The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders

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.