This I did because I knew the Dutch gentlemen and their servants would
be upon the road that day, either in the stagecoaches or riding post,
and I did not know but the drunken fellow, or somebody else that might
have seen me at Harwich, might see me again, and so I thought that in
one day's stop they would be all gone by.
We lay all that night there, and the next morning it was not very early
when I set out, so that it was near ten o'clock by the time I got to
Colchester. It was no little pleasure that I saw the town where I had
so many pleasant days, and I made many inquiries after the good old
friends I had once had there, but could make little out; they were all
dead or removed. The young ladies had been all married or gone to
London; the old gentleman and the old lady that had been my early
benefactress all dead; and which troubled me most, the young gentleman
my first lover, and afterwards my brother-in-law, was dead; but two
sons, men grown, were left of him, but they too were transplanted to
London.
I dismissed my old man here, and stayed incognito for three or four
days in Colchester, and then took a passage in a waggon, because I
would not venture being seen in the Harwich coaches. But I needed not
have used so much caution, for there was nobody in Harwich but the
woman of the house could have known me; nor was it rational to think
that she, considering the hurry she was in, and that she never saw me
but once, and that by candlelight, should have ever discovered me.
I was now returned to London, and though by the accident of the last
adventure I got something considerable, yet I was not fond of any more
country rambles, nor should I have ventured abroad again if I had
carried the trade on to the end of my days. I gave my governess a
history of my travels; she liked the Harwich journey well enough, and
in discoursing of these things between ourselves she observed, that a
thief being a creature that watches the advantages of other people's
mistakes, 'tis impossible but that to one that is vigilant and
industrious many opportunities must happen, and therefore she thought
that one so exquisitely keen in the trade as I was, would scarce fail
of something extraordinary wherever I went.
On the other hand, every branch of my story, if duly considered, may be
useful to honest people, and afford a due caution to people of some
sort or other to guard against the like surprises, and to have their
eyes about them when they have to do with strangers of any kind, for
'tis very seldom that some snare or other is not in their way. The
moral, indeed, of all my history is left to be gathered by the senses
and judgment of the reader; I am not qualified to preach to them. Let
the experience of one creature completely wicked, and completely
miserable, be a storehouse of useful warning to those that read.