The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders

Then he told us he did not doubt but that the captain, who was one of

the best-humoured gentlemen in the world, would be easily brought to

accommodate us as well as we could desire, and, to make me easy, told

me he would go up the next tide on purpose to speak to the captain

about it. The next morning, happening to sleep a little longer than

ordinary, when I got up, and began to look abroad, I saw the boatswain

among the men in his ordinary business. I was a little melancholy at

seeing him there, and going forward to speak to him, he saw me, and

came towards me, but not giving him time to speak first, I said,

smiling, 'I doubt, sir, you have forgot us, for I see you are very

busy.' He returned presently, 'Come along with me, and you shall see.'

So he took me into the great cabin, and there sat a good sort of a

gentlemanly man for a seaman, writing, and with a great many papers

before him.

'Here,' says the boatswain to him that was a-writing, 'is the

gentlewoman that the captain spoke to you of'; and turning to me, he

said, 'I have been so far from forgetting your business, that I have

been up at the captain's house, and have represented faithfully to the

captain what you said, relating to you being furnished with better

conveniences for yourself and your husband; and the captain has sent

this gentleman, who is made of the ship, down with me, on purpose to

show you everything, and to accommodate you fully to your content, and

bid me assure you that you shall not be treated like what you were at

first expected to be, but with the same respect as other passengers are

treated.' The mate then spoke to me, and, not giving me time to thank the

boatswain for his kindness, confirmed what the boatswain had said, and

added that it was the captain's delight to show himself kind and

charitable, especially to those that were under any misfortunes, and

with that he showed me several cabins built up, some in the great

cabin, and some partitioned off, out of the steerage, but opening into

the great cabin on purpose for the accommodation of passengers, and

gave me leave to choose where I would. However, I chose a cabin which

opened into the steerage, in which was very good conveniences to set

our chest and boxes, and a table to eat on.

The mate then told me that the boatswain had given so good a character

of me and my husband, as to our civil behaviour, that he had orders to

tell me we should eat with him, if we thought fit, during the whole

voyage, on the common terms of passengers; that we might lay in some

fresh provisions, if we pleased; or if not, he should lay in his usual

store, and we should have share with him. This was very reviving news

to me, after so many hardships and afflictions as I had gone through of

late. I thanked him, and told him the captain should make his own

terms with us, and asked him leave to go and tell my husband of it, who

was not very well, and was not yet out of his cabin. Accordingly I

went, and my husband, whose spirits were still so much sunk with the

indignity (as he understood it) offered him, that he was scare yet

himself, was so revived with the account that I gave him of the

reception we were like to have in the ship, that he was quite another

man, and new vigour and courage appeared in his very countenance. So

true is it, that the greatest of spirits, when overwhelmed by their

afflictions, are subject to the greatest dejections, and are the most

apt to despair and give themselves up.