The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders

I blamed him for that, and told him I blamed him on two accounts;

first, because if he was transported, there might be a hundred ways for

him that was a gentleman, and a bold enterprising man, to find his way

back again, and perhaps some ways and means to come back before he

went. He smiled at that part, and said he should like the last the

best of the two, for he had a kind of horror upon his mind at his being

sent over to the plantations, as Romans sent condemned slaves to work

in the mines; that he thought the passage into another state, let it be

what it would, much more tolerable at the gallows, and that this was

the general notion of all the gentlemen who were driven by the exigence

of their fortunes to take the road; that at the place of execution

there was at least an end of all the miseries of the present state, and

as for what was to follow, a man was, in his opinion, as likely to

repent sincerely in the last fortnight of his life, under the pressures

and agonies of a jail and the condemned hole, as he would ever be in

the woods and wilderness of America; that servitude and hard labour

were things gentlemen could never stoop to; that it was but the way to

force them to be their own executioners afterwards, which was much

worse; and that therefore he could not have any patience when he did

but think of being transported.

I used the utmost of my endeavour to persuade him, and joined that

known woman's rhetoric to it--I mean, that of tears. I told him the

infamy of a public execution was certainly a greater pressure upon the

spirits of a gentleman than any of the mortifications that he could

meet with abroad could be; that he had at least in the other a chance

for his life, whereas here he had none at all; that it was the easiest

thing in the world for him to manage the captain of a ship, who were,

generally speaking, men of good-humour and some gallantry; and a small

matter of conduct, especially if there was any money to be had, would

make way for him to buy himself off when he came to Virginia.

He looked wistfully at me, and I thought I guessed at what he meant,

that is to say, that he had no money; but I was mistaken, his meaning

was another way. 'You hinted just now, my dear,' said he, 'that there

might be a way of coming back before I went, by which I understood you

that it might be possible to buy it off here. I had rather give #200

to prevent going, than #100 to be set at liberty when I came there.'

'That is, my dear,' said I, 'because you do not know the place so well

as I do.' 'That may be,' said he; 'and yet I believe, as well as you

know it, you would do the same, unless it is because, as you told me,

you have a mother there.' I told him, as to my mother, it was next to impossible but that she

must be dead many years before; and as for any other relations that I

might have there, I knew them not now; that since the misfortunes I had

been under had reduced me to the condition I had been in for some

years, I had not kept up any correspondence with them; and that he

would easily believe, I should find but a cold reception from them if I

should be put to make my first visit in the condition of a transported

felon; that therefore, if I went thither, I resolved not to see them;

but that I had many views in going there, if it should be my fate,

which took off all the uneasy part of it; and if he found himself

obliged to go also, I should easily instruct him how to manage himself,

so as never to go a servant at all, especially since I found he was not

destitute of money, which was the only friend in such a condition.