The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders

I should have observed, that she was always made to believe, as

everybody else was, that I was a great fortune, or at least that I had

three or four thousand pounds, if not more, and all in my own hands;

and she was mighty sweet upon me when she thought me inclined in the

least to go into her country. She said she had a sister lived near

Liverpool, that her brother was a considerable gentleman there, and had

a great estate also in Ireland; that she would go down there in about

two months, and if I would give her my company thither, I should be as

welcome as herself for a month or more as I pleased, till I should see

how I liked the country; and if I thought fit to live there, she would

undertake they would take care, though they did not entertain lodgers

themselves, they would recommend me to some agreeable family, where I

should be placed to my content.

If this woman had known my real circumstances, she would never have

laid so many snares, and taken so many weary steps to catch a poor

desolate creature that was good for little when it was caught; and

indeed I, whose case was almost desperate, and thought I could not be

much worse, was not very anxious about what might befall me, provided

they did me no personal injury; so I suffered myself, though not

without a great deal of invitation and great professions of sincere

friendship and real kindness--I say, I suffered myself to be prevailed

upon to go with her, and accordingly I packed up my baggage, and put

myself in a posture for a journey, though I did not absolutely know

whither I was to go.

And now I found myself in great distress; what little I had in the

world was all in money, except as before, a little plate, some linen,

and my clothes; as for my household stuff, I had little or none, for I

had lived always in lodgings; but I had not one friend in the world

with whom to trust that little I had, or to direct me how to dispose of

it, and this perplexed me night and day. I thought of the bank, and of

the other companies in London, but I had no friend to commit the

management of it to, and keep and carry about with me bank bills,

tallies, orders, and such things, I looked upon at as unsafe; that if

they were lost, my money was lost, and then I was undone; and, on the

other hand, I might be robbed and perhaps murdered in a strange place

for them. This perplexed me strangely, and what to do I knew not.