As the publishing this account of my life is for the sake of the just
moral of very part of it, and for instruction, caution, warning, and
improvement to every reader, so this will not pass, I hope, for an
unnecessary digression concerning some people being obliged to disclose
the greatest secrets either of their own or other people's affairs.
Under the certain oppression of this weight upon my mind, I laboured in
the case I have been naming; and the only relief I found for it was to
let my husband into so much of it as I thought would convince him of
the necessity there was for us to think of settling in some other part
of the world; and the next consideration before us was, which part of
the English settlements we should go to. My husband was a perfect
stranger to the country, and had not yet so much as a geographical
knowledge of the situation of the several places; and I, that, till I
wrote this, did not know what the word geographical signified, had only
a general knowledge from long conversation with people that came from
or went to several places; but this I knew, that Maryland,
Pennsylvania, East and West Jersey, New York, and New England lay all
north of Virginia, and that they were consequently all colder climates,
to which for that very reason, I had an aversion. For that as I
naturally loved warm weather, so now I grew into years I had a stronger
inclination to shun a cold climate. I therefore considered of going to
Caroline, which is the only southern colony of the English on the
continent of America, and hither I proposed to go; and the rather
because I might with great ease come from thence at any time, when it
might be proper to inquire after my mother's effects, and to make
myself known enough to demand them.
With this resolution I proposed to my husband our going away from where
we was, and carrying all our effects with us to Caroline, where we
resolved to settle; for my husband readily agreed to the first part,
viz. that was not at all proper to stay where we was, since I had
assured him we should be known there, and the rest I effectually
concealed from him.
But now I found a new difficulty upon me. The main affair grew heavy
upon my mind still, and I could not think of going out of the country
without somehow or other making inquiry into the grand affair of what
my mother had done for me; nor could I with any patience bear the
thought of going away, and not make myself known to my old husband
(brother), or to my child, his son; only I would fain have had this
done without my new husband having any knowledge of it, or they having
any knowledge of him, or that I had such a thing as a husband.