The Bath is a place of gallantry enough; expensive, and full of snares.
I went thither, indeed, in the view of taking anything that might
offer, but I must do myself justice, as to protest I knew nothing
amiss; I meant nothing but in an honest way, nor had I any thoughts
about me at first that looked the way which afterwards I suffered them
to be guided.
Here I stayed the whole latter season, as it is called there, and
contracted some unhappy acquaintances, which rather prompted the
follies I fell afterwards into than fortified me against them. I lived
pleasantly enough, kept good company, that is to say, gay, fine
company; but had the discouragement to find this way of living sunk me
exceedingly, and that as I had no settled income, so spending upon the
main stock was but a certain kind of bleeding to death; and this gave
me many sad reflections in the interval of my other thoughts. However,
I shook them off, and still flattered myself that something or other
might offer for my advantage.
But I was in the wrong place for it. I was not now at Redriff, where,
if I had set myself tolerably up, some honest sea captain or other
might have talked with me upon the honourable terms of matrimony; but I
was at the Bath, where men find a mistress sometimes, but very rarely
look for a wife; and consequently all the particular acquaintances a
woman can expect to make there must have some tendency that way.
I had spent the first season well enough; for though I had contracted
some acquaintance with a gentleman who came to the Bath for his
diversion, yet I had entered into no felonious treaty, as it might be
called. I had resisted some casual offers of gallantry, and had
managed that way well enough. I was not wicked enough to come into the
crime for the mere vice of it, and I had no extraordinary offers made
me that tempted me with the main thing which I wanted.
However, I went this length the first season, viz. I contracted an
acquaintance with a woman in whose house I lodged, who, though she did
not keep an ill house, as we call it, yet had none of the best
principles in herself. I had on all occasions behaved myself so well
as not to get the least slur upon my reputation on any account
whatever, and all the men that I had conversed with were of so good
reputation that I had not given the least reflection by conversing with
them; nor did any of them seem to think there was room for a wicked
correspondence, if they had any of them offered it; yet there was one
gentleman, as above, who always singled me out for the diversion of my
company, as he called it, which, as he was pleased to say, was very
agreeable to him, but at that time there was no more in it.