The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders

In short, I pressed him so to it, that he almost agreed to it, but

still something or other broke it off again; till at last he turned the

tables, and he began to talk almost to the same purpose of Ireland.

He told me that a man that could confine himself to country life, and

that could find but stock to enter upon any land, should have farms

there for #50 a year, as good as were here let for #200 a year; that

the produce was such, and so rich the land, that if much was not laid

up, we were sure to live as handsomely upon it as a gentleman of #3000

a year could do in England and that he had laid a scheme to leave me in

London, and go over and try; and if he found he could lay a handsome

foundation of living suitable to the respect he had for me, as he

doubted not he should do, he would come over and fetch me.

I was dreadfully afraid that upon such a proposal he would have taken

me at my word, viz. to sell my little income as I called it, and turn

it into money, and let him carry it over into Ireland and try his

experiment with it; but he was too just to desire it, or to have

accepted it if I had offered it; and he anticipated me in that, for he

added, that he would go and try his fortune that way, and if he found

he could do anything at it to live, then, by adding mine to it when I

went over, we should live like ourselves; but that he would not hazard

a shilling of mine till he had made the experiment with a little, and

he assured me that if he found nothing to be done in Ireland, he would

then come to me and join in my project for Virginia.

He was so earnest upon his project being to be tried first, that I

could not withstand him; however, he promised to let me hear from him

in a very little time after his arriving there, to let me know whether

his prospect answered his design, that if there was not a possibility

of success, I might take the occasion to prepare for our other voyage,

and then, he assured me, he would go with me to America with all his

heart.

I could bring him to nothing further than this. However, those

consultations entertained us near a month, during which I enjoyed his

company, which indeed was the most entertaining that ever I met in my

life before. In this time he let me into the whole story of his own

life, which was indeed surprising, and full of an infinite variety

sufficient to fill up a much brighter history, for its adventures and

incidents, than any I ever say in print; but I shall have occasion to

say more of him hereafter.