them the day before they entered Preston, he himself venturing in the same posture with me.
I was not so public here as to be very well known, at least by any one that had knowledge of me in the country where I lived; and this was indeed my safety afterwards, as you will soon hear. But yet I was known too among the men, especially among the Scots, with some of whom I had been acquainted in foreign service. With these I was particularly conversant, and, passing for a French officer, I talked to them of making a select detachment to defend the pass between Preston and the river and bridge, upon maintaining which, as I insisted, depended the safety of the whole party.
It was with some warmth that I spoke of that affair, and as I passed among them, I say, for a French officer and a man of experience, it caused several debates among them. But the hint was not followed, as is well known, and from that moment I gave them all up as lost, and meditated nothing but how to escape from them, which I effected the night before they were surrounded by the royal cavalry. I did not do this without great difficulty, swimming the river Ribble at a place where, though I got well over, yet I could not for a long while get to a place where my horse could land himself—that is to say, where the ground was firm enough for him to take the land. However, at length I got on shore, and riding very hard, came the next evening in sight of my own dwelling. Here, after lying by in a wood till the depth of night, I shot my horse in a little kind of a gravel pit, or marl pit, where I soon covered him with earth for the present, and marching all alone, I came about two in the morning to my house, where my wife, surprised with joy and yet terribly frighted, let me in; and then I took immediate measures to secure myself upon whatever incident might happen, but which, as things were ordered, I had no need to make use of, for the rebels being entirely defeated, and either all killed or taken prisoners, I was not known by anybody in the country to have been among them; no, nor so much as suspected. And thus I made a narrow escape from the most dangerous action, and most foolishly embarked in, of any that I had ever been engaged in before.
It was very lucky to me that I killed and buried my horse, for he would have been taken two days after, and would, to be sure, have been known by those who had seen me upon him at Preston. But now, as none knew I had been abroad, nor any such circumstance could discover me, I kept close, and as my excursion had been short and I had not been missed by any of my neighbours, if anybody came to speak with me, behold I was at home.
However, I was not thoroughly easy in my mind, and secretly wished I was in my own dominions in Virginia, to which, in a little time, other circumstances occurring, I made preparations to remove with my whole family.
In the meantime, as above, the action at Preston happened, and the miserable people surrendered to the king’s troops. Some were executed for examples, as in such cases is usual, and the government extending mercy to the multitude, they were kept in Chester Castle, and other places a considerable time, till they were disposed of, some one way, some another, as we shall hear.
Several hundreds of them after this were, at their own request, transported, as it is vulgarly expressed, to the plantations—that is to say, sent to Virginia and other British colonies to be sold after the usual manner of condemned criminals, or, as we call them there, convicts, to serve a limited time in the country, and then be made freemen again. Some of these I have spoken of above; but now, to my no little uneasiness, I found, after I had been there some time, two ships arrived with more of these people in the same river where all my plantations lay.
I no sooner heard of it but the first step I took was to resolve to let none of them be bought into my work or to any of my plantations; and this I did, pretending that I would not make slaves every day of unfortunate gentlemen who fell into that condition for their zeal to their party only, and the like. But the true reason was, that I expected several of them would know me, and might perhaps betray me, and make it public that I was one of the same sort, but had made my escape; and so I might be brought into trouble, and, if I came off with my life, might have all my effects seized on, and be reduced to misery and poverty again at once, all which I thought I had done enough to deserve.
This was a just caution, but, as I found quickly, was not a sufficient one, as my circumstances stood, for my safety; for though I bought none of these poor men myself, yet several of my neighbours did, and there was scarce a plantation near me but had some of them, more or less, among them; so that, in a word, I could not peep abroad hardly but I was in danger to be seen, and known too, by some or other of them.
I may be allowed to say that this was a very uneasy life to me, and such that, in short, I found myself utterly unable to bear; for I was now reduced from a great man, a magistrate, a governor or master of three great plantations, and having three or four hundred servants at my command, to be a poor self-condemned rebel, and durst not show my face; and that I might with the same safety, or rather more, have skulked about in Lancashire where I was, or gone up to London and concealed myself there till things had been over. But now the danger was come home to me, even to my door, and I expected nothing but to be informed against every day, be taken up, and sent to England in irons, and have all my plantations seized on as a forfeited estate to the Crown.
I had but one hope of safety to trust to, and that was, that having been so little a while among them, done nothing for them, and passing for a stranger, they never knew my name, but only I was called the French colonel, or the French officer, or the French gentleman by most, if not by all, the people here. And as for the doctor that went with me, he had found means to escape too, though not the same way that I did, finding the cause not likely to be supported, and that the king’s troops were gathering on all sides round them like a cloud.
But to return to myself; this was no satisfaction to me, and what to do I really knew not, for I was more at a loss how to shift in such a distressed case as this, now it lay so close to me, than ever I was in any difficulty in my life. The first thing I did was to come home and make a confidence of the whole affair to my wife; and though I did it generously without conditions, yet I did not do it without first telling her how I was now going to put my life into her hands, that she might have it in her power to pay me home for all that she might think had been hard in my former usage of her; and that, in short, it would be in her power to deliver me up into the hands of my enemies, but that I would trust her generosity, as well as her renewed affection, and put all upon her fidelity, and without any more precaution I opened the whole thing to her, and particularly the danger I was now in.
A faithful counsellor is life from the dead, gives courage where the heart is sinking, and raises the mind to a proper use of means; and such she was to me indeed upon every step of this affair, and it was by her direction that I took every step that followed for the extricating myself out of this labyrinth.
“Come, come, my dear,” says she, “if this be all, there is no room for any such disconsolate doings as your fears run you upon;” for I was immediately for selling off my plantations and all my stock and embarking myself forthwith, and to get to Madeira or to any place out of the king’s dominions.
But my wife was quite of another opinion, and encouraging me on another account, proposed two things, either my freighting a sloop with provisions to the West Indies, and so taking passage from thence to London, or letting her go away directly for England and endeavour to obtain the king’s pardon, whatever it might cost.
I inclined to the last proposal; for though I was unhappily prejudiced in favour of a wrong interest, yet I had always a secret and right notion of the clemency and merciful disposition of his Majesty, and, had I been in England, should, I believe, have been easily persuaded to have thrown myself at his foot.
But going to England as I was circumstanced must have been a public action, and I must have made all the usual preparations for it, must have appeared in public, have stayed till the crop was ready, and gone away in form and state as usual, or have acted as if something extraordinary was the matter, and have filled the heads of the people there with innumerable suggestions of they knew not what.
But my wife made all this easy to me from her own invention; for, without acquainting me of any thing, she comes merrily to me one morning before I was up: “My dear,” says she, “I am very sorry to hear that you are not very well this morning. I have ordered Pennico” (that was a young negro girl which I had given her) “to make you a fire in your chamber, and pray lie still where you are a while till it is done.” At the same instant the little negro came in with wood and a pair of bellows, &c., to kindle the fire, and my wife, not giving me time to reply, whispers close to my ear to lie still and say nothing till she came up again to me.
I was thoroughly frighted, that you may be sure of, and thought of nothing but of being discovered, betrayed, and carried to England, hanged, quartered, and all that was terrible, and my very heart sunk within me. She perceived my disorder and turned back, assuring me there was no harm, desired me to be easy, and she would come back again presently and give me satisfaction in every particular that I could desire. So I composed myself a while as well as I could, but it was but a little while that I could bear it, and I sent Pennico downstairs to find out her mistress, and tell her I was very ill and must speak with her immediately; and the girl was scarce out of the room before I jumped out of bed and began to dress me, that I might be ready for all events.
My wife was as good as her word, and was coming up as the girl was coming down. “I see,” says she, “you want patience, but pray do not want government of yourself, but take that screen before your face, and go to the window and see if you know any of those Scotchmen that are in the yard, for there are seven or eight of them come about some business to your clerk.”
I went and looked through the screen, and saw the faces of them all distinctly, but could make nothing of them other than that they were Scotchmen, which was easy to discern. However, it was no satisfaction to me that I knew not their faces, for they might know mine for all that, according to the old English proverb, “That more knows Tom Fool than Tom Fool knows;” so I kept close in my chamber till I understood they were all gone.
After this my wife caused it to be given out in the house that I was not well; and when this not being well had lasted three or four days, I had my leg wrapped up in a great piece of flannel and laid upon a stool, and there I was lame of the gout; and this served for about six weeks, when my wife told me she had given it out that my gout was rather rheumatic than a settled gout, and that I was resolved to take one of my own sloops and go away to Nevis or Antigua, and use the hot baths there for my cure.
All this was very well, and I approved my wife’s contrivance as admirably good, both to keep me within doors eight or ten weeks at first, and to convey me away afterwards without any extraordinary bustle to be made about it; but still I did not know what it all tended to, and what the design of it all was. But my wife desired me to leave that to her; so I readily did, and she carried it all on with a prudence not to be disputed; and after she had wrapped my legs in flannel almost three months, she came and told me the sloop was ready and all the goods put on board. “And now, my dear,” says she, “I come to tell you all the rest of my design; for,” added she, “I hope you will not think I am going to kidnap you, and transport you from Virginia, as other people are transported to it, or that I am going to get you sent away and leave myself in possession of your estate; but you shall find me the same faithful, humble creature which I should have been if I had been still your slave, and not had any hopes of being your wife, and that in all my scheme which I have laid for your safety, in this new exigence, I have not proposed your going one step but where I shall go and be always with you, to assist and serve you on all occasions, and to take my portion with you, of what kind soever our lot may be.”
This was so generous, and so handsome a declaration of her fidelity, and so great a token, too, of the goodness of her judgment in considering of the things which were before her, and of what my present circumstances called for, that, from that time forward, I gave myself cheerfully up to her management without any hesitation in the least, and after about ten days’ preparation we embarked in a large sloop of my own of about sixty tons.
I should have mentioned here that I had still my faithful tutor, as I called him, at the head of my affairs; and, as he knew who to correspond with, and how to manage the correspondence in England, we left all that part to him, as I had done before; and I did this with a full satisfaction in his ability as well as in his integrity. It is true he had been a little chagrined in that affair of my wife, who, as I hinted before, had married me, after telling him, in answer to his solicitations, that she had a husband alive. Now, though this was literally true, yet, as it was a secret not fit to be opened to him, I was obliged to put him off with other reasons, as well as I could, perhaps not much to the purpose, and perhaps not much to his satisfaction, so that I reckoned he looked on himself as not very kindly used several ways. But he began to get over it, and to be easy, especially at our going away, when he found that the trust of everything was still left in his hands as it was before.
When my wife had thus communicated everything of the voyage to me, and we began to be ready to go off, she came to me one morning, and, with her usual cheerfulness, told me she now came to tell me the rest of her measures for the completing my deliverance; and this was, that while we made this trip, as she called it, to the hot springs at Nevis, she would write to a particular friend at London, whom she could depend upon, to try to get a pardon for a person on account of the late rebellion, with all the circumstances which my case was attended with, viz., of having acted nothing among them but being three days in the place; and, while we were thus absent, she did not question but to have an answer, which she would direct to come so many ways that we would be sure to have the first of it as soon as it was possible the vessels could go and come. And in the meantime the expense should be very small, for she would have an answer to the grand question first, whether it could be obtained or no; and then an account of the expense of it, that so I might judge for myself whether I would part with the needful sum or no, before any money was disbursed on my account.
I could not but be thoroughly satisfied with her contrivance in this particular, and I had nothing to add to it but that I would not have her limit her friend so strictly, but that if he saw the way clear, and that he was sure to obtain it, he should go through stitch with it, if within the expense of two or three or four hundred pounds, and that, upon advice of its being practicable, he should have bills payable by such a person on delivery of the warrant for the thing.
To fortify this, I enclosed in her packet a letter to one of my correspondents, whom I could particularly trust, with a credit for the money, on such-an-such conditions; but the honesty and integrity of my wife’s correspondence was such as prevented all the expense, and yet I had the wished-for security, as if it had been all paid, as you shall hear presently.
All these things being fixed to our minds, and all things left behind in good posture of settlement as usual, we embarked together and put to sea, having the opportunity of an English man-of-war being on the coast in pursuit of the pirates, and who was just then standing away towards the Gulf of Florida, and told us he would see us safe as far as New Providence, on the Bahama Islands.
And now having fair weather and a pleasant voyage, and my flannels taken off my legs, I must hint a little what cargo I had with me; for as my circumstances were very good in that country, so I did not go such a voyage as this, and with a particular reserve of fortunes whatever might afterwards happen, without a sufficient cargo for our support, and whatever exigence might happen.
Our sloop, as I said, was of about sixty or seventy tons; and as tobacco, which is the general produce of the country, was no merchandise at Nevis, that is to say, for a great quantity, so we carried very little, but loaded the sloop with corn, peas, meal, and some barrels of pork; and an excellent cargo it was, most of it being the produce of my own plantation. We took also a considerable sum of money with us in Spanish gold, which was, as above, not for trade, but for all events. I also ordered another sloop to be hired, and to be sent after me, loaden with the same goods, as soon as they should have advice from me that I was safe arrived.
We came to the latitude of the island of Antigua, which was very near to that of Nevis, whither we intended to go, on the eighteenth day after our passing the Capes of Virginia, but had no sight of the island; only our master said he was sure if he stood the same course as he then was, and the gale held, I say he told me he was sure he should make the island in less than five hours’ sail; so he stood on fair for the islands. However, his account had failed him, for we held on all the evening, made no land, and likewise all night, when in the grey of the morning we discovered from the topmast-head a brigantine and a sloop making sail after us, at the distance of about six leagues, fair weather, and the wind fresh at S.E.
Our master soon understood what they were, and came down into the cabin to me to let me know it. I was much surprised, you may be sure, at the danger, but my poor wife took from me all the concern for myself to take care of her, for she was frighted to that degree that I thought we should not have been able to keep life in her.
While we were thus under the first hurry and surprise of the thing, suddenly another noise from the deck called us up to look out, and that was, “Land! land!” The master and I—for by this time I had got out of my cabin—run upon the deck, and there we saw the state of our case very plain. The two rogues that stood after us laid on all the canvas they could carry, and crowded after us amain, but at the distance, as I have said, of about six leagues, rather more than less. On the other hand, the land discovered lay about nine leagues right ahead, so that if the pirates could get of us, so as to sail three feet for our two, it was evident they would be up with us before we could make the island. If not, we should escape them and get in; but even then we had no great hope to do any more than to run the ship ashore to save our lives, and so, stranding our vessel, spoil both sloop and cargo.
When we were making this calculation our master came in cheerfully, and told me he had crowded on more sail, and found the sloop carried it very well, and that he did not find the rogues gained much upon us, and that especially if one of them did not, that was the sloop, he found he could go away from the brigantine as he pleased. Thus we gave them what they call a stern chase, and they worked hard to come up with us till towards noon, when on a sudden they both stood away and gave us over, to our great satisfaction you may be sure.
We did not, it seems, so easily see the occasion of our deliverance as the pirate did; for while we went spooning away large with the wind for one of the islands, with those two spurs in our heels, that is, with the two thieves at our sterns, there lay an English man-of-war in the road of Nevis, which was the same island from whence they espied the pirates, but the land lying between, we could not see them.
As the man-of-war discovered them she immediately slipped her cable and put herself under sail in chase of the rogues; and they as soon perceived her, and being windward, put themselves upon a wind to escape her; and thus we were delivered, and in half-an-hour more we knew who was our deliverer, seeing the man-of-war stretch ahead clear of the island, and stand directly after the pirates, who now crowded from us as fast as they crowded after us before; and thus we got safe into Antigua, after the terrible apprehension we had been in of being taken. Our apprehensions of being taken now were much more than they would have been on board a loaden ship from or to London, where the most they ordinarily do is to rifle the ship, take what is valuable and portable, and let her go. But ours being but a sloop, and all our loading being good provisions, such as they wanted, to be sure, for their ship’s store, they would certainly have carried us away, ship and all, taken out the cargo and the men, and perhaps have set the sloop on fire; so that, as to our cargo of gold, it had been inevitably lost, and we hurried away, nobody knows where, and used as such barbarous fellows are wont to use innocent people as fall into their hands.
But we were now out of their hands, and had the satisfaction a few days after to hear that the man-of-war pursued them so close, notwithstanding they changed their course in the night, that the next day they were obliged to separate and shift for themselves; so the man-of-war took one of them, namely, the brigantine, and carried her into Jamaica, but the other, viz., the sloop, made her escape.
Being arrived here, we presently disposed of our cargo, and at a tolerable good price; and now the question was, what I should do next. I looked upon myself to be safe here from the fears I had been under of being discovered as a rebel, and so indeed I was; but having been now absent five months, and having sent the ship back with a cargo of rum and molasses, which I knew was wanting in my plantations, I received the same vessel back in return loaden, as at first, with provisions.
With this cargo my wife received a packet from London from the person whom she had employed, as above, to solicit a pardon, who very honestly wrote to her that he would not be so unjust to her friend, whoever he was, as to put him to any expense for a private solicitation; for that he was very well assured that his Majesty had resolved, from his own native disposition to acts of clemency and mercy to his subjects, to grant a general pardon, with some few exceptions to persons extraordinary, and he hoped her friend was none of the extraordinary persons to be excepted.
This was a kind of life from the dead to us both, and it was resolved that my wife should go back in the sloop directly to Virginia, where she should wait the good news from England, and should send me an account of it as soon as she received it.
Accordingly she went back, and came safe with the sloop and cargo to our plantation, from whence, after above four months’ more expectation, behold the sloop came to me again, but empty and gutted of all her cargo, except about a hundred sacks of unground malt, which the pirates, not knowing how to brew, knew not what to do with, and so had left in her. However, to my infinite satisfaction, there was a packet of letters from my wife, with another to her from England, as well one from her friend as one from my own correspondent; both of them inti mating that the king had signed an act of grace, that is to say, a general free pardon, and sent me copies of the act, wherein it was manifest that I was fully included.
And here let me hint, that having now, as it were, received my life at the hands of King George, and in a manner so satisfying as it was to me, it made a generous convert of me, and I became sincerely given in to the interest of King George; and this from a principle of gratitude and a sense of my obligation to his Majesty for my life; and it has continued ever since, and will certainly remain with me as long as any sense of honour and of the debt of gratitude remains with me. I mention this to hint how far in such cases justice and duty to ourselves commands us; namely, that to those who graciously give us our lives when it is in their power to take them away, those lives are a debt ever after, and ought to be set apart for their service and interest as long as any of the powers of life remain, for gratitude is a debt that never ceases while the benefit received remains; and if my prince has given me my life, I can never pay the debt fully, unless such a circumstance as this should happen, that the prince’s life should be in my power, and I as generously preserved it. And yet neither would the obligation be paid then, because the cases would differ; thus, that my preserving the life of my prince was my natural duty, whereas the prince on his side, my life being forfeited to him, had no motive but mere clemency and beneficence.
Perhaps this principle may not please all that read it; but as I have resolved to guide my actions in things of such a nature by the rules of strict virtue and principles of honour, so I must lay it down as a rule of honour, that a man having once forfeited his life to the justice of his prince and to the laws of his country, and receiving it back as a bounty from the grace of his sovereign, such a man can never lift up his hand again against that prince without a forfeiture of his virtue and an irreparable breach of his honour and duty, and deserves no pardon after it either from God or man. But all this is a digression: I leave it as a sketch of the laws of honour, printed by the laws of nature in the breast of a soldier or a man of honour, and which, I believe, all impartial persons who understand what honour means will subscribe to.
But I return now to my present circumstances. My wife was gone, and with her all my good fortune and success in business seemed to have forsaken me; and I had another scene of misery to go through, after I had thought that all my misfortunes were over and at an end.
My sloop, as I have told you, arrived, but having met with a pirate rogue in the Gulf of Florida, they took her first; then finding her cargo to be all eatables, which they always want, they gutted her of all her loading, except, as I have said, about a hundred sacks of malt, which they really knew not what to do with; and, which was still worse, they took away all the men except the master and two boys, who they left on board just to run the vessel into Antigua, where they said they were bound.
But the most valuable part of my cargo, viz., a packet of letters from England, those they left, to my inexpressible comfort and satisfaction; and, particularly, that by those I saw my way home to return to my wife and to my plantations, from which I promised myself never to wander any more.
In order to this, I now embarked myself and all my effects on board the sloop, resolving to sail directly to the Capes of Virginia. My captain beating it up to reach the Bahama channel, had not been two days at sea but we were overtaken by a violent storm, which drove us so far upon the coast of Florida as that we twice struck upon the shore, and had we struck a third time we had been inevitably lost. A day or two after that, the storm abating a little, we kept the sea, but found the wind blowing so strong against our passing the gulf, and the sea going so high, we could not hold it any longer. So we were forced to bear away and make what shift we could; in which distress, the fifth day after, we made land, but found it to be Cape ——, the north-west part of the isle of Cuba. Here we found ourselves under a necessity to run in under the land for shelter, though we had not come to an anchor, so we had not touched the king of Spain’s territories at all. However, in the morning we were surrounded with five Spanish barks, or boats, such as they callbarco longos, full of men, who instantly boarded us, took us and carried us into the Havannah, the most considerable port belonging to the Spaniards in that part of the world.
Here the sloop was immediately seized, and in consequence plundered, as any one that knows the Spaniards, especially in that country, will easily guess. Our men were made prisoners and sent to the common gaol; and as for myself and the captain, we were carried before the Alcade Major, or intendant of the place, as criminals.
I spoke Spanish very well, having served under the king of Spain in Italy, and it stood me in good stead at this time; for I so effectually argued the injustice of their treatment of me that the governor, or what I ought to call him, frankly owned they ought not to have stopped me, seeing I was in the open sea pursuing my voyage, and offered no offence to anybody, and had not landed or offered to land upon any part of his Catholic Majesty’s dominions till I was brought as a prisoner.
It was a great favour that I could obtain thus much; but I found it easier to obtain an acknowledgment that I had received wrong than to get any satisfaction for that wrong, and much less was there any hope or prospect of restitution; and I was let know that I was to wait till an account could be sent to the viceroy of Mexico, and orders could be received back from him how to act in the affair.
I could easily foresee what all this tended to, namely, to a confiscation of the ship and goods by the ordinary process at the place; and that my being left to the decision of the viceroy of Mexico was but a pretended representation of things to him from the corregidore or judge of the place.
However, I had no remedy but the old insignificant thing called patience, and this I was better furnished with because I did not so much value the loss as I made them believe I did. My greatest apprehensions were that they would detain me and keep me as a prisoner for life, and perhaps send me to their mines in Peru, as they have done many, and pretended to do to all that come on shore in their dominions, how great soever the distresses may have been which have brought them thither, and which has been the reason why others who have been forced on shore have committed all manner of violence upon the Spaniards in their turn, resolving, however dear they sold their lives, not to fall into their hands.
But I got better quarter among them than that too, which was, as I have said, much of it owing to my speaking Spanish, and to my telling them how I had fought in so many occasions in the quarrel of his Catholic Majesty in Italy; and, by great good chance, I had the king of France’s commission for lieutenant-colonel in the Irish brigade in my pocket, where it was mentioned that the said brigade was then serving in the armies of France, under the orders of his Catholic Majesty, in Italy.
I failed not to talk up the gallantry and personal bravery of his Catholic Majesty on all occasions, and particularly in many battles where, by the way, his Majesty had never been at all, and in some where I had never been myself. But I found I talked to people who knew nothing of the matter, and so anything went down with them if it did but praise the king of Spain and talk big of the Spanish cavalry, of which, God knows, there was not one regiment in the army, at least while I was there.
However, this way of managing myself obtained me the liberty of the place, upon my parole that I would not attempt an escape; and I obtained also, which was a great favour, to have two hundred pieces of eight allowed me out of the sale of my cargo for subsistence till I could negotiate my affairs at Mexico. As for my men, they were maintained as prisoners at the public charge.
Well, after several months’ solicitation and attendance, all I could obtain was the satisfaction of seeing my ship and cargo confiscated and my poor sailors in a fair way to be sent to the mines. The last I begged off, upon condition of paying three hundred pieces of eight for their ransom, and having them set on shore at Antigua, and myself to remain hostage for the payment of the said three hundred pieces of eight, and for two hundred pieces of eight, which I had already had, and for five hundred pieces of eight more for my own ransom, if, upon a return from Mexico, the sentence of confiscation, as above, should be confirmed by the viceroy.
These were hard articles indeed, but I was forced to submit to them; nor, as my circumstances were above all such matters as these, as to substance, did I lay it much to heart. The greatest difficulty that lay in my way was, that I knew not how to correspond with my friends in any part of the world, or which way to supply myself with necessaries or with money for the payment I had agreed to, the Spaniards being so tenacious of their ports that they allowed nobody to come on shore, or indeed near the shore, from any part of the world, upon pain of seizure and confiscation, as had been my case already. Upon this difficulty I began to reason with the corregidore, and tell him that he put things upon us that were impossible, and that were inconsistent with the customs of nations; that, if a man was prisoner at Algiers, they would allow him to write to his friends to pay his ransom, and would admit the person that brought it to come and go free as a public person, and if they did not, no treaty could be carried on for the ransom of a slave, nor the conditions be performed when they are agreed upon.
I brought it then down to my own case, and desired to know, upon supposition, that I might, within the time limited in that agreement, have the sums of money ready for the ransom of my men and of myself, how I should obtain to have notice given me of it, or how it should be brought, seeing the very persons bringing that notice, or afterwards presuming to bring the money, might be liable to be seized and confiscated, as I had been, and the money itself be taken as a second prize, without redeeming the first.
Though this was so reasonable a request that it could not be withstood in point of argument, yet the Spaniard shrunk his head into his shoulders, and said they had not power sufficient to act in such a case; that the king’s laws were so severe against the suffering any strangers to set their foot on his Catholic Majesty’s dominions in America, and they could not dispense with the least tittle of them without a particularassiento, as they called it, from the Consulado, or Chamber of Commerce, at Seville, or a command under the hand and seal of the viceroy of Mexico.
“How! signior corregidore,” said I, with some warmth, and, as it were, with astonishment, “have you not authority enough to sign a passport for an agent, or ambassador, to come on shore here, from any of the king of Great Britain’s governors in these parts, under a white flag, or flag of truce, to speak with the governor of this place, or with any other person in the king’s name, on the subject of such business as the governor may have to communicate? Why,” said I, “if you cannot do that, you cannot act according to the law of nations.”
He shook his head, but still said no, he could not do even so much as that; but here one of the military governors put in and opposed him, and they two differed warmly, the first insisting that their orders were deficient in that particular; but the other said that, as they were bound up to them, it could not be in their power to act otherwise, and that they were answerable for the ill consequences.
“Well, then,” says the governor to the corregidore, “now you have kept this Englishman as hostage for the ransom of the men that you have dismissed, suppose he tells you the money is ready, either at such, or such, or such a place, how shall he bring it hither? You will take all the people prisoners that offer to bring it; what must he do? If you say you will send and fetch it, what security shall he have that he shall have his liberty when it is paid you? and why should he trust you so far as to pay the money, and yet remain here a prisoner?”
This carried so much reason with it that the corregidore knew not what to say, but that so was the law, and he could act no otherwise but by the very letter of it; and here each was so positive that nothing could determine it but another express to be sent to the viceroy of Mexico.
Upon this the governor was so kind as to say he would get me a passport for anybody that should bring the money, and any vessel they were in, by his own authority, and for their safe returning, and taking me with them, provided I would answer for it that they should bring no European or other goods whatever with them, and should not set foot on shore without his express permission, and provided he did not receive orders to the contrary, in the meantime, from any superior hand; and that, even in such a case, they should have liberty to go back freely from whence they came, under the protection of a white flag.
I bowed very respectfully to the governor in token of my acknowledging his justice, and then presented my humble petition to him that he would allow my men to take their own sloop; that it should be rated at a certain value, and would be obliged they should bring specie on board with them, and that they should either pay it for the sloop or leave the sloop again.
Then he inquired to what country he would send them for so much money, and if I could assure him of the payment; and when he understood it was no farther than to Virginia he seemed very easy; and, to satisfy the corregidore, who still stood off, adhering with a true Spanish stiffness to the letter of the law, the said governor calls out to me: “Signior,” says he, “I shall make all this matter easy to you, if you agree to my proposal. Your men shall have the sloop, on condition you shall be my hostage for her return; but they shall not take her as your sloop, though she shall in the effect be yours on the payment of the money; but you shall take two of my men on board with you, upon your parole for their safe return, and when she returns she shall carry his Catholic Majesty’s colours, and be entered as one of the sloops belonging to the Havannah; one of the Spaniards to be commander, and to be called by such a name as he shall appoint.”
This the corregidore came into immediately, and said this was within the letter, of the king’s commanderie or precept; upon condition, however, that she should bring no European goods on board. I desired it might be put in other words; namely, that she should bring no European goods on shore. It cost two days’ debate between these two whether it should pass that no European goods should be brought in the ship or brought on shore; but having found means to intimate that I meant not to trade there, but would not be tied from bringing a small present to a certain person in acknowledgment of favours—I say, after I had found room to place such a hint right where it should be placed, I found it was all made easy to me; and it was all agreed presently that, after the ransom was paid, and the ship also bought, it was but reasonable that I should have liberty to trade to any other country not in the dominions of the king of Spain, so to make up my losses; and that it would be hard to oblige my men to bring away the vessel light, and so lose the voyage, and add so much to our former misfortunes; that, so long as no goods were brought on shore in the country belonging to his Catholic Majesty’s dominions, which was all that they had to defend, the rest was no business of theirs.
Now I began to see my way through this unhappy business, and to find, that as money would bring me out of it, so money would bring it to turn to a good account another way. Wherefore I sent the sloop away under Spanish colours, and called her theNuestra Signiora de la Val de Grace, commanded by Signior Giraldo de Nesma, one of the two Spaniards.
With the sloop I sent letters to my wife and to my chief manager with orders to load her back, as I there directed, viz., that she should have two hundred barrels of flour, fifty barrels of pease; and, to answer my other views, I ordered a hundred bales to be made up of all sorts of European goods, such as not my own warehouses only would supply, but such as they could be supplied with in other warehouses where I knew they had credit for anything.
In this cargo I directed all the richest and most valuable English goods they had, or could get, whether linen, woollen, or silk, to be made up; the coarser things, such as we use in Virginia for clothing of servants, such I ordered to be left behind for the use of the plantation. In less than seven weeks’ time the sloop returned, and I, that failed not every day to look out for her on the strand, was the first that spied her at sea at a distance, and knew her by her sails, but afterwards more particularly by her signals.
When she returned she came into the road with her Spanish ancient flying, and came to an anchor as directed; but I, that had seen her some hours before, went directly to the governor and gave him an account of her being come, and fain I would have obtained the favour to have his excellency, as I called him, go on board in person, that he might see how well his orders were executed. But he declined that, saying he could not justify going off of the island, which was, in short, to go out of his command of the fort, which he could not reassume without a new commission from the king’s own hand.
Then I asked leave to go on board myself, which he granted me; and I brought on shore with me the full sum in gold which I had conditioned to pay for the ransom both of my men and myself, and for the purchase of the sloop; and as I obtained leave to land in a different place, so my governor sent his son with six soldiers to receive and convey me with the money to the castle, where he commanded, and therein to his own house. I had made up the money in heavy parcels, as if it had been all silver, and gave it to two of my men who belonged to the sloop, with orders to them that they should make it seem, by their carrying it, to be much heavier than it was. This was done to conceal three parcels of goods which I had packed up with the money to make a present to the governor as I intended.
When the money was carried in and laid down on a table, the governor ordered my men to withdraw, and I gave the soldiers each of them a piece of eight to drink, for which they were very thankful, and the governor seemed well pleased with it also. Then I asked him presently if he would please to receive the money. He said no, he would not receive it but in presence of the corregidore and the other people concerned. Then I begged his excellency, as I called him, to give me leave to open the parcels in his presence, for that I would do myself the honour to acknowledge his favours in the best manner I could.