The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders

Well, we came to the place in five days' sailing; I think they call it

Philip's Point; and behold, when we came thither, the ship bound to

Carolina was loaded and gone away but three days before. This was a

disappointment; but, however, I, that was to be discouraged with

nothing, told my husband that since we could not get passage to

Caroline, and that the country we was in was very fertile and good, we

would, if he liked of it, see if we could find out anything for our

tune where we was, and that if he liked things we would settle here.

We immediately went on shore, but found no conveniences just at that

place, either for our being on shore or preserving our goods on shore,

but was directed by a very honest Quaker, whom we found there, to go to

a place about sixty miles east; that is to say, nearer the mouth of the

bay, where he said he lived, and where we should be accommodated,

either to plant, or to wait for any other place to plant in that might

be more convenient; and he invited us with so much kindness and simple

honesty, that we agreed to go, and the Quaker himself went with us.

Here we bought us two servants, viz. an English woman-servant just come

on shore from a ship of Liverpool, and a Negro man-servant, things

absolutely necessary for all people that pretended to settle in that

country. This honest Quaker was very helpful to us, and when we came

to the place that he proposed to us, found us out a convenient

storehouse for our goods, and lodging for ourselves and our servants;

and about two months or thereabouts afterwards, by his direction, we

took up a large piece of land from the governor of that country, in

order to form our plantation, and so we laid the thoughts of going to

Caroline wholly aside, having been very well received here, and

accommodated with a convenient lodging till we could prepare things,

and have land enough cleared, and timber and materials provided for

building us a house, all which we managed by the direction of the

Quaker; so that in one year's time we had nearly fifty acres of land

cleared, part of it enclosed, and some of it planted with tabacco,

though not much; besides, we had garden ground and corn sufficient to

help supply our servants with roots and herbs and bread.

And now I persuaded my husband to let me go over the bay again, and

inquire after my friends. He was the willinger to consent to it now,

because he had business upon his hands sufficient to employ him,

besides his gun to divert him, which they call hunting there, and which

he greatly delighted in; and indeed we used to look at one another,

sometimes with a great deal of pleasure, reflecting how much better

that was, not than Newgate only, but than the most prosperous of our

circumstances in the wicked trade that we had been both carrying on.