My true name is so well known in the records or registers at Newgate,

and in the Old Bailey, and there are some things of such consequence

still depending there, relating to my particular conduct, that it is

not be expected I should set my name or the account of my family to

this work; perhaps, after my death, it may be better known; at present

it would not be proper, no not though a general pardon should be

issued, even without exceptions and reserve of persons or crimes.

It is enough to tell you, that as some of my worst comrades, who are

out of the way of doing me harm (having gone out of the world by the

steps and the string, as I often expected to go ), knew me by the name

of Moll Flanders, so you may give me leave to speak of myself under

that name till I dare own who I have been, as well as who I am.

I have been told that in one of neighbour nations, whether it be in

France or where else I know not, they have an order from the king, that

when any criminal is condemned, either to die, or to the galleys, or to

be transported, if they leave any children, as such are generally

unprovided for, by the poverty or forfeiture of their parents, so they

are immediately taken into the care of the Government, and put into a

hospital called the House of Orphans, where they are bred up, clothed,

fed, taught, and when fit to go out, are placed out to trades or to

services, so as to be well able to provide for themselves by an honest,

industrious behaviour.

Had this been the custom in our country, I had not been left a poor

desolate girl without friends, without clothes, without help or helper

in the world, as was my fate; and by which I was not only exposed to

very great distresses, even before I was capable either of

understanding my case or how to amend it, but brought into a course of

life which was not only scandalous in itself, but which in its ordinary

course tended to the swift destruction both of soul and body.

But the case was otherwise here. My mother was convicted of felony for

a certain petty theft scarce worth naming, viz. having an opportunity

of borrowing three pieces of fine holland of a certain draper in

Cheapside. The circumstances are too long to repeat, and I have heard

them related so many ways, that I can scarce be certain which is the

right account.




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