The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders

Here I told him I would live with him now till all my money was spent,

but would not let him spend a shilling of his own. We had some kind

squabble about that, but I told him it was the last time I was like to

enjoy his company, and I desired he would let me be master in that

thing only, and he should govern in everything else; so he acquiesced.

Here one evening, taking a walk into the fields, I told him I would now

make the proposal to him I had told him of; accordingly I related to

him how I had lived in Virginia, that I had a mother I believed was

alive there still, though my husband was dead some years. I told him

that had not my effects miscarried, which, by the way, I magnified

pretty much, I might have been fortune good enough to him to have kept

us from being parted in this manner. Then I entered into the manner of

peoples going over to those countries to settle, how they had a

quantity of land given them by the Constitution of the place; and if

not, that it might be purchased at so easy a rate this it was not worth

naming.

I then gave him a full and distinct account of the nature of planting;

how with carrying over but two or three hundred pounds value in English

goods, with some servants and tools, a man of application would

presently lay a foundation for a family, and in a very few years be

certain to raise an estate.

I let him into the nature of the product of the earth; how the ground

was cured and prepared, and what the usual increase of it was; and

demonstrated to him, that in a very few years, with such a beginning,

we should be as certain of being rich as we were now certain of being

poor.

He was surprised at my discourse; for we made it the whole subject of

our conversation for near a week together, in which time I laid it down

in black and white, as we say, that it was morally impossible, with a

supposition of any reasonable good conduct, but that we must thrive

there and do very well.

Then I told him what measures I would take to raise such a sum of #300

or thereabouts; and I argued with him how good a method it would be to

put an end to our misfortunes and restore our circumstances in the

world, to what we had both expected; and I added, that after seven

years, if we lived, we might be in a posture to leave our plantations

in good hands, and come over again and receive the income of it, and

live here and enjoy it; and I gave him examples of some that had done

so, and lived now in very good circumstances in London.