The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders

I understood her presently, but told her I would leave all that to her,

but I saw no room to hope for anything but a strict execution of the

order, and as it was a severity that was esteemed a mercy, there was no

doubt but it would be strictly observed. She said no more but this:

'We will try what can be done,' and so we parted for that night.

I lay in the prison near fifteen weeks after this order for

transportation was signed. What the reason of it was, I know not, but

at the end of this time I was put on board of a ship in the Thames, and

with me a gang of thirteen as hardened vile creatures as ever Newgate

produced in my time; and it would really well take up a history longer

than mine to describe the degrees of impudence and audacious villainy

that those thirteen were arrived to, and the manner of their behaviour

in the voyage; of which I have a very diverting account by me, which

the captain of the ship who carried them over gave me the minutes of,

and which he caused his mate to write down at large.

It may perhaps be thought trifling to enter here into a relation of all

the little incidents which attended me in this interval of my

circumstances; I mean, between the final order of my transportation and

the time of my going on board the ship; and I am too near the end of my

story to allow room for it; but something relating to me and my

Lancashire husband I must not omit.

He had, as I have observed already, been carried from the master's side

of the ordinary prison into the press-yard, with three of his comrades,

for they found another to add to them after some time; here, for what

reason I knew not, they were kept in custody without being brought to

trial almost three months. It seems they found means to bribe or buy

off some of those who were expected to come in against them, and they

wanted evidence for some time to convict them. After some puzzle on

this account, at first they made a shift to get proof enough against

two of them to carry them off; but the other two, of which my

Lancashire husband was one, lay still in suspense. They had, I think,

one positive evidence against each of them, but the law strictly

obliging them to have two witnesses, they could make nothing of it.

Yet it seems they were resolved not to part with the men neither, not

doubting but a further evidence would at last come in; and in order to

this, I think publication was made, that such prisoners being taken,

any one that had been robbed by them might come to the prison and see

them.