The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders

As I had put this into her head, she came most readily into it.

Immediately she went to work to find instruments, and she had very

little difficulty in the search, for telling her story in general to a

couple of gossips in the neighbourhood, it was the chat of the

tea-table all over that part of the town, and I met with it wherever I

visited; also, as it was known that I was acquainted with the young

lady herself, my opinion was asked very often, and I confirmed it with

all the necessary aggravations, and set out his character in the

blackest colours; but then as a piece of secret intelligence, I added,

as what the other gossips knew nothing of, viz. that I had heard he was

in very bad circumstances; that he was under a necessity of a fortune

to support his interest with the owners of the ship he commanded; that

his own part was not paid for, and if it was not paid quickly, his

owners would put him out of the ship, and his chief mate was likely to

command it, who offered to buy that part which the captain had promised

to take.

I added, for I confess I was heartily piqued at the rogue, as I called

him, that I had heard a rumour, too, that he had a wife alive at

Plymouth, and another in the West Indies, a thing which they all knew

was not very uncommon for such kind of gentlemen.

This worked as we both desire it, for presently the young lady next

door, who had a father and mother that governed both her and her

fortune, was shut up, and her father forbid him the house. Also in one

place more where he went, the woman had the courage, however strange it

was, to say No; and he could try nowhere but he was reproached with his

pride, and that he pretended not to give the women leave to inquire

into his character, and the like.

Well, by this time he began to be sensible of his mistake; and having

alarmed all the women on that side of the water, he went over to

Ratcliff, and got access to some of the ladies there; but though the

young women there too were, according to the fate of the day, pretty

willing to be asked, yet such was his ill-luck, that his character

followed him over the water and his good name was much the same there

as it was on our side; so that though he might have had wives enough,

yet it did not happen among the women that had good fortunes, which was

what he wanted.