The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders

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.